Is there any HTML wysiwyg editor?

Question

I wonder whether there is any good WYSIWYG editor when it comes to editing complex HTML pages generated from ASP.NET, PHP, GWT or anything else. I've tried a lot of WYSIWYG tools, but after a certain point I always end up with manually editing the HTML source code or CSS to fix different issues. The editors I've tried are never compatible with the ASP.NET/PHP/etc code I'm writing.

Edit: I have used Visual Studio for a few years to do ASP.NET development. After a while, it always comes to the point where I can't even open the pages and user controls because they rely on so many things which aren't available in debug time.

Answer 1

You're not going to get anything that is perfect. You're almost always going to have to tweak the mark-up by hand at least a little bit.

Your best bet would probably be Adobe Dreamweaver for PHP and Visual Studio (Visual Studio Web Developer Express is free) for ASP.NET.

Answer 2

I love VS, but I'd rather make sweet love to a hedgehog than use the HTML editor. Expression Web does a much better job editing HTML.

Answer 3

Personally I think that Visual Studio is the best for ASP.NET, although Expression Web also seems to be pretty good.

But I personally I think it's the best for you to start writing more code and using the WYSIWYG part less and less. With Web applications it's all about the way they're displayed in the browser and I think that the browser is the tool which should be used for testing the GUI.

Answer 4

I agree, I have Expression Web right now and it works well. You can move stuff around in design view but will of course, as stated above, have to render the code manually. But it works if you wanna see the changes you have made. I would always of course view it in the browser and not just rely on the design view. Also W3Schools is a great tool.

Answer 5

WYSIWYG editors for complex web site/applications just never measure up IMHO.

The problem comes down to wanting control of the HTML/CSS markup, yet also the flexibility to create a GUI via drag-n-drop. (the 2 are almost polar opposites)

Take a very simple example.

In WYSIWYG mode, I type/create (pretend that World is on the line right after Hello (the Markdown editor forces me to add an extra line break)):

Hello

World

What HTML should the editor create?

Hello<br/>
<b>World</b>

<p>Hello</p>
<p><strong>World</strong></p>

<div>Hello</div>
<div><span style="font-weight:bold;">World</span></div>

<span class="abcNormal">Hello</span>
<br/>
<span class="abcBold">World</span>

(and a zillion more possibilities)

I still think the best thing you can have is an editor/IDE that understands your component/tags and provides auto-completion and code-assist/intellisense - paired up with a very quick deploy option to test changes ASAP in real browser(s)