The Computer Revolution/Programming/Web Authoring Software

Web authoring software

Website creation has changed from simply writing some Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) code and loading to the World Wide Web. HTML is what the first website developers had to use and, while it worked, by itself it is cumbersome and tedious. It still serves a major role in web site design and is the main markup language for displaying web pages and other information that can be displayed in a web browser. However, the growing demand for complicated and complex websites has grown to help foster the creation of Web Authoring Software. Website creation now encompasses a range of skills including graphic design, web design, programming, system integration, audio editing and video editing. Larger commercial web sites use Content Management Systems (CMS) such as Drupal and Joomla (open source), Adobes’ Dreamweaver (commercial software) and WordPress (also open source). These Web authoring software programs encompass a variety of programming tools and languages including PHP, Ruby on Rails and JavaScript, and WYSIWYG HTML editors to provide custom features quickly to a website under construction. Web authoring software is software used by web designers and developers to create applications and websites across multiple platforms including tablets and browsers. A primary purpose of using Web authoring software is to utilize web standards based framework for websites that flow easily across multiple screens. Web authoring software automates and organizes many of the tasks and steps needed to put together a well thought out website. Web site prototypes are created using artwork, video, audio, and text, using accepted standards for web page creation.

A key feature of Web authoring software is the ability to layout semantic web design using CSS inspectors and tools. A CSS page layout uses the Cascading Style Sheets format, rather than traditional HTML tables or frames, to organize the content on a web page. The basic building block of the CSS layout is the "div tag"—an HTML tag that in most cases acts as a container for text, images, and other page elements. When you create a CSS layout, you place div tags on the page, add content to them, and position them in various places. Unlike table cells, which are restricted to existing somewhere within the rows and columns of a table, div tags can appear anywhere on a web page. Website developers position div tags by specifying floats, paddings, and margins, the preferred methods by today’s web standards.

Commercial Web authoring software (for instance Dreamweaver CS6) eliminates having to make CSS layouts from scratch. This may be very desirable because unaided CSS layout can be very time-consuming and be difficult because there are so many ways to do it. Simple two-column CSS layout may be accomplished by setting floats, margins, paddings, and other CSS properties in a nearly infinite number of combinations. CSS layouts made from scratch will not display properly in some browsers. Dreamweaver allows the building of pages with CSS layouts by providing 16 pre-designed layouts that work across different browsers.

Further reading

• Authoring Webpages
• HyperText Markup Language
• Cascading Style Sheets