[WM] handling real HTML

[Eric S. Johansson]

Brian Wisti wrote:
> Hi Eric,
> 
> I'm not sure I agree with your opinions, but that's why I get to have
> a personal bias ;-)

:-)

> 
> You could certainly create content in your favorite WYSIWYG editor and
> then refer to it in your .wmk file with a <contents /> tag. But why
> not use whatever site management utilities are available in your
> favorite editor? Dreamweaver is pretty good in that regard, and it
> also has a plugin environment that lets people develop breadcrumb
> generators and other nifty stuff like that. I'm not saying "don't use
> WebMake", but it does seem like you would be duplicating a lot of
> functionality by using your average WYSIWYG editor in combination with
> WebMake.

I must admit that I have always had low expectations for HTML editors 
and I have yet to see those expectations exceeded.  Even when I have 
tried to use expensive HTML editors like Dreamweaver I am struck by the 
fact that these people really do a crappy job with human factors.  For 
example, I lost three hours trying to learn Qantas 
(http://quanta.sourceforge.net/).  And like every other HTML editor 
(first page, vue, coffee cup, hot dog (circa 2000) etc.) they have a 
bunch of complicated features that you need to use to manager project 
but the basic tool problem of HTML editing with cascading style sheets 
is completely neglected.

For example, you should be able to draw a picture of what you need and 
have it generate cascading style sheets.  Taking user interface 
metaphors from drawing programs, you should be able to "eyedropper" 
something from your cascading style sheet and apply style to individual 
HTML elements or groups of them.

additionally, it should be possible to build a skeleton of a document, 
build the individual components, identify which parts come from a list 
and then build a set of pages.

this gives me an idea.  In the camram antispam system, I got frustrated 
with excessive complexity found in most Web application development 
environments and started a much simpler finite state machine modeled 
development environment (i.e. 15 minute learning curve).  In that system 
I use a simple template tool which just merges text based on symbols.  I 
may be able to do I want (minus cascading style sheets) using and 
ordinary HTML editor, this template tool and some simple python.  It 
could be parameterized all to hell and the only problem would be the 
management of that parameterization.  hmmm yet another diversion.  will 
leave the web page for another day.

---eric


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