WYSIWYG or not to WYSIWYG?

To many newbie website designers, WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors seem like a dream come true. And why not? With a WYSIWYG editor, the designer never has to deal with the HTML markup language or CSS — the editor creates it all for you. You just sit back and visually create the website. What could be easier?

In my early days at website design I used such software. Programs like Adobe GoLive and Dreamweaver were two of my main tools as I began learning the ropes. But I can tell you from experience that I wish I had learned how to write the HTML and CSS from day one. Why is that?

I have two main grievances with WYSIWYG editors. These are complaints that many professional website designers have voiced over the years as well. The first deals with how WYSIWYG editors generate the HTML and CSS code that make up the final website. The second deals with trouble-shooting and chasing down errors and bugs.

Great code generation, if you get it right at first

Today’s WYSIWYG editors are much, much better at creating the HTML and CSS required to build websites. But there is still a lingering problem, and that problem comes from over-editing a web page. The more you add, erase, move, paste, and adjust the layout of your web page, the more bad code gets inadvertently entered into the page. This can cause problems when the page renders (appears) in a browser or can lead to “bloated” code that can slow down the time it takes to display the page.

Bad bug hunting

It doesn’t matter if you use a WYSIWYG editor or hand-code your websites, there will still be bugs and design flaws that need to be ironed out. These errors are usually found within the HTML and CSS itself. So here’s the delima: if you use a WYSIWYG editor then you’ll never really know HTML and CSS, which makes it that much harder to fix the bugs. And since you let the editor create the code, you’ll never have a detailed knowledge of where everything is located in the code. Can you say “bug hunting hell”?

Don’t be afraid of hand-coding

I can understand you might feel that hand-coding a website would be too tedious, hard to learn, or just downright annoying. But in truth, it’s not. Once you get the basic concepts down you’ll be cranking out websites in no time flat. And you’ll be doing so with the added security of knowing EVERYTHING there is to know about your designs.

(NOTE: NWD has a series devoted to teaching you how to hand-code a website. You can read the first post HERE or see all posts in the series HERE.)