There’s a slew of WYSIWYG(What You See Is What You Get) authoring tools available, so which one is right for you?
From a purest standpoint, I only use WYSIWYGs for fast rendering of initial concept design. Once I acquire approval for the look, feel, and layout, I abandon WYSIWYGs for hand coding.
Webpages should be coded with: usability, speed, consistency, and W3C compliancy in mind. For those of you who aren’t familiar with W3C, it stands for World Wide Consortium, an organization that establishes Web technology standards to’optimize browser interoperability.’ In laymens’ terms, the standards enable W3C compliant Web pages to be displayed consistently across different platforms on different browsers.
I value code quality, customization, intuitive user interface, and versioning control. Each of the tools I’ve used has its strengths and weaknesses, much of which is subjective. Overall, they offer the same basic features but are widely dissimilar in user interface.
Some of the most popular WYSIWYGs I’ve used are:
1) NetObjects Fusion
2) Macromedia Dreamweaver(also UltraDev)
3) Macromedia ColdFusion
4) Adobe GoLive
5) Microsoft FrontPage
From a usability standpoint, NetObjects Fusion and FrontPage have the easiest and most intuitive interfaces.
Frontpage handles Frontpage extensions very well. No surprise right? However, FrontPage loads tons of extra MS code diminishing load time without much flexibility / customization on the code level.
NetObjects Fusion on the other hand allows you to view and modify HTML with its integrated HTML editor. It comes with a whole array of features including global and local navigation layout in either text or buttons with rollovers. It also offers the ability to embed multi-media files. NetObjects’ weakest feature is importing frames. Other then that, NetObjects is definitely the best deal. Another factor to consider is support. The original developers of NetObjects aren’t there anymore because the company closed shop in 2000 and sold its intellectual property to Website Pros.
The learning curve for mastering Macromedia Dreamweaver is flatter than others even if you’re familiar with Macromedia tools such as Flash and Director. It takes a long time to master because there’s so much included. It’s a powerful tool allowing global code changes, custom CSS, integrated FTP, asset management, file structure management, rollovers, embedded multi-media files, and much more. I love this tool, but the code isn’t W3C compliant and not efficiently generated causing cross-browser issues. The best feature is the library and template management. Alongside the code editor, this becomes very powerful. You can create, import, or buy pre-designed templates from an array of companies and customize them to your needs.
Adobe GoLive is similar to Dreamweaver and offers the same basic features. It also helps if you’re familiar with PhotoShop and Illustrator because it integrates with its sister applications. Again, the weaknesses lie in its inefficiency at generating concise code that’s W3C compliant.
Over all, I like NetObjects for interface, Dreamweaver for power, and GoLive for integration.
WYSIWYG Pros:
1) Fast rendering of web pages
2) Integrated FTP functionality
3) Global editing control via templates
4) Imports exisiting Web pages
5) Integrated preview in browsers
6) Asset(images and files) management
7) Link checking and management
8) Customize file structures(flat- or asset-based)
WYSIWYG Cons:
1) generate inefficient code weighing down pages, increasing load time
2) handles non-HTML code and frames poorly or not at all
3) proprietary in nature so compressed archives cannot be used by other tools
4) limited CSS control
5) not W3C compliant
6) generic templates are amateurish