Dreamweaver-generated HTML

Bosco · 13-10-2001 1:14am #1

Hi folks,

I have to make a front-end for a JSP/Servlet system. I know some HTML, but I have a lot to learn. I was told that Dreamweaver can help me do what I want to do.

The question is, how tidy is the HTML code that Dreamweaver produces? Will I be able to very quickly pick up the HTML I need to learn by messing with Dreamweaver and examining the code produced, or is the code too messy and confusing to make this much of an option?

Would I be better off learning to use UltraDev, and if so, how easy to decipher is the code that this produces? With respect to displaying and modifying tables of data in a web browser, is there very much that UltraDev can do for me that Dreamweaver can't?

Thanks

Bosco

DS · 13-10-2001 11:09am

DW is definitely your man. It's second to *none* in the WYSIWYG market.
I don't know about learning HTML from it though. Your probably better off having a look around webmonkey.com, or getting yourself a good reference.

DadaKopf · 13-10-2001 11:49am

Yup, Dreamweaver is excellent for making code. Everything's spaced and coloured to help you find everything. Some purists complain about it like they complain about any HTML generator but it is really second to none.

amp · 13-10-2001 12:13pm

I concur. Dreamweaver takes a little time to get used to but it's so worth it.

adnans · 13-10-2001 12:24pm

yep, what they said above. it sorts out the code which you dont have to worry about and lets you get on with your design woes. great stuff

adnans

b20uvkft6m5xwg · 13-10-2001 12:34pm

Originally posted by Bosco

The question is, how tidy is the HTML code that Dreamweaver produces?

Very Tidy!
No unecessary cráp and you can always use the tidy html feature if you need to:)

LoLth · 14-10-2001 3:39pm

actually, DW will even tidy up the html crap the MS Office "save as html" options throw in there.

b20uvkft6m5xwg · 14-10-2001 6:51pm

Yep its the import "word HTML" feature-
ie. in word save as webpage blahblah

Good for tables etc.- cause word is gooodd for tables!
If want to see the utter crap m$ have in their word "webpages" just save a blank one a you'll see what I mean;)

DS · 14-10-2001 6:54pm

Tell me about it!
Some n00b script kiddies in my school did a website entirely generated by MS Office. The code was hideously incomprehensible. We're talking 10 lines to call a JPEG here...

fizzy · 15-10-2001 11:51am

DW also comes with a great HTML reference so you can quickly access information on certain tags when you need it.

beaver · 15-10-2001 12:45pm

Webmaster In A Nutshell, O'Reilly
W3 School CSS Guide
WebMonkey

HTML is trivial to learn. A large proportion of those who "know" it can't implement it properly or effectively.

If you can, however, it's a pleasure to work with. Much more so than any WYSIWYG editor.

I would suggest that if you intend to use a WYSIWYG editor, that you learn at least some HTML first. Do not rely on the editor to teach you. It's existance is pretty much based around doing the opposite.

If you're serious about design (and obviouisly development)you're going to end up needing to know it in any case, at some stage. You'll need to correct mistakes, cross-browser issues, etc. by hand...

-Ross

entropi · 15-10-2001 1:43pm

As above.

Dreamweaver is so good a package, it's made very simple for you.
I am learning to build web pages on it right now and am amazed at what you can produce in a few hours work.

About your Q though, DW has an absolute gem of a feature or two for you.

1. The code view: lcick on this button and you can see what u have just put onto the screen....hence learning the code.

2. The code manager: it checks code for you so you will know if you went wrong somewhere.

Enjoy it......coz it's brilliant

logic1 · 16-10-2001 6:50pm

Originally posted by beaver
HTML is trivial to learn.

No it's not.

.logic.

phaxx · 16-10-2001 7:04pm

Yes it is.

Enygma · 16-10-2001 7:07pm

It's easy to learn, it's hard to use it well.

logic1 · 16-10-2001 7:21pm

Proper HTML is difficult to learn and hard to implement correctly. Some of you seem to think being able to put a url and an image on a page is all there is to HTML. Ye have alot to learn. I hope ye find everything so "easy".

.logic.

beaver · 16-10-2001 7:38pm

Hi logic1,

I found HTML easy to learn. I found that it took me some time to learn to use it effectively. It then took some more time to learn to use it well and efficiently with CSS and Javascript.

As to your disparaging comments about what some people think HTML is: I've been doing it professionally for some time now. I'm very happy and so are my clients and collegues. I also enjoy quite a lot of money from it.

I hope I've clarified my position for you. I look forward to learning "alot" from you in the future.

I love encouraging posts.

-Ross

Enygma · 16-10-2001 7:43pm

Come on logic1 it's hardly rocket science.
The syntax is simple and the elements used are straightforward enough.
But I know where you're coming from, someone who slaps a piece of sh*te together in a couple of days and then says they know HTML and it was easy is just a moron. It takes years of experience and practice before you can say you really know it.
There are a lot of tricks to HTML that you learn over the years.
Besides it's not just a knowledge of the language that makes you good at it, it's what you do and don't do with it that counts.

Bard · 16-10-2001 8:28pm

HTML??? Difficult to learn??? my arse, it is!

HTML is piss easy to learn and piss easy to implement. It's nowhere near as involved or difficult to master as a programming language (HTML isn't "programming" - it's barely a "language" as it is... it's a collection of markup tags and delimiters). As long as you are interested, want to learn it, and are not a complete dolt, you shouldn't have any problems with it.

However, some people are more pre-disposed or inclined towards design... some are more naturally artistic than others. Being a good programmer absolutely does not infer that you will be a good web designer/developer. It'd certainly help to have a good eye for branding, layout, colours, design, etc. and to be knowledgable in user-friendliness and usability - if you're going to be a web designer... i.e.: knowledge of HTML/Javascript/etc. does not necessarily a web designer make... - couple it with the skills I've just mentioned plus a fairly wide range of technical skills (server administration, some dB skills, scripting, etc.) and you're getting somewhere.

As regards the web development tools you choose, you could do no better than to choose Macromedia Dreamweaver, which has been the king of the web dev app hill for quite some time, - the latest version (version 4) being the greatest. Conversely, you could do practically no worse than to choose Microsoft's Frontpage for authoring web sites... unless of course you stoop so low as to use something like Word or PowerPoint for it... - fine, - alright, - these packages have their places, - and everyone has to start somewhere, - but if you intend to do it properly, go with the best from the start - ... don't use a package which could effectively impede your learning. "If you're gonna do it, do it right", as the man says

Dreamweaver's generating and formatting of HTML is second to none. Unlike -say- Word or FrontPage, it doesn't over-do it, and produces no 'fatty' extra code, keeping file sizes as low as possible.

As for HTML itself, I found it easy to learn - and easy to keep up with through all the new versions and tag additions... but then again, I started working with it when it was at a fairly early version ("IMG" tag was just about to be introduced!) - so I kinda got in early. It WILL take time to be able to USE it effectively, but that's natural, as time is needed for any good web developer to build up their own libraries of re-usable code, to develop their own design methodology, to effectively "come into their own" and grow as a creative artist, and carve out their own little niche. Stick at it and you'll find it'll be worth it... well- once the market turns back around, obviously :rolleyes:

Anyway... there's nothing to touch Dreamweaver in web development, - particularly with the UltraDev version that's available and includes inbuilt ASP/JSP support. Roll on version 5!

(I realise this post may be a bit muddled, - such is my state of mind... hope it helps anyway...)

phaxx · 16-10-2001 11:34pm

Bard mentioning ms word and powerpoint made me remember something. Once I stumbled across a site for an english webdev company... done in ms publisher. It looked awful, every page was one huge image. Don't use publisher.

Enygma · 17-10-2001 12:04pm

It seems that HTML is a lot harder for someone who already knows a programming language like C. I've spoken to lots of people over the years who have have great problems with HTML but no problem with programming. The opposite seems to be true if you are going from HTML to a programming language, you should find it easier.

I remember seeing a website done in PowerPoint, yes PowerPoint. The links were like next and previous buttons like on a PP presentation. What a disaster!

DS · 17-10-2001 6:46pm

Ah lads, please. Please don't put "great problems" and HTML in the one sentence, that's ludicrous. As Bard said, it's barely a language at all. As long as you know where <, / and > are on your keyboard you're half way there. It's nothing short of laughable that C programmers are having trouble with the <b> tag, I mean... come on!
And this notion of a relation between programming and markup is just silly. They're completely unrelated, there isn't one mutual skill required between them.

b20uvkft6m5xwg · 17-10-2001 6:55pm

w/out getting hyper philosophical.......

Yes of course the basics of HTML are very simple to pick up but like any languge( and here I include the English).....
Its knowing what to say, when to say it and in what context while making you point in a civil manner w/out offending your target audience

or in web development speak that means....

Its all about knowing what features work best and when- and of course being careful not to cut out your target audience by using something totally incomprehensible to certain users using certain browsers!

thats my take on it anyway:)

fizzy · 19-10-2001 9:13am

the basics of html can be picked up in no time - a few hours or so. but it is a bit trickier to master it.

i don't agree with finding it more difficult to learn if you did some programming first. although the two aren't very related, i had done a little java first and i found that being used to doing stuff with code and thinking about structure helped me pick up html quickly.

if you have never gone near any technical stuff and you are completley new to writing something that a machine rather than humans will interpret, it probably takes a bit longer?

as for using word etc for making web pages, it has its place - ok so that's how i started!! but i was just wanted to give it a go and hadn't even heard of dreamweaver and word was an easy and free way to start.

i am glad i didn't start hand coding from day 1. it can be very slow and frustrating as a complete beginner. if the site is just a homepage, it is far nicer to actually make pages quickly with a wysiwyg and get up and running fast. you can focus on how you want things to look and on gathering thousands of animated gifs instead of getting bogged down with coding! and when word messes up your positioning and is limiting you (after a week) you get this great urge to learn html fast

The Corinthian · 19-10-2001 12:56pm

Relatively speaking HTML is easy to pick up. By relative I mean to programming or even other mark-up languages. Where I would suspect it can appear difficult is in dealing with browser specific idiosyncrasies, and in writing well formed, efficient and compliant HTML. Basic HTML, on the other hand can be picked up in a day and a month’s experience in hand-coding HTML would probably give you enough knowledge to deal with 90% of issues. Nonetheless, it ultimately depends upon your aptitude.

My only objection to Dreamweaver, or any WYSIWYG tool for that matter, is that it caps your skill base. The same goes for snarfing other people’s code. At the end you may be a Dreamweaver expert, but you’ll never be able to do the clever stuff.

When I started in the Internet, I had the choice of using either PageMill 1.0 or a text based editor. I went for the latter, harder route and chose to never snarf code, but at worse learn from other’s code and rewrite it from scratch.

I don’t regret that choice as I was ultimately able to go into far more complex development and never had to rely on ”finding a free script” that does at best 80% of what I want. I also get to charge three to four times more than a Dreamweaver developer, as a result :cool:

nahdoic · 21-10-2001 10:42pm

originally posted by The Corinthian
Where I would suspect it can appear difficult is in dealing with browser specific idiosyncrasies

I don't think that's really too relevant for a newbie to HTML but god I know what you mean. Spent about 3 hours one day trying to re-organise my complex table structure so a gif would line up perfectly with the rest of the design. Worked perfect in MSIE but in Netscape it was a few pixels off, couldn't figure out why. In the end all I needed was to put a <p></p> around the image tag. Ahhhhhh HTML idiosyncrasies AHHHHHH! Although I'll never make that mistake again, that's for sure.

Personally I started off learning HTML, by making web-sites with Microsoft Frontpage express (free), and I'd look at the code it would generate, n see what it was doing. Eventually I got Microsoft Frontpage 2000, and it was a little better. Again I was always looking at the code it was generating. Finally I got Macromedia Dreamweaver, but it was just a pain having to learn a new system, so I just scrapped it. And I started using Edit Plus, a gorgeous little text editor, that highlights code lovely, and that's all I've ever used since. My usual method for designing web-sites now, is to design the look in Adobe Photoshop, as one big image, get it to look *exactly* how I want it to. Then start writing up the HTML code in Edit Plus to match the image exactly. All it ever invovles is a couple of well placed nested tables and background colour changing

... oh yeah and if you're planning on using a lot of nested tables, a great one to start off with is <TABLE width=xxx height=xxx border=0 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0> ... then if u r planning on putting text into some of these tables change the cellpadding to about 2 or 3.

Bosco · 23-10-2001 9:46am

Do I still have my 'Flaming Muppet' card or can I only play it once?

(See 'Cloud Boards: The Gathering' thread on 'Admin')

Bosco

hertz · 24-10-2001 8:10pm

Would you suggest learning the tags etc first before using dreamweaver or front page??

The Corinthian · 25-10-2001 6:59am

Originally posted by hertz
Would you suggest learning the tags etc first before using dreamweaver or front page??

I'd suggest never using Dreamweaver or (especially) FrontPage.

WYSIWYG's are a bit of a throwback from 94 - 97 when WebDev grew out of DTP houses. They were used to packages such as Quark and PageMaker and needed the same for the Web. As such I'd consider a WYSIWYG adequite for a hobbist or one time developer, but not if you have any ambition in the field.

Also, with HTML moving to XML via XHTML, there's going to be a greater emphasis on programming skills, or at least understanding.

dahamsta · 25-10-2001 11:10am

I'd suggest never using Dreamweaver or (especially) FrontPage.

'S a bit much, innit? Dreamweaver and other WYSIWYG tools can be very handy tools for project acceleration, particularly rendering complex tables. It won't be long before it's XHTML compliant, and let's be honest, how many sites *really* need, or will /ever/ need programming skills? I'd say the ratio of complex sites to hard-coded plain HTML is about 9:1, minimum.

adam

Enygma · 25-10-2001 11:26am

I'd disagree there adam. If the ratio of dynamic:static now is 9:1 and say it was 3:1 six or seven years ago, think about what it's going to be in another few years. There are probably going to be very few static HTML sites(if any).

Besides who would you rather hire? Someone who knows HTML/XHTML inside out or someone that knows how to use Dreamweaver and a little HTML.

I'd suggest to anyone, if they want a career in Web Design/Development then don't bother with a WYSIWYG for a while, get to know HTML to the point where you don't need a WYSIWYG at all. If you just want to put up a website use DW or FP.

dahamsta · 25-10-2001 1:09pm

I'd disagree there adam. If the ratio of dynamic:static now is 9:1 and say it was 3:1 six or seven years ago, think about what it's going to be in another few years. There are probably going to be very few static HTML sites(if any).

Actually, I was saying the ratio was the other way around. Think about it, the majority of sites out there are static. The majority of webmasters don't understand HTML, never mind XML. Sure, Yahoo! and MSN get the most hits, but the "true" Internet is still absolutely enormous.

Besides who would you rather hire? Someone who knows HTML/XHTML inside out or someone that knows how to use Dreamweaver and a little HTML.

This is going to sound like horseputty, but it's not - I honestly don't care. As long as they can produce results and are willing to learn how to work with their counterparts in programming, they'll get a job with me. Design should be separated from programming anyway.

I'd suggest to anyone, if they want a career in Web Design/Development then don't bother with a WYSIWYG for a while, get to know HTML to the point where you don't need a WYSIWYG at all. If you just want to put up a website use DW or FP.

That's /kind of/ what I was saying, but I don't think telling people not to use WYSIWYG is constructive. I learned HTML from Netscape Composer. I learned how to /correct/ it out of curiousity. WYSIWYG is a tool, just like Notepad or vi. If it accelerates productivity, get to know it, it's your friend. Being a purist is all well and good, but if we all relied on it, we wouldn't have half the web.

adam

Enygma · 25-10-2001 2:13pm

but if we all relied on it, we wouldn't have half the web.

And this is a good thing because.....

Oh and vi is *NOT* a tool

Don't mind me, I'm just kidding.

The Corinthian · 26-10-2001 1:18pm

Originally posted by dahamsta
Actually, I was saying the ratio was the other way around. Think about it, the majority of sites out there are static. The majority of webmasters don't understand HTML, never mind XML. Sure, Yahoo! and MSN get the most hits, but the "true" Internet is still absolutely enormous.

Fairly immaterial to the point really. If you consider Tripod and Geocities sites to be the “true” Internet, fair enough. But they don’t put food on the table.

As I said already, I'd consider a WYSIWYG adequate for a hobbyist or one time developer, but not if you have any ambition in the field. Reliance on such tools will ultimately limit not only your skill base, but also your understanding of Internet development. You may be able to go for £200 - £1,000 HTML sites, but you’ll never get even the £40k sites, let alone sites for blue-chips that still bring in up to half a million pounds plus, even today.

Ambitous? Perhaps. But you won’t get a job in one of the firms that do those types of sites either. You’ll either end up in a design firm that does WebDev on the side or as a freelancer, being squeezed at all sides due to the ease of entry into this market. You won’t have an edge.

Above all, you’ll never be able to give that extra functionality for a client unless someone else does it, or even have a true understanding of the client-server model.

Years ago, I remember a Dreamweaver freelancer who proudly showed me his password protected ASP site, produced using Drumbeat 2000 (forerunner to Ultradev). The password protected bit was done in client-side JavaScript... he just couldn’t get his head round the whole client-side vs. server-side thing, even after I showed him how easy it was to hack. Why would he need to? Dreamweaver had always hidden all that techie stuff from him.

Design should be separated from programming anyway.

I agree. Completely. Designers should deliver the screens as layered PhotoShop images to a junior (HTML) programmer to cut up and code up – by hand. Slower, but optimised, especially if server-side scripting is added to it.

That's /kind of/ what I was saying, but I don't think telling people not to use WYSIWYG is constructive.

Perhaps I was being a bit purist, but the danger with WYSIWYG’s is they’re the easy shortcut. A frightening number of developers never progress from them as a result.

If you’re looking for the quick fix, use one by all means, if you’re going for the long haul, then I’d advise against a WYSIWYG, but to go for a text based tool such as WebSpinner or EditPlus2.

Dreamweaver-generated HTML

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