views:

139

answers:

2

Since I'm new to the world of professional web/HTML and ASP design, I'm curious of what others in the field use when building pages from nothing. I'm not one to use MS Word to design my page or form, and then just stick it on the net. My background in UI design is really in Win32, then MFC, WTL, and now some Winforms...

But, I'm finding it very difficult to design say, a table and remember how many total columns you have, so that all your TR's have the correct number of colspans, (if I'm using them, as you would in most cases..) and I don't leave anything open to incorrect design.

I'm just using VS2008 for all my design, but as far as HTML/ASP design, all it REALLY has to offer is IntelliSense, TAB completion, etc. Which, don't get me wrong, are a big help, but they don't complete things like table designs for you.

Am I just using the tools wrong? Is there already tools, and options in place in VS2008 to 'validate' and point out your mistakes, like missing colspanss, or colspans that don't match other rows is in the table? Am I looking in the wrong place for this?

Should I even be USING tables anymore? I know some people are all about DIV's, and I do use them, but when they seem necessary. For basic layout a table works just fine...

Instead of designing in 'text' mode, should I just let the IDE do all my layout, and then go back in source mode and tweak stuff that needs it?

If this is a duplicate, I do apologize. I didn't see any subjects that matched what I was asking in this question at the time I wrote this.

+2  A: 

I exclusively use a text editor (albeit with syntax highlighting). I check sites at the end using a validator.

I use tables for tabular data, which is what they were designed for. For that reason I don't usually end up losing track of columns, etc. When I do use tables, they are also usually auto-generated based on a template, so making mistakes is even harder.

MattJ
+1 the web is designed to be authored from a text editor! And yes, if you're finding it difficult to remember the number of columns in your layout tables, you've probably got too-complicated tables, which some use of CSS may be able to help you with.
bobince
+1 text editors ftw, nasty IDE's (especially WYSIWYG ones) ftl
annakata
I don't disagree with the text editors, I'm a ASCII type of person myself. What I was looking for was more of a power editor than a WYSIWYG solution...
LarryF
+2  A: 

There is a nice open source tool similar to Dreamweaver called Aptana that you can download. Also, you can download the Visual Web Developer Express Edition to do HTML and ASP work.

http://www.aptana.com/

http://www.microsoft.com/express/vwd/

Hope this helps!

The Sheek Geek