Re: FP

Andy:

What ?? Us, Argue ?? A plague on the thought.

Your question is simple enough but I suspect the answer is going to be a lot
more complicated. First off--there are a lot more WYSIWYG editors than just
FrontPage.

Then there are all of those "half way" editors that let you work with the
raw code but have "click-able" little snippets of code that the program
drops in place. A great example of this is CoffeeCup's Style Sheet Maker.
You click on the attributes you want and it produces the code. Really slick.
But is it "hand coding"?? It's certainly not exactly WYSIWYG.

You can do a lot of the same things right in FrontPage but CoffeeCup's
little applet is really fool proof and I think, easier to use for CSS.

You can run a sort of test yourself by just looking at the source code of a
lot of the major sites. Often--right up there with the Meta Tags-- will be a
statement made by the Editor used.

Now--As to using all the new bells and fancy stuff, just remember that
FrontPage is just a tool that compiles a lot of stuff together. A sort of
HTML version of MS Publisher. You can always use the "Insert HTML" (Bot)
feature to insert all kinds of scripting created either by hand or in some
other program.

A lot of the fancy stuff requiring Active Server Pages is made in--to stay
with the Microsoft example-- Visual InterDev. This is a supercharged
FrontPage with lots of advanced features. Of course, there are other
programs that do the same thing--Cold Fusion and Drumbeat for example. They
all have their fans.

To muddy the waters even further--no one has time to do commercial sites by
hand coding one line at a time. So many have all kinds of little pieces and
parts of code containing favorite tags to do special things. Even those
using something as crude as Notepad, do a lot of copying and pasting. Is
THIS hand coding or is it any different than the programs that do exactly
the same thing by clicking on a tag reference??

There is no right or wrong here. If it comes up in peoples browsers and
works in Netscape as well, most of us breathe a deep sigh and move on. And
one way or another--we all validate our tags--we just do it in different
ways.

Are you confused yet? If not, you should be. Goodness knows, I tried as hard
as I could.

Sorry I don't know of a statistical reference of hand vs. WYSIWYG coding.
And--Considering that few believe the stats on browsers and operating
systems now, I shudder to think how they would rip to shreds, anyone who put
out such blasphemy.

Best wishes
Ted Temer
Temercraft Designs Redding, CA
temer(at)c-zone.net
www.temercraft.com/
www.newsredding.com/


> HI,  I've been on this list for a bit, and usually just lurk.
>
> I use FP98 (maybe FP2000 someday).
>
> I know that folks on the list can discuss (argue?) unendingly about how
good/bad it is.  I hope threads don't lead to that from this Email.
>
> I wonder if there are statistics on what percent of sites use which
applications (or handcode) to build them.  Are there some huge corporate
site that use FP?  any examples?  Where can I get this type of data?  Are
there web sites that can show me this?
>
> I'll admit, I use it and I like it.  However, I've had to tell a few
people that I pretty much can't do what they want because I'm limited to
using it (I don't want to get into WHAT i've declined...)
>
> I am asking this since I want to figure out if I simply polish my skills
using this application will I be OK?  Or do I need to go to full-blown HTML,
XML and whatever other acronyms there are for learning how to make great,
cool sites.  So far, this is kind of a hobby for me, but maybe some day....
>
> thanks!
> Andy
>

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