I have been a member of this site for a number of years but note that my last post was circa 1009/2010. I used to design Web pages for customers, using Crimson Editor to write my HTML code and CSS style sheets. I have been doing other things for the last 2-3 years, so I am rusty on my HTML (or is it XHML these days?) and my CSS knowledge is probably from the CSS1 days.

What I need advice on is as follows:

1. what is a good text editor to use to write HTML and CSS code? - not a WYSIWYG one, or one that does it all for you, but one where you type in the code and perhaps it colour codes those bits it recognises as valid commands, values, and attributes so you know you are on the right track ... or, indeed, are text editors a thing of the past, like me ;
2. when I am brushing up on my CSS and HTML, which versions are in use these days and therefore which ones should I be studying?

I look forward to your advice and thanks in advance for it.

James

Shame on you! But welcome back.



Don't worry. XHTML came and went. It has been discontinued. The next rave is HTML5. Note that one must write that without space, unlike HTML 3.2, HTML 4.01 and so on. It shows how modern it is.

HTML 4.01 still works just fine.



Text editors will never go out of style. A lot have syntax highlighting, but I don't know about marking out not valid HTML. I don't have anything to recommend because I think the choice of editor is very personal. What's the best for me isn't necessarily the best for you or Darin.

What's wrong with Crimson though? Why can't you continue to use it?

It looks like Crimson (which apparently is for Windows OS only) practically does the same thing as BBEdit or TextWrangler on Mac. So, that seems ok to me.

As for CSS, we are at CSS3 now, though only the latest modern standards compliant browsers support (some of) its features. Have a look at http://css3generator.com/ . For the rest, you can safely use CSS 2.1.

Actually HTML5 lets you use both HTML and XHTML syntax. Seems you can even mix syntax in the same document (unless I missed something).

Yes, I've learnt the same, to my great disappointment. :missing_puke_smilie:



Yeah? Haven't you noticed? Silly and irritating. I think I'll call it HTML 5 just because.

I like vim (vi improved), which has syntax highlighting and all sorts of other features. But choice of a text editor is a rather personal thing.

As pandy indicated, HTML 4.01 still works just fine. HTML5 looks interesting, and includes new functionality that could prove very useful. And it looks like it's getting more traction than HTML 3.0 (RIP) ever did. But unless you need HTML5 functionality and are prepared to deal with the quirks of early browser implementations, I see no reason to move on from HTML 4.01.

CSS 2.1 essentially documented the status quo of browser support when it was created, and is reasonably safe. CSS 3 is a collection of projects, each extending a different "module" of CSS 2.1. Browser support varies from module to module.

Note that HTML5 doesn't replace HTML4.01, rather it builds on it, so there should be no problem using the much shorter HTML5 Doctype while still limiting yourself to the HTML4.01 (or XHTML1.0) elements.

One case where HTML5 is not totally backwards compatible with HTML4.01 might be the definition of phrase elements like U, S, B and I.

Except there is no point in doing so.

Well, first I'd need to figure out how to run an HTML5 validator on my Mac, but yes, I could switch the doctype declaration but limit myself to HTML 4.01 initially.

The short Doctype alone makes it worth the trouble to me. Just imagine the embarrasment when someone asks you to make a quick web page on their computer (where you don't have your own tools) and you need to google for the very first line of code already. (Skipping the Doctype is not an option, since the resulting quirksmode makes much of your CSS experience go out the window.)


The WDG's online validator doesn't support HTML5 either (any plans for that, BTW?), which means everytime I recommend the HTML5 Doctype I must also include a note to use W3C's validator. Maybe I should stop recommending the HTML5 Doctype to save me all the typing...

So, for show-off reasons.

It has always been possible to type up a fake doctype to trigger Standards Mode. That's the reason the HTML5 one exists and looks like it does.

Pandy, Christian, Darin, and Frederiek

Thank you all so much for your advice and help.

James

I suspect that adding support for HTML 5 isn't a simple task since there is no DTD.

James, I'm curious about why you want a new editor.