HTML Editor with WYSIWYG & Manual HTML Editing

[Trish]

I just had a bad experience using MS Word as an HTML editor. It
bloated more than 200% so I could barely recognize the essential
statements; and it introduced more than 14,000 errors. Also, although
it displayed fine in Firefox, it was unintelligible to IE. I spent
the day trying to reduce the errors to the point wherel HTML Tidy
could finish a pass without aborting. Finally I succeeded. No
errors. It displays fine in Firefox & IE.

BUT, my question is, what can I use for an editor now? I'd like to be
able to insert table rows and columns with the ease of MS Word, but I
want no errors and I want an HTML code that I can still modify
myself. What can you recommend?

Thanks a lot.

Trish

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Trish wrote:

I just had a bad experience using MS Word as an HTML editor.

No surprise there. I've read where the four worst HTML 'editors' are:

4. Microsoft FrontPage
3. Microsoft Word
2. Microsoft Excel
1. Microsoft Publisher

It bloated more than 200% so I could barely recognize the essential
statements; and it introduced more than 14,000 errors.

Wow! That has to be a new world's record!

Also, although it displayed fine in Firefox, it was unintelligible to
IE.

...but that is rare. Normally, IE can comprehend, and all real browsers
screw up with all the MS bloat in there.

I spent the day trying to reduce the errors to the point wherel HTML
Tidy could finish a pass without aborting. Finally I succeeded. No
errors. It displays fine in Firefox & IE.

Time is never recoverable.

BUT, my question is, what can I use for an editor now?

I like (for Windows) Crimson Editor ... but that is what it is, an
*editor*, not a word processor or code generator. It is also an
excellent project manager for your sites.
http://crimsoneditor.com/

Then again, I write code by hand.

I'd like to be able to insert table rows and columns with the ease of
MS Word, but I want no errors and I want an HTML code that I can
still modify myself. What can you recommend?

Try Kompozer, which is the continuing development of NVu.
http://kompozer.sourceforge.net/

but remember, there are no WYSIWYMG 'editors' that generate error-free
code.

--
-bts
-Motorcycles defy gravity; cars just suck

[Jonathan N. Little]

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:

Trish wrote:

>I just had a bad experience using MS Word as an HTML editor.

No surprise there. I've read where the four worst HTML 'editors' are:

4. Microsoft FrontPage
3. Microsoft Word
2. Microsoft Excel
1. Microsoft Publisher

>It bloated more than 200% so I could barely recognize the essential
statements; and it introduced more than 14,000 errors.

Wow! That has to be a new world's record!

I don't know how about 557 KB for a site with two sort paragraphs and
one 17 KB background image! I think my "MS Publisher Web Guru" is at it
again with a new site...

http://www.eclipseibizans.com/
http://validator.w3.org/check?verbos...ibizans.com%2F
Result for http://www.eclipseibizans.com/ - W3C Markup Validator

Not quite 14,000 but 807 errors is a pretty large number.

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Jonathan N. Little wrote:

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:

>Wow! That has to be a new world's record!

I don't know how about 557 KB for a site with two sort paragraphs and
one 17 KB background image! I think my "MS Publisher Web Guru" is at
it again with a new site...

http://www.eclipseibizans.com/

Oh. My. &deity;.

If ever there was an example as to why Publisher is Number 1 on the
list, there it is. Though I will have to give her *some* credit: at
least this one actually displays something in Firefox or Opera...

Run her "Photography" page through the Web Optimizer. Over 4 Megabytes
for a few un-optimized graphics.

This woman needs a house call.

--
-bts
-Motorcycles defy gravity; cars just suck

[Bergamot]

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:

Trish wrote:

>I just had a bad experience using MS Word as an HTML editor.
It bloated more than 200%
it introduced more than 14,000 errors.

Wow! That has to be a new world's record!

Are you referring to the amount of bloat, or the number of errors?
14K errors does sound like a record, but I've seen much worse bloat than
that.

I have a 205K HTML file from Publisher that was rewritten to about 6K,
but my favorite was a 9K email generated by Word for a 100 character
message. :)

--
Berg

[Bergamot]

Jonathan N. Little wrote:

>
I don't know how about 557 KB for a site with two sort paragraphs and
one 17 KB background image! I think my "MS Publisher Web Guru" is at it
again with a new site...

http://www.eclipseibizans.com/

Awesome. Puts my measly 205K Publisher generated page to shame, but then
a lot of the content in my page was in graphics rather than text. :)

--
Berg

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Bergamot wrote:

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:

>Trish wrote:

>>I just had a bad experience using MS Word as an HTML editor. It
bloated more than 200% it introduced more than 14,000 errors.

Wow! That has to be a new world's record!

Are you referring to the amount of bloat, or the number of errors?

Was referring to the number of errors. Word won't win the Bloat Game;
that's reserved for MS Publisher. <g>

14K errors does sound like a record, but I've seen much worse bloat
than that.

I seem to remember the worst I personally saw at the Validator was
somewhere around three-and-half-thousand on a page.

I have a 205K HTML file from Publisher that was rewritten to about 6K,

I have Pub 97 on the old Winbox, and had experimented with it producing
HTML. Relatively speaking, it wasn't too bad for bloat. It does seem,
however, that the more/most recent versions have gone to Bloat Hell.

but my favorite was a 9K email generated by Word for a 100 character
message. :)

That too ... <g>

--
-bts
-Motorcycles defy gravity; cars just suck

[Tim Streater]

In article
<GN*********************@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>,
"Beauregard T. Shagnasty" <a.*********@example.invalidwrote:

Bergamot wrote:

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:

Trish wrote:
I just had a bad experience using MS Word as an HTML editor. It
bloated more than 200% it introduced more than 14,000 errors.

Wow! That has to be a new world's record!

Are you referring to the amount of bloat, or the number of errors?

Was referring to the number of errors. Word won't win the Bloat Game;
that's reserved for MS Publisher. <g>

14K errors does sound like a record, but I've seen much worse bloat
than that.

I seem to remember the worst I personally saw at the Validator was
somewhere around three-and-half-thousand on a page.

Nahh. I had something like 5400 for my first go at the validator - but
got it down to zero after about 4 hours.

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Tim Streater wrote:

"Beauregard T. Shagnasty" wrote:

>I seem to remember the worst I personally saw at the Validator was
somewhere around three-and-half-thousand on a page.

Nahh. I had something like 5400 for my first go at the validator -

Har! Was it a Publisher page? Word? It is hard to envision (for those
who hand-code) what could be so wrong with a page that causes three- and
four-digit error counts.

but got it down to zero after about 4 hours.

You knew what you were doing, or you dumped your WYSIWYG app. :-)

--
-bts
-Motorcycles defy gravity; cars just suck

[Tim Streater]

In article <Xg********************@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>,
"Beauregard T. Shagnasty" <a.*********@example.invalidwrote:

Tim Streater wrote:

"Beauregard T. Shagnasty" wrote:

I seem to remember the worst I personally saw at the Validator was
somewhere around three-and-half-thousand on a page.

Nahh. I had something like 5400 for my first go at the validator -

Har! Was it a Publisher page? Word? It is hard to envision (for those
who hand-code) what could be so wrong with a page that causes three- and
four-digit error counts.

but got it down to zero after about 4 hours.

You knew what you were doing, or you dumped your WYSIWYG app. :-)

:-)

No, it was quite a long page generated using PHP reading data from our
mysql database. The data is tabular, so I use tables. I validated
against strict so there were a number of things I was unaware of, but
the validator was quite good in giving hints.

Really, this page needs to be redone with tabs or something since there
are some 20 tables with many rows and columns, but I haven't got a round
tuit yet, so I can't.

The whole exercise was quite instructive and I learnt a lot (had to
consult our webmaster on some points), and improved the look by using
more css. It pushed me towards referencing my new(ish) css/html book
more, which I had been avoiding in favour of a rather older book,
because the type is smaller.

What's interesting is that even if I tidy up all the 200 or so existing
pages, I'm gonna have to use strict, transitional, and frameset if I
want the validator to be happy.

[trish_go]

Hello Beau,

Thanks a million for your response. I love kompozer. Seems like just
the ticket. &;-)

Forgive me for not using Google, but I figured if I spec'd all I was
looking for I'd get nothing. And if I asked for less than that I'd get a
ton of hits that wouldn't satisfy (insert table rows & columns, no
bloating, no errors introduced by the editor, HTML modifiable by hand).

Sorry about cross-posting too. I'll read up on it before I have another
desperate post to several newsgroups.

Thanks again.

Trish

P.S. I'm a Crimson user too.

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

tr******@dslextreme.com wrote:

Hello Beau,

Thanks a million for your response. I love kompozer. Seems like
just the ticket. &;-)

Glad you like it.

--
-bts
-Motorcycles defy gravity; cars just suck

[BobaBird]

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 17:31:48 -0700, "tr******@dslextreme.com"
<tr******@dslextreme.comwrote:

>I was looking for ... (insert table rows & columns, no
bloating, no errors introduced by the editor, HTML modifiable by hand).

I use a commercial product Namo WebEditor 2006 http://www.namo.com/
I got it because I wanted an HTML editor (other products seemed to
focus too much on the WYSISYG side) and site manager, but I've found
the table editing you're looking for to be a real time-saver. There
is some minor bloat in the form of auto-indentation (optional). Worse,
there is actual bloat if you paste into a cell in WYSISYG mode,

<tr>
<td>
<p>pasted content</p>
</td>
<td>typed content</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>

so I just don't do that. Inserted <td>s are pre-filled with &nbsp;
but that is automatically replaced as you type in your content.

I've seen no bloat working with paragraphs and lists, or even
converting a group of <p>s into an <ul>.

The HTML editor is also a typing assistant. When you type the ">" of
an opening tag, it automatically adds the closing tag and leaves the
cursor in between ( <td>|</td), ready for the content. And if you
type a space instead ( <td(space) ) it opens a list of attributes. It
similarly helps compose CSS, though only within the <styleand
in-line portions of an HTML file. Oddly, it doesn't edit separate
..css files.

There are some other quirks such as double-clicking an attribute's
value including the closing quote, leaving you to re-type it, also
the validator doesn't catch "&" within URLs. The validator also says
it is "discarding" end tags that have no start tag. Made me scared
that it was deleting things I may have wanted to fix another way, then
I realized it was a translation error that should have said
"disregarding" so it can continue checking. Had I known it was a
Korean product I would have kept on looking, but overall I'm glad I
have it.

Hopefully some of this will be corrected in the update I'm now getting
but should give you some idea how the product works.
--

Charles