HTML editor producing platform-consistent results?

by Bennett Haselton <bennett(at)peacefire.org>

Date:	Thu, 31 May 2001 17:38:39 -0700
To:	hwg-servers(at)hwg.org
	todo: View Thread, Original

Which HTML editor does the best job of generating tables, fonts, colors, 
etc. in such a way that pages look almost identical when viewed in 
different browsers across platforms?

This occurred to me after someone sent me a page that had been designed in 
Allaire Homesite 4.5.2, where about half the features in the page didn't 
display correctly in Netscape, and I had to edit the page manually to fix 
them.  For example, bold text was indicated with the "font:bold" style 
attribute.  But this only works in IE, not Netscape.  The attribute that 
works in both IE and Netscape is "font-weight:bold".  (As tested with IE 
5.5 and Netscape 4.75.)

Other cross-browser issues:
- some colors like "E5E5E5" display differently in Netscape and IE; you can 
test this by creating an HTML file:
<body bgcolor=#E5E5E5>
</body>
and viewing it side-by-side in Netscape 4.75 and IE 5.5.
- the ratio of "pixels" to "points" is different on a Macintosh from what 
the ratio is on a Windows machine
- a lot of attributes (for text, table cells, etc.) are specific to either 
IE or Netscape.

Is there any "ideal" HTML editor that takes all of these cross-browser and 
cross-platform issues into account, and still produces HTML that looks more 
or less the same across all major platforms?

If not, is there an editor which is known to come fairly close -- i.e. 
without generating the more basic errors like the "font:bold" attribute 
inserted by Allaire Homesite?

	-Bennett

bennett(at)peacefire.org     http://www.peacefire.org
(425) 649 9024

HWG: hwg-servers mailing list archives, maintained by Webmasters @ IWA