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Australian Website guides
Some important facts for Australian business owners. Domain Names. Purchasing a .com.au requires an ABN. A standard price for a .com.au is about $100AUD Try to buy a domain that has your main product/keywords in it. For example abc.com.au tells...
Beginning XML - Part II (XML Style Language)
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Business Web Design Basics
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Design an Online Chat Room with PHP and MySQL
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Design your site for traffic in 2005
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Designing A Website That Sells
Would you buy meat from a grocery store that left the bad meat
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a sales lot that had totaled automobiles on the front lot? I
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GET SMART AND KEEP THOSE VISITORS!
According to a new survey carried out by Alliance & where ID_NUM=9270; Leicester, one in five small business owners view tax as their greatest concern. The Chancellor has announced in his last budget that companies with profits below œ10,000...
Getting Billboard Designs
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"I'm just me" - An Overview of an Web er.. Designer, Developer, Consultant and Friend
"I'm just me" - An Overview of an Web er.. Designer, Developer, Consultant and Friend.
I am going to give you a breakdown of my ... er ... work ... playtime .... income ....
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Managed Hosting
Managed hosting is a dedicated server that is accompanied by a full suite of technical support, maintenance and monitoring services. This differs from dedicated Web hosting, where customers are provided with their own servers but are still...
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Is There A "Best" Web Design Program?
Any aspiring web designer seeking help from a forum about the
"best" web design software will immediately be greeted by two
very different responses. One will either be told to use a
large, expensive, purpose-built design program such as
Dreamweaver or to use something they most likely already have-
Notepad. These are very disparate responses, and this article
will explore some of the general reasons this rift occurred.
The Two Sides
"Dreamweaver" and "Notepad" are the classic examples usually
provided, though they are not exhaustive. The central conflict
is generally between those who advocate the use of "WYSIWYG"
programs and "text editors". WYSIWYG is an only slightly more
efficient way to say "What You See Is What You Get." WYSIWYG
programs employ a user interface designed to provide an accurate
or nearly accurate preview of the end output while the content
is being created. WYSIWYG web design programs endeavor to allow
a user to edit their site information as it might appear in a
browser when published to the web.
"Text editors" are simply that, small programs designed to edit
text documents, of which most web pages are actually built on a
"nuts and bolts" level. Very briefly, the web pages seen in a
browser are simply lines of text with "markup," the "M" in
"HTML." Markup is the series of tags that tell the browser what
the document is, how to order it, and in many cases, how to
display it. In order to edit a web page using a text editor, one
has to know HTML. This is where the 2 web design camps diverge.
WYSIWYG programs are basically designed to bring editing to
those who do not know HTML.
"Controversy"
Many web designers take the view that one must learn HTML in
order to design, and that WYSIWYG programs are, to quote a few
common complaints, bloated, unnecessary, and produce poor code.
Using Notepad, or any of a similar crop of basic text editing
programs, seems to be a kind of "street cred" among those
designers that value this knowledge. Although the ever
increasing feature set ("bloat") of many WYSIWYG programs cannot
be denied, I found having more tools available is generally not
a bad thing. Further, anyone who levels the "bad code" charge
has probably not used modern WYSIWYG programs like Dreamweaver
8. In the past there have been
WYSIWYG programs guilty of
producing very bad code, FrontPage, for instance, but this is
mostly a relic.
Novices are welcome to ignore these weak arguments and find a
WYSIWYG program with which they are comfortable. One of the key
benefits of a good WYSIWYG program is the ability to learn the
code while using the program. Making changes in a "preview" mode
and watching how the underlying code changes is a useful way to
discover HTML. As a designer who started out using Notepad, I
moved on to Dreamweaver for another important reason,
convenience. Knowing the underlying code, I was able to quickly
make changes in the "design" mode with a good knowledge of what
those changes did to the code. I could also work in the "code"
mode and see what the results might look like without having to
upload them or preview in a browser. Most modern WYSIWYG design
programs have strong underlying code editing systems, providing
those who wish to use them with a "Notepad" like experience
should they wish to use it. Modern WYSIWYG design programs also
provide additional convenience of site management, re-useable
code, custom templates, and a personal favorite of mine, spell
check.
Conclusions
Don't be shamed into trying to learn HTML via a text editor if
that's not right for you. Web design is a learning process and
WYSIWYG software can provide an excellent learning platform. The
only thing to be afraid of is, perhaps, the price tag of most
WYSIWYG software. Notepad and similar text editors are certainly
economical. There is some "middle ground" in the debate. Some
"advanced" text editors do exist that are built with web design
in mind and provide some basic luxuries. There is also a wide
variety of online site builders that automate the design process
beyond even that capable by expensive WYSIWYG software. There is
no "best" web design program, only the best program for an
individual designer.
About the author:
Mr. Lester served for 4 years as webmaster for ApolloHosting.com
and previously worked in the IT industry an additional 5 years.
Apollo Hosting provides website hosting,
ecommerce hosting, vps hosting, and web design services to a
wide range of customers. Click for more hosting articles.
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