Whats wrong with wysiwyg software

jwest · 7 Jul 2013 at 22:43

I understand there supposed to produce horrible code, but I made a website about 4 years ago with some wysiwyg software I think it was called wysiwyg builder, and it turned out fine, it did everything I wanted it to do admittedly it wasn’t overly complicated but it had quite a few pages, and lighboxes and a few things moving around etc.

So i gotta ask, whats wrong with it?

spoffle · 7 Jul 2013 at 22:50

I expect there's nothing really "wrong" with it, it'll just be one of those things, a prefence with no real justification.

Like the good old "the only application you need to create a website is notepad".

Ross1234 · 7 Jul 2013 at 23:04

They will produce markup that is overly complex negatively impacting search engine visibility, accessibility, cross browser compatibility and download speed. Additionally the site will probably be unmaintainable in anything but the original editor. You may think it turned out fine, but standards are high for web pages these days.

SexyGreyFox · 7 Jul 2013 at 23:07

For years I used Microsoft Frontpage which was as easy as it gets and perfect for what I wanted to do and then I was forced to Microsoft Expression Web 2 and it started to get complicated and I don't enjoy updating my bands website anymore.

spoffle · 7 Jul 2013 at 23:08

Ross1234 said:
They will produce markup that is overly complex negatively impacting search engine visibility, accessibility, cross browser compatibility and download speed. Additionally the site will probably be unmaintainable in anything but the original editor. You may think it turned out fine, but standards are high for web pages these days.

This is entirely dependent on what the website will be used for and by who.

Ross1234 · 7 Jul 2013 at 23:14

spoffle said:
This is entirely dependent on what the website will be used for and by who.

Yes, but anything vaguely professional and WYSIWIG should be a no.

AHarvey · 8 Jul 2013 at 07:59

Dimple said:
For years I used Microsoft Frontpage which was as easy as it gets and perfect for what I wanted to do and then I was forced to Microsoft Expression Web 2 and it started to get complicated and I don't enjoy updating my bands website anymore.

Could just update to a wordpress site with a custom theme, would make it a lot easier and fast to update

Muel · 8 Jul 2013 at 08:34

They're fine, if you want a cheap website that will just give you a place on the internet. If you want it to be responsive, look decent, perform well, talk to search engines etc then you need to learn to code or pay someone to do it.

Fact is, the entire web development industry is filled with people who write code for a reason. WYSIWYG editors are actually, rubbish.

Hyburnate · 8 Jul 2013 at 08:40

Muel said:
They're fine, if you want a cheap website that will just give you a place on the internet. If you want it to be responsive, look decent, perform well, talk to search engines etc then you need to learn to code or pay someone to do it.

Fact is, the entire web development industry is filled with people who write code for a reason. WYSIWYG editors are actually, rubbish.

This guy sorted it.

There would be no career in code if WYSIWYG editors were any good, just like there would be less jobs/no jobs in some supermarkets if there was technology to replace a person... oh wait.

AHarvey · 8 Jul 2013 at 11:53

Actually, my brother in law has worked for 3 web companies that use wysiwyg as their primary dev tools, and I know we use them in ours too and we're a large company.

However, they use the coding window and know the code themselves, but they use many of the options for tracking linked files etc and project management.

None use them as a complete package, but the added extras can be beneficial

fez · 8 Jul 2013 at 12:03

AHarvey said:
Actually, my brother in law has worked for 3 web companies that use wysiwyg as their primary dev tools, and I know we use them in ours too and we're a large company.

However, they use the coding window and know the code themselves, but they use many of the options for tracking linked files etc and project management.

None use them as a complete package, but the added extras can be beneficial

Any decent agency will not be using WYSIWYG editors to actually generate code. There does come a point with some companies where the SEO and quality of the site is not quite as important due to their size / market dominance but even those companies will not be using WYSIWYG editors for anything more than the useful features that dreamweaver has.

As others have said, it all depends what you need. Just because I can network a house nicely doesn't mean I would be able to do a huge corporations networking properly. If you need something simple you can probably get away with it.

AHarvey · 8 Jul 2013 at 12:39

I didn't say they used it to "generate" code itself, but you can still code in it yourself without the need for the extra bloat that the software puts in. Just because they are designed to do everything it doesn't mean you have to use them that way, you can pick and choose which elements you use.

A lot of these editors allow you to code in several languages and offer extras on top, as much as I love Notepad++ for its simplicity working on a site with many pages can be a pain in the backside and if some editors allow project management as well, then I can't see an issue with it.