I’m looking for a really basic and free visual HTML editor. I’m currently using NVU, which isn’t bad, but adds way too much garbage to the source code (such as “div,” “comment,” and CSS). Sadly, these commands totally screw up the pre-existing page design they’re being placed into.
So are there any really basic visual web-page editors that can handle simple stuff, such as Breaks, Font Sizes, Image Resizing, without adding a bunch of CSS and other, more complicated stuff?
Note: Typically, I write everything out in notepad, but the HTML docs I’m putting together are far too complicated to keep track of in notepad, sadly.
Take 20 minutes and sit down and learn the basics of CSS. It really is not complicated at all (especially if you already know HTML), and will serve you much better than any free HTML editor ever will, especially if, as you say, the site is too complex to keep up with in notepad. What CSS allows you to do is set up the basic skeleton of the site in one simple file, and the content is created separately for each page with HTML. It eliminates the need to repeat the major layout elements for each page every time you add a new page, creating a template that each page calls to and eliminating the chance that you’ll forget and make one page different or leave something out.
There are some good tutorials at w3schools.com. You can still write it all out in notepad, but learning how to use a stylesheet for the layout will save you tons of headaches down the road and will keep anything you add later from screwing up the basic page layout.
Thanks, but I already know CSS - I’ve designed entire sites with it.
The fact is, in my current job, the articles I’m developing need to fit within an existing template, and CSS and other garbage commands don’t mix well the site’s design.
These days, no WYSIWYG editor worth a crap will change fonts sizes without using CSS. The <font> tag is deprecated, and if you’re using it, you should stop.
Because it violates the rule that you should separate the layout and styling of the document from the data (hence, CSS), and because it tell you nothing syntactically important about the data contained within the tag.
Plus, what if you ever decide to change the design? Which is easier: changing one line in a stylsheet, or searching for and replacing every instance of a <font> tag in your document?
Perhaps you guys aren’t understanding, though I don’t know how I could have made it more clear.
I’m quite familiar with CSS - I’ve used it for personal websites. What I want is a non-CSS editor to use for articles being placed on an existent website. I am not, in any way, concerned about EVER updating the ‘style sheets’, hence my non-desire for CSS.
I mean, if you want to continue to use the <font> tag, then go right ahead. The fact that it’s deprecated hasn’t stopped thousands of other website designers from continuing to use it.
But if you do indeed know CSS, as you claim, then surely you know the argument for using style sheets over tags like <font>.
Just saw your most recent post. As i said before, if you want to use <font> go ahead.
But your earlier post implied that there was no good reason not to use it, when there are, in fact, many good reasons to separate style from content, as black rabbit has noted, and as most web designers recognize.
As for answering the question that was asked, i pointed you to a possible solution. Have you looked at it? As i said, i’m not sure if it will do what you want, but you’ll never know unless you try.
I think most HTML editors will let you turn “tag completion” and whatnot off.
I use Visual Studio for work, and I think I have told it not to alter my code at all.
I use HomeSite 4.5 (1.5 versions before Macromedia bought it) and I have also told it not to do anything for me.
You want to use an HTML editor just so you can have color-coded code, right? And maybe some table wizards? If that’s the case, just see what you can do with any editor you’re comfortable with in the ways of turning off options.
Red Barchetta, perhaps it would help to provide an example of what you’re trying to do with your site? I think there’s a miscommunication about what you’re trying to achieve here. From your original post it sounds like you could really benefit from the use of a single stylesheet to keep the layout of your pages organized and separated from the content.
You say that CSS is irrelevant to what you’re looking for though; could you maybe elaborate on why? From the context you’ve provided here, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of that. And what is it about CSS that makes it ‘garbage’?
It sounds to me that Red Barchetta has an existing template that he must work within, and he wants to bang out some HTML that will work with that template as quickly as possible.
To be honest, if the requirement here is to generate a library of static articles over which the writer wants to exercise fairly strict visual formatting, I’d be tempted to create them as PDF documents.
There are all kinds of reasons why this might not be desirable, including compatibility, browser usability, etc, but there are certainly scenarios where it will be wholly appropriate.