OSDev.org

I've made a lot of designs for my personal website by hand (using HTML, PHP and a text editor). I've seen websites made with FrontPage that were bloated with unwanted HTML, had features that only worked in Internet Explorer, and made pages that looked like they used generic template and changed the title graphic.

Lately after I've compared some of the modern WYSIWYG HTML editors (Microsoft Expression Web, Amaya, Nvu, Mozilla Composer). A lot of these editors can produce small standards-compliant bloatless HTML code. They offer features like dynamic content (without needing PHP or ASP.Net), the ability to paste screen shots or insert photos straight from a camera without having to open up a paint program or copying the files across, resampling resized images, and one-click uploading to FTP.

I'm against lazy designers who use a graphical HTML editor and try to get away with using a template, clicking a theme, changing the title, and then claiming how cool their website is. But I also think there's a line between being lazy and using default templates, and using tools to create a job a lot more easier. If I have a design of a website, I should let my old belief of graphical IDEs are for lazy people, and embrace tools which can make my life a lot easier (like being able to paste images from any program without having to save them and find the right directory and then open my FTP program and worry about which directory the image is in relation to the page).

I'm a C++ programmer, not a web designer who wants to show off my structured HTML code or write my own content management system in PHP (I tried doing that once ). There should be no reason why I should not be able to spend a few hours designing my website (rather than a whole day scrolling through endless .html files) and then when I make changes to my latest project I should just be able to press ALT+PrintScreen, fire open the IDE, paste the screen shot in, and click publish.

Sometimes we should use tools which make our lives easier, and not all live the lives of the Amish and completely refuse to touch them. This is just my personal opinion - I know others will disagree and they have a right to. I'm curious as to know what other people's opinions are and where they draw the line (not just with HTML editors, but also with programming IDEs and any tools in general).

That is why I like using a Wiki.

Yes I'm all for using tools. Me personally I use the WYSIWYG editors to get something that resembles what I want and then go in and hand edit it to exactly what I want. The only problem with some of the tools is that they are sometimes hard to learn how to use or just take to much time to get it to do want you want it to do. Like for example if you have a fully setup and beautiful web page and you want to add a picture and it completely breaks the formating. That happens a lot to me.