HTML

Title: THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH USING WYSIWYG EDITORS, IF YOU
ALREADY KNOW HOW TO WRITE HTML

Author: Regina Stevens

Article:
This article is not to persuade anyone to change their existing
methods of producing websites, nor is it my intention to offend
anyone. I wrote this article to defend people who like to use
WYSIWYG editors.

There really is nothing wrong with using a WYSIWYG editor -
especially if you already know how to write HTML and scripts.
When you know how to write your code, you can better understand
what is going on with the code. Actually, if you don't know how
to write HTML, a WYSIWYG editor can be a good learning tool.

If you are designing websites for profit and you do not know
HTML very well, then reaching project goals will be difficult
and you may have some unhappy clients, which is never good. I
would start out designing small websites or build websites that
do not have a deadline.

For those of you who can write HTML from scratch, can clean up
the code that WYSIWYG editors throw at you, but prefer to use a
WYSIWYG editor I say "GOOD FOR YOU"! WYSIWYG editors will
decrease time spent on hand-coding, which will result in
pleasing your clients, reaching your project goals faster, and
increasing your profits faster. Who will complain? Your client
will be happy that he/she did not have to wait a long period of
time AND they have a functional website to meet their online
business goals. The goal for all website designers/developers
should be to satisfy your clients as quickly as possible without
sacrificing website quality. Why would anyone think a WYSIWYG
editor is a barrier to reaching these goals?

Quite a few people seem to feel that if a designer/developer
uses a WYSIWYG editor, then this person is not capable of
writing HTML from scratch. This may be true in some cases, but I
prefer to look at it a different way: If someone uses a WYSIWYG
editor and can fully accomplish and deliver a functional website
in a fraction of the time it takes to write all of the code from
scratch - what could possibly be the problem? To me, this is
just good business sense. Quickly and accurately satisfying your
clients is your main goal. Why take 6 months to deliver a
website when you can deliver the product in 2 - 3 months with
the same exact functionality?

Using a WYSIWYG editor does not always mean "newbie" skill set.
A great deal of the time, it means faster delivery, which means
more satisfied clients and quicker profits for the
designer/developer. I commend people who still want to write
from scratch, but with all the available tools out there to make
the process faster and simpler, why bother? If given the choice
to either use a horse and buggy or drive a car, which one would
you choose if you lived 45 minutes away with only 1 hour to get
to your destination? If you think like I do, then the car would
be your best choice in order to meet your deadline. Just because
you write HTML from scratch does not mean that you will decrease
testing time, nor will it make your website perfect the first
time, but it will keep you from producing a few extra websites.
Scenario:

There are 6 website projects and 2 website design companies. One
designer will write HTML from scratch and the other will use a
WYSIWYG editor. The website designer who wrote HTML from scratch
finished 2 websites in a year. The designer that used the
WYSIWYG editor completed the other 4 websites in a year with the
same quality websites as the website designer that wrote the 2
websites from scratch. Who will the client choose when more
websites need development?

As I stated earlier, it is not all bad to use a WYSIWYG editor
if you already know HTML. Personally, I like the fast turnaround
time that I have now as opposed to the days when I wrote HTML
from scratch. For those of you who like to use WYSIWYG editors,
keep it up and don't let anyone turn you around, but make sure
you keep up with the W3C standards and watch for deprecated
code.

About the author:
Regina Stevens writes computer articles for new computer and
internet users.