Better than Dreamweaver

Learn the code. Trust me, you'll benefit for it in the long run.

I have a little knowledge about the codes, but the problem is that I don't get much time to correct or input much manually. If there is any software that does the job, I wish to know about the same.

Dreamweaver MX 2004 is, as I understand it, pretty much the best PHP editor as far as automatically generating chunks of code for you.

If you're wanting something that's not built in, you're always going to have to modify (hack) the code that any WYSIWYG* editor generates.

* For the uninitiated, that stands for What You See Is What You Get.

Dreamweaver is the best WYSIWYG editor available, by far. You are always going to have to make some changes yourself if you want things to turn out exactly right. It's much easier when you know how the code works and can correct problems in there.

IMO, the most powerful web editor today is Dreamweaver + some knowledge of the code. What is it that you are having to enter manually? I always use Dreamweaver in hybrid mode, and enter somethings by hand just because I know how and it's sometimes easier that way.

Microsoft is going to be coming out with a new editor soon. I'm not sure where they're at with that - it's currently called "expression web designer". If you're used to using Microsoft tools you might find that easier. The big downside with Expression (as of right now) is that it doesn't support server-side languages other than ASP.

Agreed that Dreamweaver is the best WYSIWYG editor available at the moment. I'd be very wary of what Microsoft are doing with that Expression suite of theirs, looks like it could lead to bad habits (the web designer only allowing you to use ASP.NET, the supposed Flash killer whose plugin only works on Windows, possibly even only Windows Vista!)

If you want to get really fast then learning to code valid xhtml is the best way. Although I can understand that you may lack the time to do that in the first place!

What exactly are you having to do manually?

I tried an early copy and at the time, it didnt see many new things in it other than tighter standards compliance, which must be said is quite an improvement from frontpage. I however have heard that MS have changed its UI quite a bit since then and the new one is quite good. If i am not mistaken, expression is set for release some time in mid 2007.

Dreamweaver hands down is the king of the hill at the moment. And it never hurts to learn the code.

I'll speak up also about learning to code both HTML or better XHTML as well as CSS.

You really do need to know how to write it, and more importantly understand how it makes things work, so that when you need to troubleshoot something you will know all of the whatfors and the why's.

If all browsers were created eqaully the need for troubleshooting things might not exist, but since they aren't you do need to understand how things work.

Dreamweaver as said is pretty much the standard for people that use editors, yet it is my understanding that even it creates some mucky code. (Unless it has gotten better over the years?)

Ah, but I know how to code, and I use Dreamweaver extensively. What about that?

And by know to code, I mean that I graduated college with a degree in computer science and am currently employed as a programmer and do plenty of programming on the site. I tend to spend around 50 hours a week coding, minimum.

Dreamweaver's automatic code generation saves tons and tons of time.

HOWEVER, you're going to severely limit yourself if you don't just go ahead and learn how to tweak the code, at the very least. You'll have so much more power over what can be done if you learn to code some yourself.

conrad wrote: Try expression editor as this is better than dreamweaver and only just been released - but as its only ms its only windows

I certainly wouldn't say that this is always the case: it limits you to ASP.NET. Which most people don't use. This is Microsoft attempting to lock people into certain products, whereas Dreamweaver supports ASP (not sure about .NET though), PHP, ColdFusion and a number of other languages/server setups.

Using Microsoft products is a dangerously expensive, slippery slop IMO.

conrad wrote: Not really, aspnet is one of the more powerful an easy to use languages out there.

That wasn't my point: Expression Web Designer locks you in to ASP.NET, it won't let you do anything else. PHP is far more popular, and Ruby is catching up fast, but they wont support them. My second gripe is that new users may be attracted to Expression (before they even think of using a web scripting language), without knowing the consequences of that choice. It's the fact that Microsoft is yet again leveraging one of it's products to force others upon the consumer.

Macromedia didn't force people to use Coldfusion in Dreamweaver, they let the programming language stand on its own merit.

conrad wrote: everyone hates the big corporations.

Well, that's not really true of me either: -

• I think the BBC is the best thing since sliced bread.
• Adobe aren't too bad (they freed the Actionscript VM recently, which made me happy).
• Sun is finally freeing Java, so they've proven to be alright sometimes.
• Google, don't seem to have done anything much wrong yet. Although Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Meanwhile, Steve Ballmer (CEO of Microsoft) is threatening Linux users with litigation (read that, then the comments), not something that fills me with confidence.

That's the latest in a whole string of Microsoft problems, when they release a new product I look at it very suspiciously: my conclusion with Expression Web Designer is that Microsoft want to increase usage of ASP.NET and (Windows Server/SQL Server), because currently Linux has the majority web server market share.

I'm certainly no MS expert, but I think their point was not necessarily to to lock people into ASP.NET with this software. Rather, it was to provide a better tool to the people who were using ASP.NET already.

Because, let's be honest here. No one else is going to support it.

timejpriebe wrote: I'm certainly no MS expert, but I think their point was not necessarily to to lock people into ASP.NET with this software. Rather, it was to provide a better tool to the people who were using ASP.NET already.

Heh, good point. I'll compromise and say the idea was to do both. Then sue everyone who's using Linux.