Editors for coding

[letom]

I dont use Dreamweaver

Which is other application you are using ?

[Beverleyh]

Usually Notepad++ http://notepad-plus-plus.org/ or PSPad http://www.pspad.com/en/ , or sometimes just plain old Notepad - it depends which computer I'm using.

[traq]

other good editors (in no particular order): Gedit (http://projects.gnome.org/gedit/)*, TextWrangler (http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/), or Komodo Edit (http://www.activestate.com/komodo-edit)*^.

* cross-platform (Linux/Mac/Windows)
^ my current favorite - highly recommended!

[letom]

Usually Notepad++ http://notepad-plus-plus.org/ or PSPad http://www.pspad.com/en/ , or sometimes just plain old Notepad - it depends which computer I'm using.
@Beverley
I am wondered, when hearing you are using notepad as your web editor. Can u explain the benefits of Notepad Editor over other major web editors and applications like M Dream ?

[Beverleyh]

It might be worth splitting this topic into a new thread - hopefully a mod will advise. But to answer your question...

For me, its just personal preference. There's the obvious benefit, in that a plain text editor is free - when I first learned HTML and CSS, it was while I was unable to work following a car crash, so I couldn't afford any fancy software. It also makes my work extremely portable - with Notepad being a default application on all Windows computers, it means I can start it up and work/troubleshoot from whichever computer I happen to be at, without installing anything, whether that's with a private freelance client, visiting another school as part of my main employment, troubleshooting a student's web project, visiting my dad or sitting at my own desk (I also make quick edits on iPhone via my web host's online plain text editor), I always have the facility to do what I need to do. Plain text editors are familiar and comfortable to me, particularly having started in DOS way back when. I also find more freedom in the code than a WYSIWYG application that tries to think for me - sometimes its like trying to direct a friend to make a cup of tea exactly how I like when I can make it myself, to my own taste, and feel much more satisfied because of it. Ha, ha

I have used Dreamweaver briefly but mainly because it was installed on my computer at the start of my employment. I always switched to code-view to work though because that's how I prefer to work, so the enormity of the application just seemed pointless when a small, free tool was fit for purpose. When it came time for a reformat, I never bothered installing Dreamweaver again. The students use it in the ICT suites onsite, but much of the time it encourages them to over-rely on the WYSIWYG aspect, so when it doesn't behave as expected and they need help to fix or understand something, I split the view and work directly in the HTML/CSS so they can see how a code change affects the visuals in 'real time'. For those who continue their web projects outside of the classroom, I tend to point them towards a freebie called KompoZer http://www.kompozer.net/ so they can still use a WYSIWYG editor without breaking the bank.

Dreamweaver has lots of benefits too though - industry standards compliant, lots of plugins to simplify workflow, templating features, and the huge organisation and community who support it. I haven't used it extensively so its hard to make a fair argument. For those who do use Dreamweaver and whizz through their workflow due to their expertise and familiarity with the software, then that's great, but for me, I prefer plain text, a stash of code-snippets and a few good books/websites to refer to (I'm loving SitePoint's 'HTML5 & CSS3 For The Real World')

[Beverleyh]

In addition to the plain text editor benefits I mentioned above (cost, portability and familiarity) I'll also add understanding and awareness.

I think when you have to create/build a web template/layout yourself, it forces you to be more aware of the markup and CSS you use - how much of it you use (seperating markup and presentation) to avoid code-bloat, the order of elements/content (promoting an awareness of accessibility for search engines and screen readers) and structural markup hierarchy (increased awareness of correct element tags and effects on SEO - e.g. using an h1 tag to indicate the most important heading on the page rather than to increase font size)

There's also the understanding of a web page structure - head and body and metadata, etc. When somebody is working within a visual web builder, especially when first starting out, its all too easy to ignore the prompt/field for a title or description - "if the page document is called 'about-us.htm' when its saved on my computer, surely that's title and description enough, right?". And as we know, this leads to a slew of 'untitled' search results in Google (if the pages are indeed lucky enough to be found with such vague title information). I'm not saying that everybody who uses a WYSIWYG builder forgets or ignores these things, its just that when you're concentrating on the visuals, it makes it easier to overlook the important, hidden parts in the background.

WYSIWYG can be a good thing though, especially for convenience, but I'm more inclined to use a visual editor for formatting the actual text content of a web page of an established site design, usually within a CMS. It does make things easier for quickly formatting a list, breaking into new paragraphs, or making a few words bold or italic. Its also much easier to drag and drop in an image to help illustrate the text content. Its just that I prefer plain text for designing.

This conveniently leads to my next point - an understanding and awareness of asset size. It has been my observation that students who work with plain text (or code-view) are typically more aware of the physical weight of images, media and scripts within their web pages and they'll make more effort to optimise/minimise and resize images prior to incorporating them into their design (no visual resizing) which leads to faster page loads.

Another obstacle with WYSIWYG is that its harder to break in to PHP. Getting somebody who's learned web design visually to then break up their web layout into common files, ready for PHP includes, can be a bit of a challenge. Its harder to get them to see the benefits of using common files when they realise their design has been hacked into parts that don't transport easily back into their visual builder. It can be quite distressing for them. If they're happier in a plain text editor, the transition is much easier and they'll find dynamic scripting easier to incorporate too.

[letom]

Useful post... All things you said are absolutely correct..

If i am using Dreamweaver, i only look at the code section of web page not in GUI. If we are working in php. we need to spend our 99% percent of time to look at coding part only (not 99% can say 100%), if i want to include a DIV i call it in code not add it from GUI in DW. But the only problem of notepad is, the coding part is not catchy, all are in same black color. but in DW, php codes are starting with red, forms with yellow and as continue... this is catchy and it is an important thing needed in web editors, but the the notepad you are using have the facility stated ?
Another important thing is we need to search a string, it can be easily find and replace with others by pressing Ctrl + f in DW...

[letom]

For me, its just personal preference. There's the obvious benefit, in that a plain text editor is free - when I first learned HTML and CSS, it was while I was unable to work following a car crash, so I couldn't afford any fancy software. It also makes my work extremely portable - with Notepad being a default application on all Windows computers, it means I can start it up and work/troubleshoot from whichever computer I happen to be at, without installing anything, whether that's with a private freelance client, visiting another school as part of my main employment, troubleshooting a student's web project, visiting my dad or sitting at my own desk (I also make quick edits on iPhone via my web host's online plain text editor), I always have the facility to do what I need to do. Plain text editors are familiar and comfortable to me, particularly having started in DOS way back when. I also find more freedom in the code than a WYSIWYG application that tries to think for me - sometimes its like trying to direct a friend to make a cup of tea exactly how I like when I can make it myself, to my own taste, and feel much more satisfied because of it. Ha, ha

Good... :)
Fine...But when making a cup of tea only we include, Sugar, coffee, & some mix, if we direct to a friend he/she will also do in same way, but add these stuffs, high or less than us . At the same way The real thing is what we are adding and deducting in the application /coding, not using which editor. :)

Anyway It would be nice if we pray Before do anything..Then crashes will not happen in our life, even if it is in our programming.. Have a great success in all your life.

[Beverleyh]

Yes, Notepad++, PSPad and the ones traq recommends, all have syntax highlighting, collapsing and easy find&replace features, plus more than one undo, so they are much better to use than the default Notepad application. Notepad++ also stores files in memory until you explicitly instruct it to close them, so even when you close the whole application and open it up 3 days later, it still has all of your files loaded in to different tabs where you can continue undoing and redoing from.

Basic Notepad is just a handy fallback when you need to use it, but for daily development/design, its preferably to use an application with more features.

[letom]

You tell the best recommendation from that... Notepad++?

[Beverleyh]

Notepad++ would be my recommendation at this time, although I'm quite curious now to try Komodo that traq has recommended, so my preferences may change once I've had chance to play with that :)

[james438]

I tip my hat to you Beverlyh for using notepad. That has been my preferred editor since I started coding as well. The only exception to that is that I now I have been using an editor that I built. It still works about the same as notepad though.

I still recommend Notepad or Notepad++ for the same reasons that Beverlyh stated.

[Beverleyh]

Back at ya James! Sometimes simple is best - creativity and ingenuity will always find a way :)

[djr33]

I personally really like syntax highlighting. Otherwise it's too boring. I don't really mind using notepad, but I certainly wouldn't prefer it to something with highlighting. Then I also really like built-in FTP so I can edit my sites live within the editor rather than having to upload the files separately. (That's less relevant if you do most of your editing on a local test server, though.) Beyond that, I agree that simplicity is the best. Almost every other "feature" just gets in the way. (The one other downside of notepad is that you have to use "go to line" to find where an error is, rather than having the lines numbered on the side, as in other programs. It's not a huge issue, but another reason I think notepad is just slightly too simple.)

Aside from those minor issues of convenience, there's no reason you can't use notepad, though. It has everything you need. Some beginning web designers aren't aware of that and surprised when they find out.

[Beverleyh]

Have you ever heard of/used net2ftp? http://www.net2ftp.com/homepage/download.html

That's quite a nice web-based FTP client for when you're away from your usual machine - totally FREE to download and use. I mainly chose to install it because of its mass upload and unzip feature, which gets around my web host's single file upload frustration, courtesy of their control panel's fussy, one-at-a-time file manager. When I started working at a school, it proved to be a godsend for bypassing the firewalls too. I normally like to FTP with FileZilla at home, but security is so tight in work that I can't FTP to my external web host (only to the in-house and Council servers), so net2ftp makes for a perfect substitute since I can use it to FTP via a browser instead.

Anyway, my main point for bringing it up is that it has a few different editor options as well as FTP functionality - depending on the file type you open within it, net2ftp provides an option to switch between a basic plain text editor, a syntax highlighted editor and then a few WYSIWYG editors (I think TinyMCE and CKEditor)

Its a nice, all-in-one solution that might prove useful to you Dan, or anyone else reading this thread.

BTW - I had problems using the very latest net2ftp release (most likely due to not having the very latest PHP5 installation) so I've continued to use version 0.98.

[djr33]

Seems useful in certain circumstances, but I wouldn't want to use that to replace built-in FTP in my editor (on my own computer). Having easy access from anywhere seems useful, though. Of course it's important to be sure it's completely secure, because that's a potential big security problem.

[Beverleyh]

I hear what you're saying - I wouldn't dream of using their own online installation (their demo) but being as I can install it on my own web hosts server, and access it via a separate FTP account, frequently change FTP passwords as well as the name of the actual installation folder (so the URL often changes too), and lock it down for use via a specific FTP domain (not the same as the domain its installed on and one I can also change often) and only via a limited IP range, I think that its pretty secure.

It's pretty nifty :)

[traq]

I don't use FTP too often anymore, in favor of SSH or git.