Cheers
Jason
David Mann wrote:
Chris Wilkinson wrote:
Sounds like an MS Certified puppet. He might know how to run DW and Frontpage and all the other 'pro' apps, but could he peruse HTML syntax in a text editor and know if its gonna work?
Actually he could. An introduction to HTML was the first half-day of the course. Not exactly in-depth but it was a DW course not an HTML course.
BTW2 the problem with standards is not only getting the web designers/developers to follow them, but also getting the web browsers
to format the same HTML in a consistent manner. Oh and actually having
complete standards helps (I never want to use frames again).
The problem with standards is that M$ don't like not controlling them. Just look at Javascript..."lets write a slightly compatible thing, call it JScript, and encourage web authors to use that instead of the real McCoy", is how M$ went about that one.
What I had in mind when writing the above was all the silly little differences you find. I always found that MSIE gave me the result I intended most of the time, but Netscape tended to require a bit more TLC or I'd end up with misaligned images or something.
I've griped about the frameset standard a few times before so I'll spare you from that.
I created a CV for myself using strict HTML 4.x/DHTML/CSS/Javascript on a Windows PC once. I had to make some 'alterations' to the small Javascripts to get them to work properly with MSIE, but once I got them working I then had to transfer the CV to my new linux PC. I found the Javascripts didn't work as expected in Moz/NN, and I had to change them back to the standard.
This is sort-of what I was getting at above. Frustrating, eh?
Did anyone actually accept a non-.doc CV?
Guys who use Frontpage or DW will not know that their software is creating non-strict code, because the code is automatically generated and therefore mostly hidden from the end-user (not that any guys who are certified in Frontpage/DW etc will actually know how the syntax -should- look...)
Have you actually used Dreamweaver? If you want to examine the code its right there for you to see. You can direclty edit the code, the wysiwyg mode, or both at once (which I use). There is also a pretty good built-
in code validator.
Having said that, web designers don't generally care about code and compatibility. They're mostly graphic designers, not software developers. To them, a .html file is just like a .jpg or .ps or .pdf. A *good* web designer will have greater awareness :) A *really good* web designer will do what they can to maximise cross-browser compatibility without adding unnecessary billable time to the job.
BTW, Dreamweaver even has a menu entry called "Clean up Word HTML"...
If you care and know what you're doing, Dreamweaver is an utterly amazing time-saver. Not just for editing but also site management. I have screwed up HTML much worse by editing it with a simple text editor. Oops, wrong cell... Oops, I left out a <tr>, etc.
Cheers,
- Dave
http://www.digistar.com/~dmann/
