On 2003-12-04 09:44:44 +0000 Graham Trott gt@pobox.com wrote:
Capable, yes. Willing, not so sure. People who use Windows expect a fully graphical approach to anything, whether it does the job better or not. Once persuaded of the benefits of manual mark-up they're surely capable, but if they're only doing lightweight HTML the problem is in making that first step. Many Windows users regard Linux as "DOS but more complicated" and therefore a retrograde step back from the wonderful world of on-screen widgets. The way to tempt them in is to provide familiar eye-candy, not lecture them with a stern, Spartan "Do it this way, it's good for you".
Tra la la... OK... another spin on the whole thing... which rendering engine to base the results on? Gecko? IE? some other engine? who's interpretation of the CSS2 spec is correct (IE's is lacking rather major bits). What exactly do people want from a HTML editor? Would it be the "I want to change this piece of text here in to that font for no apparent reason and also change the colour so that you can't read it against the background because I'm a leet GUI using 'web designer'"? That'd end up with the usual very messy code. Dreamweaver users get over these problems by using tables *EVERYWHERE* and don't worry, generally, about how that is going to degrade, or what will happen if read by a screenreader, or, well, anything really. Anyways - still fuzzy, time for tea.
(Just in case you hadn't guessed, I'm an avid user of that wonderful HTML editor, vim :)
Brett.