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List:       kde-user
Subject:    Re: HTML-Editor for K
From:       Volker Kroll <vkroll () i-m-r-k ! com>
Date:       1998-05-31 10:59:38
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On Mon, 25 May 1998, G=FCnter?= Bechly wrote:
> Max Berger wrote to kde-devel:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I am new to K developing, so please don't flame me in case this subject has
> >  been
> > discussed over an over.
> > But what I need is a good HTML-Editing tool under K. I want something that
> > combines Frontpage98 and Netscape Composer (the 2 editors I use now), and
> >  makes
> > the need for the editor superflous.

There was a lot of discussion concerning the usefullness of an WYSIWYG
HTML editor. For this mail I assume, that it is impossible to build such
an editor, because HTML isn't a layoutlanguage but a structural markup
language.

In one of my past mails I said something like "XEmacs is the only good IDE
for HTML editing". I think its correct for now, but it might be possible
to build a better one.
Remember IMHO there will _never_ (in the next few years) be a good WYSIWYG
editor, but what we need is an editor, which is helping in inserting
images (calculating width and height, asking for the alt text...),
building complex tables (asking how many rows, how many columns, are
there colgroups/rowgroups, ...), building frames, ... 

<dream>This editor has to read the dtd for your doctype and is asking only
attributes to elements, which aren't deprecated, and isn't asking for
proprietary tags.</dream>

If it is possible to build an editor, which is helping in developing _real
correct_ HTML 4.0 pages perhabs with the option to build Style Sheets
(inline or as an extern file), it will be the editor of choice for many
webdesigner. 
But building another editor, which is building sites as if
HTML where a layout language, that will be useless work. There
are too many programms out there  which are promising building webpages
visually. That is impossible. Look at any Webpage with Netscape 4 (not to
mention other browsers for instance M$ IE 4.0 or 3.0) under
MacOS, win0.95, WinNT0.4, HPUX and Linux, and you will see, there are so
many differences that you have to build the pages by hand. 
CSS1 and CSS2 will make things easyer, but not easy enough for a program. 
There must be the experience of a webdesigner to build real interoperable
webpages. 

With the upcoming DHTML there will be much more need to build correct
webpages for to react on events on elements, so an editor helping the
webdesigner to build such correct HTML, will save much time with
frustrating debugging of dynamic webpages.

OK, I hope my thoughts are clear (the mail is long enough). I suggest to
discuss the requirements of such an (not visual but helpful sourcecode)
editor.

Sorry, if my english was not clear enough, but normally I discuss this
topic in german (and that is difficult enough, if you have to argue with
your chef to teach code generation for HTML not the using of a visual
tool).

Volker 
**********************************************************************
* Volker Kroll                                                       *
* Webdesigner, Musiker, Soziologe                                    *
* mailto: vkroll@i-m-r-k.com                                         *
**********************************************************************

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