SubEthaEdit. Sucky name, awesome app. I use it constantly. It earned a permanent spot in my Dock ages ago.
But it's just a text editor? Damn straight! If you're starting to learn HTML, you need to learn it properly the first time around, not by letting a WYSIWYG editor make all the (wrong) choices for you. Believe me, you'll thank yourself later if you start learning the languages themselves from the ground-up now.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3) is the perfect place to learn the languages and the W3Schools site offers some fantastic tutorials for starting off. I've been writing code for years, but I still have these two in my bookmark bar for quick reference. They really can't be beat.
Most important of all is to validate your code. This one can't be underscored enough!
If you're a budding web developer, you are venturing into a world of horribly mangled code where browsers have been written and rewritten and rewritten to accommodate the idiot developers who don't know how to write valid code properly. Don't let yourself succumb to laziness like the mindless masses! Help fix the world one page at a time!
That said, you should really consider learning XHTML along with or instead of HTML. They are almost the same, but XHTML is growing to replace HTML because it requires you to write cleaner code that isn't malformed (overlapping tags, missing/extraneous parameters, missing tags). The syntactical differences are very small, and easy to learn later, though, if you want to put it off.
After you've got the basics of HTML/XHTML down, you should also think about learning CSS. CSS is used to separate the layout from the content in your web pages. With CSS, you'd write one very basic HTML page with just some blocks of text in it with special identifiers. Then, you use your CSS file to say where to put those blocks, what colors and fonts to make them, etc. The biggest convenience of using CSS is that you can maintain one style sheet page for thousands on HTML pages. What happens to your site if you decide you want to change the background color on all of them? With CSS, you change one line in one file. Without, you'd have to change thousands. There's a wonderful example of this at the CSS Zen Garden. See the "select a design" column on the right? Click on different ones. All of those pages use the exact same HTML code; they just swap out a different CSS style sheet.
I hope this helps. I'm sure it sounds like a lot to learn HTML and XHTML and CSS at the same time. HTML and XHTML are really nearly identical, though, and given the choice I'd recommend learning the new XHTML instead of HTML. CSS isn't absolutely essential for you to learn right now, but it should be on your road map once you're comfortable with the basics of HTML.
I would have agreed with you, maybe, five or six years ago when I used PageSpinner on the Classic Mac OS. Today, though, I try using it on Mac OS X and I just shudder. I'd personally rather take a bare-bones text editor and a browser link to the W3 than use the current iteration of PageSpinner.
damn that is fun....but damn that is a lot of rules to learn...and when i clicked on the View: source for that W3school page i just about peed my pants...dang, to make a nice page must take freakin forever....
Yes, you could say it supports XHTML because XHTML is essentially the same as HTML (the HTML mode automatically applies to files with extensions HTML, SHTML, HTM, XHTML, ASP, and SHTM).
SubEthaEdit comes with the following highlight modes:
C
C++
CSS
HTML
Java
Javascript
Objective-C
PHP
Pascal
Perl
Python
Ruby
SQL
XML
tcsh
It is expandable so you can write your own syntax modes or download others. See the Additional Syntax Definitions page for information.
For what it's worth, I use SubEthaEdit for writing HTML, XHTML, CSS, PHP, Java, assembly, and other various random files. It it my favorite text editor, bar none, and I don't even touch on one of its coolest features: sharing and live editing over the network via Rendezvous.
Yeah I love SubEthaEdit, If I was only slightly more nerdy than I am now I would probably celebrate its birthday.
Anyone that uses it for PHP though I suggest downloading the PHP + HTML syntax mode.
Way back in teh day when it was hydra before I knew they had that available I went and edited the plist file all by hand.. I am telling you its much easier to just download this
If you are prepared to run X11 applications inside Mac OS X, Quanta Plus is fantastic for HTML development. It's not a WYSIWYG editor, so you will still learn HTML using it. However, learning HTML will be easier with Quanta, because of all the features for writing HTML.
Or, if you were prepared to fork out money, the non-free version, Quanta Gold, runs natively on Mac OS X.
I think getting your hands on a WYSIWYG editor is a good idea. It's helpful because you can build something very quickly and look at the code that helped to create it. They're bad when you make large pages with lots of stuff, but for a basic page they're just fine. You can put a graphic on the page and center it, then just look at the simple line that made it happen. Once you've got a starting point, THEN you can look up more specific info.
Just my two cents. I started with a text editor but no longer have time to do it that way but my foundation in HTML makes using a WYSIWYG editor 100 times easier.
Comments
You may also wanna check out W3schools.com Great site.
Also I will even give you a free tip. Never EVER EVER use frames. They are the devil. Good luck!
SubEthaEdit. Sucky name, awesome app. I use it constantly. It earned a permanent spot in my Dock ages ago.
But it's just a text editor? Damn straight! If you're starting to learn HTML, you need to learn it properly the first time around, not by letting a WYSIWYG editor make all the (wrong) choices for you. Believe me, you'll thank yourself later if you start learning the languages themselves from the ground-up now.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3) is the perfect place to learn the languages and the W3Schools site offers some fantastic tutorials for starting off. I've been writing code for years, but I still have these two in my bookmark bar for quick reference. They really can't be beat.
Most important of all is to validate your code. This one can't be underscored enough!
http://validator.w3.org/
http://validator.w3.org/
http://validator.w3.org/
If you're a budding web developer, you are venturing into a world of horribly mangled code where browsers have been written and rewritten and rewritten to accommodate the idiot developers who don't know how to write valid code properly. Don't let yourself succumb to laziness like the mindless masses! Help fix the world one page at a time!
That said, you should really consider learning XHTML along with or instead of HTML. They are almost the same, but XHTML is growing to replace HTML because it requires you to write cleaner code that isn't malformed (overlapping tags, missing/extraneous parameters, missing tags). The syntactical differences are very small, and easy to learn later, though, if you want to put it off.
After you've got the basics of HTML/XHTML down, you should also think about learning CSS. CSS is used to separate the layout from the content in your web pages. With CSS, you'd write one very basic HTML page with just some blocks of text in it with special identifiers. Then, you use your CSS file to say where to put those blocks, what colors and fonts to make them, etc. The biggest convenience of using CSS is that you can maintain one style sheet page for thousands on HTML pages. What happens to your site if you decide you want to change the background color on all of them? With CSS, you change one line in one file. Without, you'd have to change thousands. There's a wonderful example of this at the CSS Zen Garden. See the "select a design" column on the right? Click on different ones. All of those pages use the exact same HTML code; they just swap out a different CSS style sheet.
I hope this helps.
W3 and W3Schools are awesome,
I am no web developer but merely an amateur doing homepage for fun. From the ground up seems to be the way forward.
Thanks again.
actually the hospital here has asked me to maintain and update our childrens heart site...so i have to bone up quickly...
quick i need a link to that dancing hamster site so i can throw it on my updated page
g
http://www.optima-system.com/pagespinner/
Simply the best...
Originally posted by SCARECROW
Pagespinner.
Simply the best...
I would have agreed with you, maybe, five or six years ago when I used PageSpinner on the Classic Mac OS. Today, though, I try using it on Mac OS X and I just shudder. I'd personally rather take a bare-bones text editor and a browser link to the W3 than use the current iteration of PageSpinner.
Eh.
Jeez... your one of the few people I have heard not like Pagespinner...
Hell, some serious professional developers use nothing but Pagespinner, like Zeldman..
The latest version with live preview, the new css panels, and php, asp, xhtml support... rock.
To each their own, though..
g
Originally posted by foad
Does SubEthaEdit support XHTML as well?
Yes, you could say it supports XHTML because XHTML is essentially the same as HTML (the HTML mode automatically applies to files with extensions HTML, SHTML, HTM, XHTML, ASP, and SHTM).
SubEthaEdit comes with the following highlight modes:
C
C++
CSS
HTML
Java
Javascript
Objective-C
PHP
Pascal
Perl
Python
Ruby
SQL
XML
tcsh
It is expandable so you can write your own syntax modes or download others. See the Additional Syntax Definitions page for information.
For what it's worth, I use SubEthaEdit for writing HTML, XHTML, CSS, PHP, Java, assembly, and other various random files. It it my favorite text editor, bar none, and I don't even touch on one of its coolest features: sharing and live editing over the network via Rendezvous.
*steps off soapbox*
Anyone that uses it for PHP though I suggest downloading the PHP + HTML syntax mode.
Way back in teh day when it was hydra before I knew they had that available I went and edited the plist file all by hand.. I am telling you its much easier to just download this
Or, if you were prepared to fork out money, the non-free version, Quanta Gold, runs natively on Mac OS X.
Barto
Just my two cents. I started with a text editor but no longer have time to do it that way but my foundation in HTML makes using a WYSIWYG editor 100 times easier.
I have been going through a lot of MEL today with SubEthaEdit. It is pretty cool!!