Re: [PLUG] My Holy Quest for a WYSIWYG HTML Word Processor

[Steve Litt via plug <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>]

JP Vossen via plug said on Wed, 25 Jan 2023 13:44:09 -0500

>On 1/25/23 01:23 PM, Casey Bralla (Mail List) via plug wrote:
>> I don't know why this is so hard to find, but as they said in that
>> old Tom Baker Doctor Who episode, "The Quest is The Quest".
>> 
>> I'm on a holy quest for a WYSIWYG HTML word processor.  It seems
>> like lots of other people would want this also.
>> 
>> On the hope that it does exist, and I've just not invested enough
>> time in searching, does anybody know of a WYSIWYG HTML word
>> processor?
>> 
>> My desires are:
>> 
>>  1. Basic word processing + the standard extras such as footnotes,
>> spell check, table of contents, etc 2. Reveal Codes capability ala
>> the old WordPerfect so you can actually see what the underlying
>> document structure is 3. Uses HTML (or XML) as the markup language
>> 4. Real-time WYSIWYG, just like any modern word processor. (NOT
>> export and view separately!) 5. Formatting controls like a normal
>> word processor (NOT manually adding HTML codes to get formatting)
>> 
>> I don't need all the super complex features of LibreOffice Writer of
>> MS Word, but holy-moly, why is this program missing from the market?

I found out the answer to "why is this program missing from the
market?" when I needed to maintain all my web pages made by Frontpage,
Netscape Composer, Netscape Gold, KDE Kompozer, and several other
supposedly WYSIWYG web authoring tools. They all produce unmaintainable
HTML, when you switch from one WYSIWYG to another over the years, as
you'll certainly need to do because good software goes bad or
distros drop one software and put in another, it won't be WYSIWYG
anymore. The "what you get" part requires valid and validated HTML and
CSS, and I'd be totally shocked if any WYSIWYG product writes valid
HTML. My experience with WYSIWYG products is that they don't properly
use CSS, needlessly complexifying your document.

Meanwhile, HTML has progressed and gotten simpler, especially with the
addition of CSS. Using HTML5 that is also well formed XML, which is
allowed, and using styles correctly via CSS, making a valid and
validated web page is pretty darn simple, especially once you get one
right and can use it as a template. The days of using Notepad or Hotdog
to apply styles to individual HTML elements are long gone.

I've written extensively on this at http://troubleshooters.com/web/ .

SteveT

Steve Litt 
Autumn 2022 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times
http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/thrive.htm
___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group         --        http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion  --   http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug