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TylerM – Tyler Menezes \ Blog \ I don’t like WYSIWYG editors, either

I don’t like WYSIWYG editors, either

October 27, 2008 at 10:59 pm

(The “either” is a reference to my last post about CAPTCHAs.)

This is more of a personal preference. I’m not a huge fan of WYSIWYG (”what you see is what you get”) editors. Personally, the control afforded by these things is horrible, and the code they produce is even worse. Don’t get my wrong - Microsoft has made great advances in Expression Web from Frontpage.

What benefit do they really have, though? They don’t save me any time, I’ve never seen one which solved the weird things about HTML and CSS for you, and they often have odd quarks of their own. Also, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a full graphical website editor that didn’t have browser compatibility issues.

I feel the same way about Photoshop mockups, for much the same reasons as 37signals. Maybe I’m just not a real graphical person, but I’d rather be writing code than designing graphically and then trying to convert to valid, working code.

Or maybe the reason I’m opposed to both CAPTCHAs and WYSIWYG editors is that deep, deep down I’m morally opposed to ridiculously long acronyms. Though, why, then, would I use DNMMFAWFIAAEWSSA almost daily?

Say your words!

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