Why WYSIWYG HTML Editors (Still) Suck

Dori’s chart shows just how bad web coding software still is. I’ve used Dreamweaver (very briefly) but still don’t know why companies and individuals want to spend hundreds of dollars to produce bloated non-compliant code instead of learning how to hand-code for next to nothing.

5 thoughts on “Why WYSIWYG HTML Editors (Still) Suck”

  1. I’ve always been a hand-coder, but I’ve been thinking of installing Dreamweaver on my home computer for a couple of weeks now. This is because at the place where I volunteer (msf.ca), they use WYSIWYG programs and for that kind of graphics-heavy website, it’s definately less time consuming to WYSIWYG it.

  2. DW and other WYSIWYG editors are great for editing / managing but not for creating. I use DW to change pages, update them, add and remove content, etc. But i use the latest HomeSite to do any creation. From what I heard, the next DW was supposed to integrate the editor of HomeSite into its works. That might make it all around useful.

  3. It’s so painful to see someone take a site you’ve lovingly hand-coded and run it through one of those WYSIWYG tools to make content changes. Most painful is FrontPage, of course. What a mess!

    Due to my recent change in employment status, I’ve switched back from a Windows/HomeSite environment to Mac/BBEdit. It might be my imagination, but I found HomeSite much more helpful, and TopStyle was my best friend. I admit I haven’t looked around much, but is there a comparable CSS tool for Mac?

  4. I have to disagree. I don’t know what you people are talking about. Dreamweaver MX rocks. I’m an independent freelancer now (after working for MarchFirst, Razorfish and Think) and I have over 10 clients and my partner and I use Macromedia Studio MX to keep them happy and us nicely profitable. I’m all for HTML purity, but this is a mighty competitive environment and I need to be as efficient as possible. Heck, we even have a site nominated for a few awards, created ENTIRELY in Dreamweaver. It’s kick-ass usable, works on all browsers and platforms and took my partner and I just under 30 days to design and code from scratch. LONG LIVE DREAMWEAVER! :-p

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