Discuss the evolution of Web design tools, and include a definition of the term WYSIWYG in your response.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

In the early days of Web design, most Web pages contained only text and were created by typing HTML into documents using a simple text editor such as Notepad or Simple Text. To create a Web page, you had to know how to write HTML from scratch. As the Web evolved, Web authors began to create more complex graphical interfaces. This made creating Web pages from scratch cumbersome. HTML was designed by scientists as a means of sharing information. Using HTML for graphically complex interfaces involves intricate HTML structures that are impractical for most people to type. Furthermore, artists, graphic designers, businesspeople, and nonprogrammers who wanted to create Web pages did not necessarily want to learn all the intricacies of coding in HTML. This led to the development of software packages that allowed people to design Web pages by typing, placing, and manipulating content in an environment that more closely approximated the look of the Web page they wanted to create. The software actually wrote the HTML for them. These software packages were originally referred to as WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) programs because the Web page is displayed in the program window as it will appear to the end user and the code is hidden from sight. Today, the acronym WYSIWYG is used infrequently because almost all software is designed to show you what you get as you work. The acronym has also been critiqued as a misnomer with Web software because what you get really depends on the specific browser and version used to view the page.

With these Web software packages, people who were not programmers could design Web pages, and designers gained even more control over the look of their sites across the various browsers.  Dreamweaver grew out of this need for easy-to-use, visual tools that enable Web authors to rapidly develop reliable and well-coded Web pages. Dreamweaver has become one of the most widely used site development and management tools because of its ease of use, accurate HTML output, and powerful tool set.With Dreamweaver, you can successfully create a Web site without knowing any HTML. However, some familiarity with HTML enables you to make the site work better, fix problems that arise, and create elements that are difficult or impossible to create in Dreamweaver.