Dec
2
As you’ve seen in the previous chapter, Adobe Photoshop and GIMP both do a great job at generating “starter” code for you to develop on. In Web Design, there are two different ways to edit a web page: you have the option to hand-code HTML or you can use a code generated “What you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) editor. There are obviously advantages and disadvantages to both, and I’d like to go into detail with these options so you can decide which route you would like to go.
In this book we will cover the industry standard for building websites, which will prepare you for any web design job you might be interested in. Hand-coding is the standard practice that is generally accepted
The advantages are:
- More control over your code
- More understanding of how your website actually works and performs
- Better on performance and load times
The disadvantages are:
- More information to memorize and understand
- Little visualization of what you’re developing
Using a WYSIWYG editor is not very well accepted in the web design community, but its not to say that it should be discouraged at all times. If coding is not the right fit to your development style, there are a few editors which have been very successful in assisting the designer in building beautiful websites. These editors include
- Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 – the absolute best WYSIWYG editor on the market today. Although it has a hefty price tag (which you can get greatly discounted places like Journey Ed, who sell to students and teachers), it the standard in WYSIWYG editors. As we get into developing HTML and CSS code in the next few chapters, you will appreciate Dreamweaver’s capability of switching from WYSIWYG and hand coding modes.
- Adobe GoLive – a must for Adobe Photoshop users. GoLive has a similar interface to your graphics editor, so it’s really simple to move between your graphics program to your web page editor. If you can’t afford it, you can also find it on Journey Ed.
- Microsoft Expression Web – a very affordable new product from Microsoft. Unlike its predecessor Microsoft FrontPage (which is very discouraged), it advanced incorporates tools for CSS and has similarities to Macromedia Dreamweaver. After doing a detailed review of the product, I would rate it highly. Microsoft also has a Graphics editor, similar to GIMP and Adobe Photoshop, called Expression Design—and several other products available in their studio.
The advantages of using a WYSIWYG editor are:
- An easier control over your design—a must for those who are not analytical and do not feel comfortable writing code (although I encourage learning HTML before learning a WYSIWYG editor).
- A quicker method to building websites on-the-fly. WYSIWYG editors allow you to create websites very easily with interfaces similar to Microsoft Word or any other word processor.
- Serves as a great way to instantly view you’re the code you were writing and make design changes when you get stuck
The disadvantages of using a WYSIWYG editor are:
- A large number of capabilities are lost when the designer doesn’t understand or utilize code.
- Increased load times because many WYSIWYG editors generate unnecessary—or even outdated—tags to the HTML your web page is based on.
- WYSIWYG editors make it difficult to pass a website along to another designer to edit and improve.
- As standards in HTML and CSS change, an application upgrade is required to stay up-to-date.
- Sometimes search engines have trouble indexing a WYSIWYG designed website.
Whether it is hand-coding HTML or using a WYSIWYG editor—and the choice is up to you—it is important that you, as a designer are familiar with both methods and can adapt to any web development environment.
Article written by Andrew J. McClary, © 2008, All Rights Reserved.
Social Bookmarking:
BlinkList
| Blogmarks
| del.icio.us
| Digg it
| FeedMarker
| Furl
| Linkroll
| ma.gnolia
| Netscape
| Spurl
| StumbleUpon
| Yahoo MyWeb
|
Related Posts
Comments
Leave a Reply
