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Unlike alot of people with their own webpages now and days, I still follow the tradition of writing the page in its sorce code. Many others use something called a wysiwyg editor. Wysiwyg stands for "What You See Is What You Get." A user can simply create page in Microsoft Word or another document program, then by saving it as a webpage, they have a complete web page that can be posted online. Wysiwyg editors have a few problems with them. the first is that they make it hard to add in advance features like javascripts into webpages (though if a programer knows javascript, they probably arn't using a Wysiwyg editor). Another problem with Wysiwyg editors is that they are...stupid. In order to make everything appear as its suppose to, some editors, like Microsoft Word have to add alot of scripting...most of it which is not needed.

I have two examples here that I think show the problem with these bad Wysiwyg editors.

Type Wysiwyg (written by Microsoft Word) HTML Based (written by hand) Difference/Result
File Size 32,894 bytes 3,884 bytes 29,010 bytes saved
Script Example
Making a link		 http://weather.unisys.com/index.html
Script Example
Adding a picture
With a link to the source
A Lumberjack and a Summer Sky June 2006
File Example Wysiwyg Example HTML Example *The HTML example is the Wysiwyg example that I cleaned up by hand. The Wysiwyg page was written by Adrien Roth for her webpage.
*If you look at the two file examples, you will notice that they appear quite simular, with the exception of just some spacing. I can easly fix those problems just by typing in < BR > without the spaces.

There are two programs that I like to use to make webpages. They both let you write in the source code, and one of them supports Wysiwg editing.

  • HTML-Kit from www.chami.com/html-kit. HTML-Kit supports both Wysiwyg editing and source editing. With Wysiwyg, HTML-Kit allows you to make the same way you make blogs or Word Documents by putting in text and formatting so you can see it. If that method is too easy, you can create pages by putting in source code. All tags are highlighted and, if you need help, HTML-Kit has a list of all HTML tags for use. Need more help? HTML-Kit has tag wizards. Select the tag you want to add in from the drop down menu in the tool bar and the wizard shows all supporting fields. While I have never use the feature, it also supports editing on a server. The nice thing of HTML-Kit is that you put the code in one window, then click on preview, and you can see what the page would look like online. It also allows for tidying up the code. There is so much I can write about, so if you want more information go to the website. Did I mentions all the plugins? Yeah, they have plugins to make live even better.
    HTML-Kit is for Windows 95 all the way upto Windows Vista.
  • Taco HTML Edit from http://tacosw.com/main.php. Taco HTML Edit does just HTML source editing. It also will color tags based on what they are. It is still reletivly new and has a long way to go to get to be like HTML-Kit, but it has already become my only HTML source code editor for the Mac. My favorite feature which I wish HTML-Kit had is its ability to allow for live preview. It shows you exactly how your web page will look like, as you type.
    Taco HTML Edit is for Mac 10.2 and higher on both PowerPC and Intel.

Thats it for me. I have vented all that I need to about how I am not to fond of Wysiwg editors. I do want to say thank you to Adrien Roth for her webpage, to Microsoft for making horrible programs, and to Chami and Taco Software for their great products...that reminds me, HTML-Kit and Taco HTML Edit are both free. Can't get much better, right?

Written mostly in Taco HTML Edit, with the exception of the examples, which were written in Microsoft Word.

From the guy with his eye in the sky: Travis