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Physicist Igor Ljubuncic writes about the dearth of offline graphical web editors. These used to be quite common, but all the established names are long gone and even some of the newer ones are looking neglected. He summarizes what's still available now in 2018 and the relative strengths and weaknesses of these remaining tools.
Once upon a time, there were dozens of WYSIWYG editors, all offering their own wonders, as well as their own range of inconsistencies, garbage code and functionality. I came across the old Nvu back in 2006, upgraded to Kompozer when this one came about, and kept on using it ever since in some form or another, as it offers the simplicity of writing stuff without having to worry about code, plus some serious usability benefits that no other program seems to offer. But then, Kompozer hasn't seen any updates in a long while, and some refresh is needed. What do we have on the table?
And I'll add in a general question, what is your preferred method of dealing with either HTML or CSS or both? Strangely mine is Emacs for the HTML and vi for the CSS.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ilPapa on Thursday October 04 2018, @12:51AM (1 child)
The problem is, the people who know HTML and CSS well enough to do this almost never know what a good web page is supposed to look like. They end up making something functional-but-ugly. Which is fine for us here on soylentnews.org. Functional-but-ugly is how we roll - it defines us. But most of the world in 2018 expect something that looks fairly nice.
I know, I know. Don't blame me, I'm just the messenger. Maybe functional-but-ugly will make a comeback and we'll all be superstars again.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 2) by termigator on Thursday October 04 2018, @05:25PM
That is why you have the UI designer role separate from the UI implementor role. The designer can specify look-n-feel, layout, etc via mockups and/illustrations. The implementor is then tasked to do it in real code for the target platform. And on good teams, both roles work together so the implementor can provide feasabilty and cost feedbacks to the designer.
Main problem with WYSIWYG editors, especially for web-based interfaces is they generate horrible, hard to sustain code. I rather have someone who really knows HTML, CSS (and JavaScript) to implement the interface in a sustainable matter, but that person, or persons, do not have to be the folks that designed what the end-user sees.