Desktop web editors often offer two different modes – the WYSIWYG editor with which you can add elements and alter them graphically, allowing you effectively draw your web pages out, and the coding mode with which you can enter the raw HTML of the page you are trying to create. This approach is so that these products appeal to the novices, who are likely to choose the WYSIWYG option, and more experienced users who prefer to code their websites using their own knowledge and raw HTML.
Coding a website manually can lead to greater functionality
As a web developer, you should always endeavour to craft your websites manually because this can lead to increased functionality by incorporating objects that may be part of a coding framework, but aren’t supported by the editor that you are using. By creating your own code, you have the power to incorporate whatever features you choose.
If you want to rely on a WYSIWYG editor for creating and maintaining your website then it can be costly to keep up-to-date with the latest versions, and if you want to make the most of the latest web technologies such as HTML5 and CSS3 then the latest version will always be a must if elements of them are to be included as features. However, if you take the time to learn coding for yourself then you won’t need to fork out for an expensive editor and can instead code using a simple text editor (i.e. Notepad for Windows or TextEdit for OSX) and can incorporate new HTML or server-side code features as they are released because all you’ll need to do is enter the relevant code rather than wait for the feature to be included as a module for a WYSIWYG editor.
WYSIWYG editors can present a distorted view
Depending on the rendering engine used by a WYSIWYG editor, what you see in the editor may not actually be what your website visitors see. Because different browsers use different rendering engines that interpret web standards in their own way, the result can be a website that looks as it should in one browser may look entirely different with objects out of place in another browser. The same idea can be applied to the way in which a WYSIWYG editor designs a website, so you may have your pages looking exactly how you want them to look in your editor of choice, but because of the way the browser interprets the code generated by the editor, your pages could look completely different and not how you want them to look in the browser.
Further to this, many WYSIWYG editors fails to generate code that is standards compliant and so this could further enhance compatibility issues with particular web browsers. Where you are trying to develop a website that is accessible to all, a WYSIWYG editor wouldn’t be the wisest route to go down because you are unlikely to create a final product that fulfils the original specification.
There are many websites from which you can learn coding, whether it be HTML for client interfaces or a server side language for a backend system. It would be much wiser to invest your time and money in this than a WYSIWYG editor because by doing so you can create your own websites that follow the standards that you are looking to adhere to – more importantly however, you get a good grasp of how things work which is never a bad thing. Developing your own code is also likely to result in a more robust final product that is much more secure; some editors can chuck out fairly run of the mill, insecure code, that could leave your website vulnerable to attack – again, if you do all this by hand then you know what is what and will have a sense of how secure your site is.
