HTML has been the backbone of website designing since the beginning. However, WYSIWYG editors and numerous web authoring tools have pop up with the unexpected boom of the internet, slowly replacing the way websites are made. The need to learn HTML depends on the kind of user or web developer you are.
If your are the type of person who fall under what is termed as an incidental webmaster or a casual webmaster, you may be able to live and run a functional website through the use of a web authoring tool of your choice. It just like buying a car and be able to drive it, even if your do not know how that car has been built. For the professional web designer, I say that you must learn HTML will be beneficial to them because it allows more effective use of their web editors. For those who consider themselves as web programmers, I say HTML is a must as web-based programs needs to generate html codes for customized outputs. (Heng, 2014)
Numerous Web Authoring Tools are available today for web developers. Some of the most popular tools available are:
- Microsoft Frontpage is an authoring tool is best known for its site management feature and a good choice to create consistent personal or corporate websites with its capability to create a themed that you can use on to your web pages. It comes as either as a separate product or a package with Microsoft Office. It is good enough to use on a personal or corporate level capacity.
- CofeeCup HTML Editor is a cheap (prized at $49) but powerful web authoring tool. It has the cabilities for drag-and-drop, conversion tool for XHTML, FTP, and provides support to other programming languages usually used for web programming like PHP. It also has built-in features such as CSS editors, spell-cheker, mapping tools and others.
- Arachnophilia is another HTML editor that is proprietary since is for Windows users only. However, it comes free. Aside from the usual features of editing tools, it provides support to ASP and PHP.
As web developers, it might be helpful to learn CSS aside from HTML to be able to understand the design of the websites. To create dynamic websites and with database support, it would be very helpful to learn JavaScrip, PHP, ASP or CGI.
References
Heng, Christopher (2014). Should I Learn HTML or Just Use a WYSIWYG Web Editor? Pros and Cons of Using a Visual Web Editor vs Learning HTML. Retrieved from http://www.thesitewizard.com/html-tutorial/learning-html-vs-using-wysiwyg-web-editors.shtml
Comparison of Web Authoring Tools. Retrieved from http://www.edb.utexas.edu/minliu/multimedia/Compare%20Web%20Authoring%20Tools.pdf
Web Authoring / HTML Editors, Reviews, and Other Resources. Retrieved from http://websitetips.com/html/tools/#editorslist
