[Fr0styMatt]

Why is WYSIWYG not used? Is it just that the available tools aren't good?

I would have thought that writing raw HTML would be a bit like writing raw WinForms code these days, or writing XAML by hand instead of using the forms designer.

Note that's the narrow application of visual editors I'm thinking of here - laying out buttons, binding events to buttons, binding data to elements, etc; not the "create a pretty looking page and have it spit out horrible HTML" type stuff.

[MrBra]

You can use WYSIWYG editors but make sure that they comply with latest HTML and CSS specifications, so that when you want to manually modify the code, you will find yourself in a well structured framework and not in a jungle of incoherent code.

If you want to go WYSIWYG, I think Dreamweaver is keeping up fine with times and it's still one of the most complete tools https://www.adobe.com/products/dreamweaver.html

But these days thanks to the evolution of the web itself, a lot of modern online tools are coming out. For example check the power of https://webflow.com/ I believe that being these new tools "indier" and lighter, they have the chance to keep up faster with the new technologies and best practices of web design!

Of course the best is - before using these tools - knowing about what the best practices (in terms of code) those tools are implementing (if they are) in their rendered code. For example you should learn about how much Twitter Bootstrap [http://getbootstrap.com/] simplified layout design for web for since a couple of years now, and then maybe you will recognize those tools using it in the code they generate, and then you'll feel you can take over by yourself and further change things at your need. Another example is jQuery.

Also, in my opinion, some kind of new fundamental learning/building facilities these days are "developer tools" that come with browsers (Firefox and Chrome). For example check https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Page_Inspecto... You don't know how much you can learn from using them!

But, If you want to get to know even more, and start a journey in a path of learning nothing worked more for me as than this little big interconnected learning path: http://www.bentobox.io/

Hope I updated you a bit with times, good luck! :)

[MrBra]

And.. what a timing: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2014/06/webide-lands-in-nightly/

[Spoom]

Most WYSIWYG stuff I've used (long ago, mind you) was quickly not granular enough to be worthwhile. Very often I'll be working with HTML that is any of these:

- initially hidden

- meant to be rendered as part of a larger whole

- needs to be a specific element, have a specific structure, have a specific ID / class

- contains serverside code / include that renders additional HTML

- is actually a domain template language such as Mustache or Smarty that the tool may not understand

- is greatly changed by CSS (which may itself need to be compiled, such as in the case of LESS or SASS)

WYSIWYG tools usually can't grok the context of cases like that and if you try to use them, they end up taking more time than it would to simply write out the HTML oneself.