> But, you know, the look and feel of a site is pretty important and an HTML
> editor goes a long way toward managing that part. If you can find an
editor
> that helps you set up some style sheets that carry across all your pages
> without you having to type in all the code for every page, you're golden.
If
> you can get some reports that check to be sure that you don't have any
> dead-ends, man, you're saving you and your users from some serious
> frustration. And, better yet, if you can see a bird's-eye view of your
site
> with some easy-to-check tree charts, you can check on the logical layout
of
> the site.
Eek. You shouldn't have to "type in all the code" for each page for your
styles anyway. The line
<link href="css/styles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
in your <head>..</head> will bring the same style rules into every document
and give you the advantage of smaller pages.
You can get link checkers such as Xenu which work superbly, even building
you an HTML site map you can cut 'n' paste into your own site.
I can't see the advantages of using an editor over hand code so far.
> See, all our fancy-schmancy work with databases and power-code is for
naught
> if it's not easily accessible to the visitor and I think we all overlook
> that to our peril. What was that British fashion site that recently folded
> because they delayed launching because they wanted to "get it just right?"
> Then, their site was so bloated and took so long to load that people just
> surfed away... I think that a good HTML editor will display how long a
page
> will load using various modem speeds and allow me to choose whether I want
> to spring that kind of burden on my visitors.
Well, yes, in the same way Photoshop displays how long an image is supposed
to take to load. But, in my experience, most HTML editors write code that is
considerably more long-winded than a well-coded page should be - so the only
benefit you get is an accurate picture of how much your editor has messed up
your code.
If you design your pages well and code them properly, you can avoid many of
the long download times associated with most websites today. If you run an
image-intensive site, optimising your pictures is as (more?) important than
having tight code - and an HTML editor doesn't help with this.
It was boo.com that went under, incidentally.
> So, you've used both products and you know what I mean when I say that I
can
> apply a "theme" with FrontPage. Can you do likewise with Dreamweaver? If
you
> set up a site that specializes in fireworks, for instance, will a button
> that you design once with a pretty exploding shell carry across all your
> pages without having to insert or "include" it on all your pages? With
> FrontPage, you just set up one "theme" and all the elements carry across
> without having to manually include them. That's the kind of drudgery I'd
> like to get away from so that all I have to do is open up the editor and
> stick some PHP in there that interacts with MySQL.
Without having to insert or include it? You have two options, if you want
the same stuff on several pages.
1. Have the code on each page. (ugh - if you want to change it you have to
change all of them, and each page is bigger).
2. Have an include file of some sort (.css, .inc, .whatever) and link to it.
I don't see (2) as being more drudgery than (1), quite the reverse in fact.
> Do you think I'm living in La-La Land?
Not really - there's a time and a place for editors (marketing people who
want to "just design a quick page for the Intranet"), but for anything
serious, I'd like to quote your first sentence again.
> There's no question that hand-coding is the way to go. I'm with you 110%
on
> that score!
Cheers
Jon
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