Multimedia Technology - Part 1 - Software

Authoring and Web Development Software

HTML (Hyper Text Mark up Language) text editors are software packages designed to enable the user to develop a web site using HTML and several technologies or mark up languages as a opposed to usually using one on a program such as Notepad for instance. An HTML text editor gives the user the option of using not only the HTML mark up language but also offers HTML related technologies such as Java, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) or XML (eXstensible Mark up Language) to further enhance their web page, make it more attractive or more user friendly.
HTML text editors such as Notepad++, NoteTab Pro or Textmate are much easier to use than Notepad with many features such as Syntax highlighting (and brace and indent highlighting), split screen editing and page zooming. None of these are included in the basic Notepad program and therefore only a basic and maybe unappealing website could be constructed.

Web authoring software such as KompoZer Nvu, Dreamweaver and Frontpage are known as WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) packages. These allow the user to design a webpage by a means of ‘building’ it on screen, the screen displays how your website should look as you are constructing it. The problem being with authoring software is that often is the case that the final web page does not actually look exactly like the one you have constructed and different web browsers may display it in different ways and not how you intended. For instance, characters may be displayed differently or may evenbe unrecognizable.

HTML text Editors would be used by someone starting out in HTML or with little or no basic knowledge of web development in order to learn mark up languages. If they were to use web authoring software initially without learning primer HTML etc. they would probably be able to build a basic and unattractive web site but would be unable to identify any problems that may arise through lack of knowledge of the languages. Therefore more experienced people with a good knowledge of HTML and mark up languages would use authoring software to it’s full potential and would be far more likely to solve any problems or hard to locate glitches that may occur in the end result web pages.
Web Authoring software is as mentioned above a lot more powerful than normal text editors and it could be used by teachers, schools or any organisation that wants to create a online quiz, test or requires an e-learning website.