CSS versus WYSIWYG Text Editor
Over my 11 years on the Internet, I’ve learned HTML, CSS, and SSI. All acronyns for Hypertext Markup Language, Cascading Style Sheets and Server Side Includes.
About a year and a half ago, I decided to see what a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) text editor was like. Well I was enamored. It could make drop down menus without me having any javascript knowledge, place graphics EZ-ily and anytime I added a page, the editor would update the menus.
I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Until…
I saw a site I really liked so I looked at the source code. To my surprise, the designer had just used HTML and CSS. Hmmmmmm - this brought back my desire to do some hand coding again.
What I found out, HTML and CSS beats the WYSIWYG text editor hands down. Why?
1) Because my site loads faster
There is no crappy code the browser has to weed through to bring the page up. Now I could have made the site completely CSS but that would have required more of my time to get the positioning just right.
Besides there are so many browsers that aren’t in compliance with the CSS standards that making a total CSS site is not practical yet. Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself right now so I can delay learning CSS positioning.
2) Changing my site design is EZ
With an external style sheet, I can change the color of my site every day of the year if I wanted and it would only take me 5 minutes. The WYSIWYG text editor will do the same thing but it takes a lot more futzing if you have designed your own color schemes.
3) CSS is fun!
Once I learned CSS, I was amazed at the thought that when into producing the standards. They actually used English and I didn’t have to learn a programming language.
So if you decide to put your WYSIWYG text editor aside and take on the challenge of learning a very simple way to make your site, you can either go to W3.org to start your first lesson or better yet, go to LVSonline.com and let their instructor teach you over 6 weeks. It’s what I did.
Judith