[WEB4LIB] Learning curve: HTML or WYSIWYG

[Raymond Wood]

On Mon, Oct 29, 2001 at 08:30:54AM -0800, Michelle Rempel remarked:
> Morning!
> 
> I'm likely going to be doing a day session with some of the librarians in 
> our region on basic web design and HTML.  I'm a purist and prefer to teach 
> HTML as I think that the difficulty level is less than trying to teach a 
> WYSIWYG.  Also, the librarians would be better equipped to sort out any 
> HTML problems later.  Finding a software product that they would all want 
> to purchase and possibly arranging licensing is a concern as well.
> 
> I've explained my point to my boss, but a more technologically savvy 
> librarian is asking about WYSIWYGs.  What opinions do you have?  From a 
> learning and training standpoint, what have you found to be best?  Would a 
> WYSIWYG encourage librarians to create and update a website more than 
> HTML?  I should mention that I've done the HTML route before and found that 
> most pick up on it quickly.

>From a training/learning perspective, you are correct, without
question (IMHO of course :)

Set them up with Notepad and a web browser, and have them create
a simple web page.  This will get the point across that HTML
pages are nothing more than ASCII text with markup tags (and
this is intentional).  At the end of the session, break out a
sample WYSIWYG tool - by now they will have some idea of what
such a tool actually does.  This can lead to productive
questions/discussion about the relative merits of WYSIWYG vs.
Code-based HTML Editors.  Mention HTML-Kit as a (free) example
of the latter...  :)

My $0.02,
Raymond