Re: Software recommendation for beginners

Mr. Steve Bagenstose,

I mean _no_ disrespect sir, but I have had previous experience with _many_
customers sites who have been "home written" using various versions of the
Netscape editor.

I can state clearly and concisely that every version I have ever been
exposed to writes code so badly that quite often even *Netscape* can't
understand it!

I know, your hair and your temperature just went straight up, but
**please**, do you and your students a favor. Go to:

http://ugweb.cs.ualberta.ca/~gerald/validate/

-or-

http://validator.w3.org/

and submit some of the pages written by this software. That way you can see
for yourself, that I'm speaking factually and not with malice.

I am guessing that atleast _some_ of these students pages have been posted
to the schools web site. This (in my opinion) creates a MANDATE for
universal accessibility. So . . . please allow me to digress a little (to
previous posts), there _is no_ canned editor currently on the market that
can create valid HTML with any complexity beyond stone basic text
presentation with _no_ "frills". This is exceptionally true of the WYSIWYG
editors - ALL of them.

I know you mentioned that Netscape (some version) would allow you to use an
"external editor" to correct it's junk output, but sir without the
knowledge of HTML already being in place it seems like it would be darned
near impossible to use that feature effectively.

I propose:
Teach the little people HTML.

Then to enable them to do "more and faster" teach them how to _truly_
utilize the copy and paste features of a text editor. As you probably know,
you can build some large and complex tables very quickly by simply copying
the first "<TABLE WIDTH=". . . " BORDER=. . . >" or "</FONT></TD><TD><FONT
SIZE=. . . >" and pasting it accordingly. As a very brief example, I post a
weekly fishing column that is also published in a local newspaper by a
local writer. I get the Quark file the newspaper uses for actual
publication layout. I simply copy and paste the (multi) column text into a
template and then go back and take one "&#34;" copy it, and start doing the
punctuation. As you can guess, its a _lot_ faster to hit "CONTROL-V" and
then quickly highlight the "4" and hit the "3" or the "9" key as needed
than to type all that stuff over and over. The 300-400 word column takes
about 10 minutes to post AND VALIDATE.

Ok, I have completed my sermon for the day.

I hope no offense was taken and that some helpful tips were conveyed.

Happy Holiday all!
Fuzzy




At 12:42 AM 7/4/98 -0400, Steve Bagenstose wrote:
<SNIP>
>Netscape always was "FREE" to academic institutions, non-profit
>organizations and students and thanks to Mr. Bill is now free to
>everyone. Sure it has its quirks with some code! But you can specify
>which external editor, notepad, simple text, etc.., you wish to use on
>the HTML and show them how to edit or code raw HTML.
>
>Gee, you just accomplished teaching text-based and wisiwyg and it only
>cost the time to DL and install. It works for me and I lost count after
>the 300th student.
</SNIP>

__________________________________________________________________
Captain F.M. O'Lary
(yes, one of the now infamous: "O'Lary Boys")
webmaster(at)canopy.net
sysop(at)mail.ruediger.leon.k12.fl.us
Member of the HTML Writers Guild and 
International Webmasters Association
------------------------------------------------------------------

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