TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Justin, I suggest you take another look a Homesite. Like you, I was once a
hardcore Notepad/WordPad dude (well, CygnusEd, on the Amiga -- still the
best damn text editor I've ever used), but now that I've switched to
Homesite, I can't go back. I'm barely even scratching the surface of its
functions; I just find that tools like the extended search and replace, the
point-and-click special character chart, color-coded text, snippets, and
one-key preview (to name a few) greatly speed up my development time. It's
no different from what I was doing before, just quicker and more convenient
since the tools are all there. As a consequence, I'm freer to experiment
with alternate designs, and managing larger sites (mine grew from a handful
of pages to about a hundred in a few months, and is still expanding) is
easier.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Cascio, Justin [mailto:Justin_Cascio -at- tvratings -dot- com]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 1999 3:11 PM
> To: TECHWR-L
> Subject: RE: HTML editor
>
>
> Because of all this discussion of WYSIWYG HTML editors, I
> downloaded a few
> demos to get a taste of what's out there. I'm really hardcore
> Notepad, but I
> know that if you're developing professional sites, they can
> get too big to
> reasonably develop and maintain without some help.
>
> I downloaded demos of Allaire Homesite 4, Macromedia
> Dreamweaver 3, and
> Lorenz Graf's HTMLtool 3. Why do they all look so daunting
> when I first open
> them? I can't figure out how to create a site, a style sheet,
> or anything!
> I've developed reasonably sophisticated sites on my own in
> Notepad, so I
> don't see why these applications should make the process even more
> confusing. Could someone direct me to a good getting-started
> website, list
> archive, help topic, etc.? Thanks.
>
> Justin Cascio