[sclug] Simple WYSIWYG HTML editor?

[Adam Trickett]

On Monday 03 Mar 2008, John Stumbles wrote:
> Adam Trickett wrote:
> > If you are using in-line styles then you are doing it very wrong. In-line
> > styles are what you get from automated tools, and a clear sign of poor
> > markup. Build you pages using only structural HTML, you are allowed the
> > odd class and id attribute, then use an external style sheet to add all
> > the eye-candy.
>
> Well it's not *me* using inline styles, that's mozilla (though not
> oowriter - the only styles it seems to put in are <P
> STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">.

My point, most WYSIWYG tools don't know about your external style sheets so 
they dump everything in-line which is a nightmare to read and maintain, and 
makes for really bad pages. As a general rule you never need any in-line 
style, if you are careful then you hardly need any class or id attributes 
either - though you will probably need some.
 
> But I take your point about tools doing their own thing.
>
> Trouble is I'm way out of the loop on modern HTML - these days most of
> my web output is via wikis - so I'd have a steep learning curve to get
> back up to speed on coding from raw.

Actually modern xhtml is very simple, most of the nasty things added to html 
have been removed/depractaed and the xml rules make xhtml easier to work with 
as there are no ambiguities anymore. If you could do good html from 2.0 era 
then you probably know enough html, all the fancy stuff is in the css and the 
scripting.

> > Dull and functional is good, however that's not to say a little sprinkle
> > of css doesn't help. You do have webdeveloper and Firebug installed in
> > your Firefox? These are fantastic tools for web development. The nearest
> > thing to WYSIWYG.
>
> Do I? ... I think not :-)
> Should I have? webdeveloper's a Debian package so I could install it
> easily enough, might give it a go if I don't get on with Amaya

I would say that they are both really useful tools and well worth using. I've 
installed them directly into my browser, but there's nothing wrong with the 
distro repository versions if they are there.

Basically you get the ability to dynamically edit the html, or css of a loaded 
web page in real time, and debug any DOM/Scripting and change that on the fly 
too if you so want. When things don't look right they are the ultimate tools 
for figuring out why.

> > The WYSIWYG tools are okay for a rough mock-up or prototype, but to get
> > anything decent looking you need to tweak by hand.
>
> TBH I'm trying to get the words across. Looks are way down the line.

If that's the case then crude HTML is okay, or even a quick dump from 
oowriter. As long as you think structurally and build you pages in that way, 
then you can add the css after the event.

> As I said, I just want a simple no-nonsense tool. Like there used to be
> many years ago[1] for writing nicely structured non-HTML[2] docs where
> you typed away and if you wanted to fiddle with the markup there was a
> 'show codes' function[3]

Try Quanta+ or Bluefish, they are both in the main Debian repositories. I'm 
not 100% convinced that they are perfect, but they aren't that bad. Quanta+ 
gets rave reviews but I don't think it's that good.

-- 
Adam Trickett
Overton, HANTS, UK

Considering the number of wheels Microsoft has found reason
to invent, one never ceases to be baffled by the minuscule
number whose shape even vaguely resembles a circle.
    -- anon, on Usenet
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