.NET as an HTML Editor

[Howard Kaikow]

Since MSFT did not include FrontPage 2003 in Office 2003 Pro, I needed to
look elsewhere for an HTML Editor.

Word won't do because, even in filtered mode, it puts needless crap in the
HTML.

I figured I'd give the HTML Editor in .NET a shot.
Well, it is rather buggy.

I opened a standard (according to HTML Tidy) HTML file, inserted a space,
then deleted a space, then tried to save. .NET issued a message complaining
that it was unable to format due to a particular line.

When I looked at the HTML, .NET had changed a line and screwed it up.

And .NET complained about another line further down, I manually corrected
those errors and then noticed that .NET had squiggly lines under things such
as the summary attribute for the table tag.

Not to mention that the online Help is so tedious to use, it is of no use to
me.

 

[Cor]

Hi Howard,

I love the IDE as HTML editor.
It shows so fast edited pages. (But I avoid the designer mode).

I know you are not a Rookie, but did you know you can set a lot of HTML
settings that are automatic off (and sometimes disturbing) in the text
editor parts from the Options?

Cor

 

[John Timney \(Microsoft MVP\)]

try web matrix

--
Regards

John Timney (Microsoft ASP.NET MVP)
----------------------------------------------
<shameless_author_plug>
Professional .NET for Java Developers with C#
ISBN:1-861007-91-4
Professional Windows Forms
ISBN: 1861005547
Professional JSP 2nd Edition
ISBN: 1861004958
Professional JSP
ISBN: 1861003625
Beginning JSP Web Development
ISBN: 1861002092
</shameless_author_plug>

 

[Howard Kaikow]

I looked at the options and did not find anything useful.

It seems that the designer mode depends on a defined schema.
I want just a vanilla schema.

I also noticed tat there are no menus/options for automatically entering
HTML tags such as <h1>.

Of course, what I want may be there, but the online help is just not useful
as it is too tedious to try to find anything, even if you know what you are
looking for.

Also, the HTML generated is very poor, e.g., it often omits </li> tags.

 

[Howard Kaikow]

What is "web matrix?"
Is it a component of .NET?

--
http://www.standards.com/; See Howard Kaikow's web site.

try web matrix

--
Regards

John Timney (Microsoft ASP.NET MVP)
----------------------------------------------
<shameless_author_plug>
Professional .NET for Java Developers with C#
ISBN:1-861007-91-4
Professional Windows Forms
ISBN: 1861005547
Professional JSP 2nd Edition
ISBN: 1861004958
Professional JSP
ISBN: 1861003625
Beginning JSP Web Development
ISBN: 1861002092
</shameless_author_plug>
----------------------------------------------

Since MSFT did not include FrontPage 2003 in Office 2003 Pro, I needed to
look elsewhere for an HTML Editor.

Word won't do because, even in filtered mode, it puts needless crap in the
HTML.

I figured I'd give the HTML Editor in .NET a shot.
Well, it is rather buggy.

I opened a standard (according to HTML Tidy) HTML file, inserted a space,
then deleted a space, then tried to save. .NET issued a message complaining
that it was unable to format due to a particular line.

When I looked at the HTML, .NET had changed a line and screwed it up.

And .NET complained about another line further down, I manually corrected
those errors and then noticed that .NET had squiggly lines under things such
as the summary attribute for the table tag.

Not to mention that the online Help is so tedious to use, it is of no

use

 

[Cor]

Hi Howard,

I use it as an editor, not as a designer.

With the expirience I have now, we agree in that part.

Although I did not very much investigate that.


Cor

 

[Cor]

Hi Howard,

I almost forgot this,

One of the major reasons that I like it asHTML editor is, that it is very
easy to integrate XML, JavaScript, VBScript, CSS etc. while editing with
VS.studio.net

Cor

 

[Chris Dunaway]

What is "web matrix?"
Is it a component of .NET?

It's a free tool. Here is the link:

http://www.asp.net/webmatrix/

 

[Howard Kaikow]

Thanx, just downloaded.

 

[Howard Kaikow]

I only need bare essentials of HTML.

 

[Howard Kaikow]

Web Matrix may fill my needs, but I need to find documentation.
It already committed one NoNo.

I have an HTML file that contains the following line:

<p align="justify">Copyright © 2003-2004 by Howard Kaikow. All rights
reserved.</p>

Web Matrix stripped out the © when I opened the file, that's not good.
The file size increased from 27KB to 31KB.
I printed both the original and the WebMatrix version as PDF files and
compared the PDF.
Other than the missing © , the content was not changed.

 

[Howard Kaikow]

My limited experience, these past few daze, with web matrix have convinced
me that web matrix is too buggy to be used as an HTML editor. It
periodically gets inventive and does weird things to the HTML source.