Web Authoring Tools - Standard compliant editing tool for Macintosh OSX

Author

Standard compliant editing tool for Macintosh OSX

Eric Lindsay

2005-10-18, 6:23 am

I'm looking for W3C standard compliant editor or web page generator for
Macintosh OSX. Version Tracker and others list a couple of hundred
varied products, and I've downloaded about 30 to try out, so I'm trying
to eliminate a bunch of them quickly, and generate a more manageable
list of products to try out.

By compliant, I mean that the package produces files that validate,
either against the W3C HTML validator and/or the CSS validator
(depending upon whether they claim to be only an HTML editor or only a
CSS editor, or both). I want to eliminate anything that lets you
produce output that isn't valid (at least without the user deliberately
trying to break the output).

I have a preference for producing HTML 4 strict (or XHTML Strict) with
good clean CSS. I don't need frames or Javascript, just plain static
pages.

Also desirable (but not essential) would be a more complete package that
does extra things like, say, link checking, automatic updating of the
remote site when files change, canned includes for all pages when
regenerating the site, image handling like automatic thumbnails,
inclusion of copyright, location and so on in exif metadata, etc.
Basically anything that makes site production easier.

At this stage eliminating programs would be nearly as helpful as
including ones worth checking further. Any suggestions about programs?
Anyone know of any that always produce bad code?

--
http://www.ericlindsay.com

Michael Vilain

2005-10-18, 6:23 am

In article <NOSPAmar2005-B9B00B.17140918102005@freenews.iinet.net.au>,
Eric Lindsay <NOSPAmar2005@ericlindsay.com> wrote:

> I'm looking for W3C standard compliant editor or web page generator for
> Macintosh OSX. Version Tracker and others list a couple of hundred
> varied products, and I've downloaded about 30 to try out, so I'm trying
> to eliminate a bunch of them quickly, and generate a more manageable
> list of products to try out.
>
> By compliant, I mean that the package produces files that validate,
> either against the W3C HTML validator and/or the CSS validator
> (depending upon whether they claim to be only an HTML editor or only a
> CSS editor, or both). I want to eliminate anything that lets you
> produce output that isn't valid (at least without the user deliberately
> trying to break the output).
>
> I have a preference for producing HTML 4 strict (or XHTML Strict) with
> good clean CSS. I don't need frames or Javascript, just plain static
> pages.
>
> Also desirable (but not essential) would be a more complete package that
> does extra things like, say, link checking, automatic updating of the
> remote site when files change, canned includes for all pages when
> regenerating the site, image handling like automatic thumbnails,
> inclusion of copyright, location and so on in exif metadata, etc.
> Basically anything that makes site production easier.
>
> At this stage eliminating programs would be nearly as helpful as
> including ones worth checking further. Any suggestions about programs?
> Anyone know of any that always produce bad code?

Well, I'm not aware of any editor that has this specific validation
feature built into it. Most of the editors do HTML validation of some
sort, but not W3.org's specifically. BBEdit does validation, but I don't
know if it's the same as the W3.org validator. Same with iCab's
validation flag. Code analyzed on that browser is a lot more picky than
the W3.org site.

What's the big deal? All you have to do is paste the source into

http://validator.w3.org/
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

If you _really_ want it, take the sources to vim and add this feature or
code an emacs extension.

--
DeeDee, don't press that button! DeeDee! NO! Dee...

Eric Lindsay

2005-10-18, 10:24 pm

In article <vilain-E47238.01084318102005@comcast.dca.giganews.com>,
Michael Vilain <vilain@spamcop.net> wrote:

> In article <NOSPAmar2005-B9B00B.17140918102005@freenews.iinet.net.au>,
> Eric Lindsay <NOSPAmar2005@ericlindsay.com> wrote:
>
....[color=darkred]
[color=darkred]
> Well, I'm not aware of any editor that has this specific validation
> feature built into it. Most of the editors do HTML validation of some
> sort, but not W3.org's specifically. BBEdit does validation, but I don't
> know if it's the same as the W3.org validator. Same with iCab's
> validation flag. Code analyzed on that browser is a lot more picky than
> the W3.org site.
>
> What's the big deal? All you have to do is paste the source into
>
> http://validator.w3.org/
> http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

John Gruber at Daring Fireball had written an online CSS checker in Perl
and Applescript. It calls the W3C CSS validator to do the dirty work. It
acts as a script in Barebones Software's free Text Wrangler editor. So
I don't have any problem with doing validation of inline CSS as such. I
expect to have the HTML validation working in a similar manner sometime
soon (that is already included in BBEdit, I believe).

I'm sorry, I didn't explain myself sufficiently clearly. I also
probably clouded up the issue by mentioning an editor at all, but I am
still feeling my way towards exactly what I am seeking. My crucial
point should probably have been this line reprinted below, about the
program enforcing correct input initially.

I want to eliminate anything that lets you produce output that isn't
valid (at least without the user deliberately trying to break the
output).

So I am now envisaging finding a program that (say) prompts you to enter
the various sections of a web page. Or that lets you enter them free
form but then enforces content labelling. There seem to be several
visual web page creators, that let you drag stuff around and place it
where you want. The problem I am seeing is that resultant HTML is all
over the place. It is really bad for search engine optimisation and
positioning.

So I now seek a program where you have to enter a filename, a title, and
a description, and keywords, and an h1 heading (one and only one) and a
first paragraph, and at least be prompted at each stage for all these to
be relevant for search engine optimisation. Then you are prompted for
additional body text (which may well be cut and pasted from other
material). You would get prompted or somehow encouraged to do suitable
address material for a footer. Plus you would probably be prompted for
other pages to which you want to link, perhaps from a list of
pre-existing pages. If you want sidebar material you would be prompted
for that. Same for photos (perhaps from a photo browser). Bonus points
if the program also does link checking, and updates a web site.

The output must be valid html and css, but you (or someone) might decide
to fine tune the results using some other editor. I realise I may not
be able to find a program that does everything perfectly, but something
that prompts a business owner or secretary towards a reasonable first
cut at each web page would be really helpful.

--
http://www.ericlindsay.com

Spartanicus

2005-10-18, 10:24 pm

Eric Lindsay <NOSPAmar2005@ericlindsay.com> wrote:

>I'm looking for W3C standard compliant editor or web page generator for
>Macintosh OSX.

http://www.nvu.com/ Has it's flaws I heard, but probably your best bet.

--
Spartanicus

Michael Vilain

2005-10-19, 6:52 pm

In article <NOSPAmar2005-6B21CB.08410919102005@freenews.iinet.net.au>,
Eric Lindsay <NOSPAmar2005@ericlindsay.com> wrote:

> In article <vilain-E47238.01084318102005@comcast.dca.giganews.com>,
> Michael Vilain <vilain@spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> ...
>
>
> John Gruber at Daring Fireball had written an online CSS checker in Perl
> and Applescript. It calls the W3C CSS validator to do the dirty work. It
> acts as a script in Barebones Software's free Text Wrangler editor. So
> I don't have any problem with doing validation of inline CSS as such. I
> expect to have the HTML validation working in a similar manner sometime
> soon (that is already included in BBEdit, I believe).
>
> I'm sorry, I didn't explain myself sufficiently clearly. I also
> probably clouded up the issue by mentioning an editor at all, but I am
> still feeling my way towards exactly what I am seeking. My crucial
> point should probably have been this line reprinted below, about the
> program enforcing correct input initially.
>
> I want to eliminate anything that lets you produce output that isn't
> valid (at least without the user deliberately trying to break the
> output).
>
> So I am now envisaging finding a program that (say) prompts you to enter
> the various sections of a web page. Or that lets you enter them free
> form but then enforces content labelling. There seem to be several
> visual web page creators, that let you drag stuff around and place it
> where you want. The problem I am seeing is that resultant HTML is all
> over the place. It is really bad for search engine optimisation and
> positioning.
>
> So I now seek a program where you have to enter a filename, a title, and
> a description, and keywords, and an h1 heading (one and only one) and a
> first paragraph, and at least be prompted at each stage for all these to
> be relevant for search engine optimisation. Then you are prompted for
> additional body text (which may well be cut and pasted from other
> material). You would get prompted or somehow encouraged to do suitable
> address material for a footer. Plus you would probably be prompted for
> other pages to which you want to link, perhaps from a list of
> pre-existing pages. If you want sidebar material you would be prompted
> for that. Same for photos (perhaps from a photo browser). Bonus points
> if the program also does link checking, and updates a web site.
>
> The output must be valid html and css, but you (or someone) might decide
> to fine tune the results using some other editor. I realise I may not
> be able to find a program that does everything perfectly, but something
> that prompts a business owner or secretary towards a reasonable first
> cut at each web page would be really helpful.

Ick! Get it away from me! Why anyone would want an editor that
_forces_ conformance to any sort of coding standard. Isn't it the
programmer's job to _know_ what the coding standards are, anyway? But
there's no accounting for tastes, I suppose.

The closest thing I can think of that might be what you're looking for
was unfortunately on a VMS machine. DEC re-invented the wheel yet again
and came out with a "Language Sensitive Editor" (LSE) rather than just
porting emacs. It had a user-modifiable template of each language the
system supported. If you wanted to put a conditional statement into the
buffer, you typed the partial command "IF" and pressed the ESC key. LSE
filled in a template of the parts of the IF statement for that language
and let you fill in the tokens as needed or delete parts you didn't
need. Don't like the way it does paren indents? Change the system
template or define your own private one.

I'm sure you could find something like this for emacs or write it
yourself.

--
DeeDee, don't press that button! DeeDee! NO! Dee...

Eric Lindsay

2005-10-20, 6:49 pm

In article <vilain-3F12F2.13452719102005@comcast.dca.giganews.com>,
Michael Vilain <vilain@spamcop.net> wrote:

> In article <NOSPAmar2005-6B21CB.08410919102005@freenews.iinet.net.au>,
> Eric Lindsay <NOSPAmar2005@ericlindsay.com> wrote:
....[color=darkred]
>
> Ick! Get it away from me! Why anyone would want an editor that
> _forces_ conformance to any sort of coding standard.

Perhaps because conformance to a coding standard produces results more
likely to work? If I am going to do this sort of stuff, I want the
result to be nice and clean, but without taking too much hand work for
the html and css. I note many programmers now work in an IDE rather than
starting with an empty vi file. Besides which, any programmer can force
almost anything to produce code that looks like they were still writing
in Fortran.

> Isn't it the
> programmer's job to _know_ what the coding standards are, anyway? But
> there's no accounting for tastes, I suppose.

It seems silly to me to have a programmer waste time writing html from
scratch, which is why I am rapidly going away from an html editor. But
most of the people wanting web pages are not programmers, and don't want
to be programmers. A lot of them have just become convinced their
business needs a web page, often mostly because they have been asked
what their web page address is. They are really only looking for a
slightly extended business card, certainly not over a half dozen pages.
Most won't be selling anything over the web.

I have been finding that the biggest problem with doing web pages for
small businesses is getting the content from them. I can push them to
think about things like appropriate first cut keywords, and
descriptions, but it all takes a lot of hands on time. I'd rather do a
quick talk, and give them a set of template notes, and a program that
pushes them to enter their own content. That way they can take a week
to enter the stuff if they like.

When I have the result (valid html files that could be put straight on
their site - and may well be), I can clean them up and fine tune the CSS
with whatever editor I like.

> The closest thing I can think of that might be what you're looking for
> was unfortunately on a VMS machine. DEC re-invented the wheel yet again
> and came out with a "Language Sensitive Editor" (LSE) rather than just
> porting emacs. It had a user-modifiable template of each language the
> system supported. If you wanted to put a conditional statement into the
> buffer, you typed the partial command "IF" and pressed the ESC key. LSE
> filled in a template of the parts of the IF statement for that language
> and let you fill in the tokens as needed or delete parts you didn't
> need. Don't like the way it does paren indents? Change the system
> template or define your own private one.

I didn't encounter LSE, but then I hardly ever saw VMS machines (EE had
one, I recall). Sounds an interesting approach, albeit more elaborate
than I want to try as a first cut at this problem. I still can't
believe I can't find a pre-existing program to do this.

> I'm sure you could find something like this for emacs or write it
> yourself.

I've started templating in bash, more to get concrete experience with
what is needed than as an actual prototype. Been fairly handy, as I am
seeing things I need to have in a program that I had not considered
previously. However my starting point is that I don't want to write
this, I want to find an existing solution and pay to use it.

Hmm, I wonder whether I should be looking at some of the blogging
programs that allow templates? Perhaps they do 80% of what I want?
I've never used blogging software, but they must be looking at a similar
situation (well, maybe except for search engine optimisation).

--
http://www.ericlindsay.com