Don't use Notepad?

[perpetualnoob]

In this (2005?) article by Michael Cheney he says not to use Notepad. What editor should you be using? (I thought everything else was a WYSIWYG?) Thanks

[justsomeguy]

You should be using ConTEXT! See my signature. That is all.Notepad is not the only text editor in the world, there are a ton of them out there.BTW, if you meant to link the article, you forgot to.

[perpetualnoob]

You should be using ConTEXT! See my signature. That is all.Notepad is not the only text editor in the world, there are a ton of them out there.BTW, if you meant to link the article, you forgot to.

Sorry,http://www.site-reference.com/articles/Gen...Web-Design.htmlThanks, I'll check ConTEXT out. So it's a matter of preference then? Does he say this because Notepad inserts line breaks and strange things like that? and is Notepad possibly one of the reasons I have trouble validating? (although definitely not the only reason)Thanks =)

[Err]

You should be using notepad! That is all.Notepad is not the only text editor in the world, there are a ton of them out there.BTW, if you meant to link the article, you forgot to.

I completely agree

[perpetualnoob]

I completely agree

Darn, not just one answer I guess. And I credited the wrong person, Daniel Moxon not Michael Cheney I guess.

[Err]

Darn, not just one answer I guess. And I credited the wrong person, Daniel Moxon not Michael Cheney I guess.

lol. You didn't notice but I sneaked in a few changed words from the original quote.

[justsomeguy]

Thanks, I'll check ConTEXT out. So it's a matter of preference then? Does he say this because Notepad inserts line breaks and strange things like that? and is Notepad possibly one of the reasons I have trouble validating? (although definitely not the only reason)

It's basically a matter of preference. Notepad doesn't do anything that will cause your code not to validate, but notepad also doesn't do anything to help you. All it does it create files that are a series of characters. Other text editors will color the syntax for you, which makes it a lot easier to visually see the structure of the code and quickly spot errors such as unclosed quotes or things like that. Some editors also auto-indent, auto-complete your tags, insert commonly used code pieces, provide help for different languages, etc. There are a lot of features that different editors have which make writing code more efficient, and notepad doesn't have any of them. All it does is let you write text.

[perpetualnoob]

lol. You didn't notice but I sneaked in a few changed words from the original quote.

Nope, I did notice. It gave me a chuckle.I take it you disagree that Notepad is bad and so I still don't know why this guy (whose article is pretty interesting to me) says it's bad.

[justsomeguy]

He doesn't say it's bad, he just says to avoid using it. Notepad is great if you are looking for a text editor that doesn't have any features, but if you want something that will help you write code quicker and more efficiently, there are much better alternatives.

[Jonas]

Actually the way I read the article you linked to, he's not saying not to use notepad at all:Try to refrain from using HTML editors and using notepad. HTML Editors are less customizable than doing it yourself.The way I understand it:Try to refrain from using HTML editors (read: WYSIWYG editors) and (try) using notepad.If you're not supposed to use notepad, what does he mean by: "HTML Editors are less customizable than doing it yourself." ?How can you do it (write code) yourself when notepad is without doubt the simplest text editor (on windows at least)?

[reportingsjr]

Not too many editors are WYSWIG (What You See Is What You Get), dreamweaver is one, cant think of many others!

[justsomeguy]

Frontpage, MS Word, etc allow that type of thing. And they all ###### horribly at it.

[reportingsjr]

Yes, FrontPage, I hate that. That was basically the first real editor I used besides notepad =\. I used it at school in my tech class lol.

[Jonas]

Not too many editors are WYSWIG (What You See Is What You Get), dreamweaver is one, cant think of many others!

Still, he probably means that type of editor when he says HTML editor, because that's the primary use of respectively Frontpage and DreamWeaver, while notepad and similar editors with few features are text editors.

[avboy5000]

What exactly is wrong with wysiwyg programs any way, i prefer to use dreamweaver on split mode. That way I can see what I am scripting while im doing it I dont have to save an open in a browser

[eguru]

i use notepad and dreamweaver.

[justsomeguy]

What exactly is wrong with wysiwyg programs any way

They have a nasty habit of inserting useless code and making bloated pages. If you want to see what I mean, the best examples of bloated code come from Word. Take a fairly complex HTML page, open it in Word, make a few changes, and then save it and look at the source code. Or, better yet, make a new page from scratch with styles and everything. For an online example, look at the source code for this page:http://lts.com.es/All 53k of it, and then take a look at the 7k of better, more compliant code here:http://www.outpostmultimedia.com/projects/lts/The second page is over 7x smaller in size, and is cross-browser and compliant. The first page looks terrible in Opera, for example. The size difference is purely because of the extra code that Word inserted, you can see it in the source code for yourself.That's only one (extreme) example, but it's the reason why people don't like WYSIWYG editors. The way I develop, I get an idea in my head, or on paper, of what I want the site to look like in terms of structure. Then, I go into the code and make exactly that, nothing more, nothing less. WYSIWYGs have to basically guess about what you want, which is why you see loads of things like <p> </p> when a simple <br> would do.

[Jonas]

Wow. Didn't even know it could be that bad.

[justsomeguy]

Neither did I, until the owner of that site was posting questions on here about her layout. Looking through the source code there just made my eyes bulge.

[holmedwa04]

That is some seriously bad difference in file size, and like you say the smaller one is better.

[Guest maximz2005]

I use notepad and Dreamweaver. Mostly notepad though

[Skemcin]

WYSIWYG editors are like windows to dos. They over lay real code with a predefined interpretation of your intent.In a WYSIWYG, you hit the "B" button adn you get <b>xxxx<b/> you hit the return carriage and you can get <p>, or <p> </p> or even <table><tr><td> </td></tr></table> - there are so many reason why WYSIWYG editors are bad news.HOWEVER, and yes that is in all caps, many GOOD WYSIWYG editors have "CODE MODE", like Dreamweaver. I code in nothing but Dreamweaver.Here is a link to an image showing my DW interface:http://www.iribbit.net/i/_files/dw-desktop.jpgvs the same page/code in Notepad:http://www.iribbit.net/i/_files/np-desktop.jpgThis is why I think WYSIWYG in CODE MODE is superior to Notepad:a.) color coding - visual differentiation between HTML, Cold Fusion and SQL code and comments.b.) left side site definitions that allow me to make bulk tasks like find/replace and file or variable renaming - including the ability to cloak(skip) files and foldersc.) tag insight, it finishes tags as I am writing them - knowing that, my habit is to write my opening tag and then immediate cut the closing tag into the clipboard and either put it immediately where it goes or just hold onto it until I need it.d.) it remembers my XML tags as I write them as welle.) the tool bar gives me quick access to so many function without having to type or memorize them all - and they are inserted where my cursor is or aroud what I have highlighted - this is more helpful for Cold Fusion specific tags than HTML.All in all, there is a huge time savings when it comes to using Dreamweaver in Code Mode - just absolutely stay away from Design Mode.We have a topic dedicated for this discussion, I'd suggest move the conversation there:http://w3schools.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=2334

[steffalynn]

ok, so as of this morning i didn't care for notepad because it didn't word wrap. then i realized you could probably change that and lo and behold, it took me all of two seconds to figure out.before five minutes ago, though, i would use word to type everything in, then copy&paste to notepad before pasting it into my site (i know, it's a ridiculous method). the point, tho, is this: why do i get different quotation marks when i paste into notepad? i mean, they are considerably different . . . and i can't figure out why.also, does anyone have any information about html in myspace's blogs? i've been moaning about this for almost a year now and i'm trying to figure out what exactly their blog is capable of (it SAYS it's html compatible, but that's simply not true). been having particular problems with aligning images.

[justsomeguy]

For the quotes, Word does not use standard double quotes when you quote something. The quote on the left curves to the right a little, and the quote on the right curves to the left a little. They aren't ASCII character 0x22 ("), they are other characters completely. There might be a setting in Word to disable it, but better advice would be not to write code in a Word processor. That's exactly what text editors (such as ConTEXT, nudge nudge) are for.

[steffalynn]

heh, yeah, just downloaded context. thx for the suggestion!