Dreamweaver and other programs - do you use them?

[meee]

I am wondering if those programs can be in any help? For example to make a form, maybe it can be helpful to just drag and drop form elements and than modify the code. So do you use them, do they make a proper code or do you code all html and css by hand?

[ralph.m]

I don't trust the code that Dw et al. put in your pages. I prefer hand coding. But I also keep snippets of code (like forms etc) and just paste them where I need them.

[PicnicTutorials]

Search and replace in DW is helpful too. I've used it a few times. Still don't trust it though. Though it's never gone wrong.

[Karpie]

Never in a million years.

[ralph.m]

Search and replace in DW is helpful too. I've used it a few times. Still don't trust it though. Though it's never gone wrong.

Agreed. It is very handy. I find Dw a very good code editor. I just wouldn't use it in WYSIWYG mode. I find it nicer to use than TextMate, Coda etc.

[PicnicTutorials]

I hand code obviously. But I also use the tag completion (whatever it's called?) in DW. For instance, I type <div> and then I only have to type </ and DW will finish it for me. So I guess I only hand code 3/4 of it.

[noonnope]

I use notepad++ with Zen Coding for mark up shortcuts and QuickText for quick text templates (snippets of code).

As a simple example, you can write something like this: div#nav and it will make you a <div id="nav"></div>.

[praetor]

I'm using visual studio which IMO has better tag completion support than DW (but I haven't used DW in a while) and jQuery completion for 'serious' projects and Notepad++ for quick edits.

[xhtmlcoder]

I just wave my hands in a complicated pattern and markup just appears on screen like magic...

Though like others have said never trust a WYSINWYG Editor mode. You need to be able to flex your fingers and edit by hand rather than relying upon a software prefabricated drag-and-drop feature. Obviously some IDEs have auto complete and so-fifth than can be used while typing syntax 'hand coding' to give your fingers a little rest.

[scout1idf]

I use Notepad (the one that comes with the computer) and Free CSS Toolbox from blumentals.net.

They work well enough....

[zbing]

Yes but i stay away from the WYSIWYG stuff.
It's an excellent code editor.

[Paul O'B]

DW has a great code editor (one of the best that I've seen) but is very slow on large documents though. It's formatting, code collapse, code hinting and error highlighting along with ftp integration make it a useful tool. It's a shame the code editor isn't sold by itself rather than having to pay hundreds of pounds for stuff that's never used.

As others have said stay way from its wysiwyg functions and don't use design view.