So the web doesn't revolve around IE?

[truezeta]

I have a hobby site, slowly starting to learn “programming language,” never took into account other browsers other than IE, didn’t know they were so different. Now I know.

So in the meantime, is there a WYSIWYG editor that is compatible with other browsers like Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, etc.

My brother recommended I try Netscape Composer because it was more compatible. It will take time for me to learn some language, in the meantime I don’t want my website to be inaccessible to people with different browsers.

I shall not disclose my current editor because I am too ashamed! :-(

Any suggestions from the pros?

[truezeta]

Anyone?

[Iguana]

I don't worry about the html editor I use - I just make sure I run pages through FireFox before I load them up.

[Scruffy]

This might not be very helpful. But IMHO WYSISWYG editors are a waste of time and money.
a)Browsers have been (still are) evolving at such a rate that no editor company can keep up.
b)Learning to use any particular editor has a learning curve steeper than learning raw HTML anyway.

In your position, I would stick with IE for now, ignore all the other browsers (yes- even Netscape) and concentrate on learning to code raw HTML/CSS by hand.
That way, at least you will understand what the problems actually are. i.e. WHY the different browsers react differently to the same code and what to do about it when it happens.

[europeforvisitors]

Netscape Composer? Is that still around?

I use FrontPage, which will generate code that works with any browser.

[Don_Hoagie]

Right- the last two posters speak the truth... 99% of the time, a WYSIWYG editor doesn't intentionally produce bloated, incompatible code... it's just that it's much easier for a user to screw up code when they're not working directly with it. Guns don't kill people, people kill people... that sort of thing.

Say you were coding a few paragraphs... if you coded it raw, this would be nearly impossible to screw up. But if you have the "luxury" of a WYSIWYG, you may decide to copy and paste the text in from MS Word... not knowing that the editor is putting in all these invisible line breaks and spaces you carelessly had in the word doc, not to mention it's probably adding font tags because you're pasting rich text between compatible apps... then maybe you want to make the last sentence bold, so you just quickly highlight a big chunk of the paragraph, not noticing that you also highlighted part of the next paragraph and an image... and so forth. This is a simple example, but you can see how it can get out of hand. It's not the app's fault- it's yours (the collective you, that is). But, you could say that the WYSIWYG editor is a bit of an enabler, letting people make mistakes all over the place.

I personally use a text-editor, but there's no reason why you can't use WYSIWYG and be an HTML expert at the same time- all the big name editors have a panel to view the code. As Scruffy said, it's easier to learn basic HTML than to learn one of these apps... what's difficult to learn is complex layout, functionality, discrepancies between browsers etc. So you have your choice- take the time to learn how that stuff actually works in HTML, and use whatever editor you like to implement it; or, don't take the time to figure it out, use a WYSIWYG editor, create it incorrectly because you don't know what you're doing, and hope it works in as many browsers as possible.

[truezeta]

Thanks for the feedback!

Europeforvisitors, you are funny. :-0 Apparently, composer is still floating around.

Don_Hagie, you're right I am solely to blame for my jacked up looking website in other browsers. I can imagine the number of mistakes I made during the editing process.

Well, off to study, study...