Lately I’ve been curious about how other people use WordPress. Recently I asked if people preferred the visual or html editor in WordPress via Twitter.
I received 9 responses after asking twice. Since I have almost 500 followers, that isn’t a very good ratio but I doubt all of my followers use WordPress and of course, not everyone is logged in at the same exact time as me nor are they interested in answering my questions. What is also interesting is that only 1 of the 9 responses came from a woman. I’m not sure what this says about my followers or who is interested in WordPress or even who was online but it’s still interesting. Well, at least to me it is.
And survey says:
- Visual: 1
- HTML: 4
- Both: 2
- Other: 2
I was relieved to see that most of those surveyed use the html editor. I prefer it as well although I also fall into the other category as I frequently write my articles in Notepad++ and then copy them into WordPress. I think it’s good for people to use the HTML editor for 2 reasons; 1) it produces cleaner code and 2) it provides a familiarity with HTML that is useful in making edits in other parts of the template files. The people who gave reasons for preferring the HTML editor said it was because it produced cleaner code or that they didn’t trust the visual editor.
I am not against the visual editor as it does provide those without knowledge of HTML to blog. I use the text editor because I first learned HTML in 1995, typed all the tags into Notepad, and can’t seem to break myself of this habit. When I do use the WordPress text editor, I sometimes use the buttons for link and images to speed things up but I still frequently find myself typing in everything manually. Actually, when I install a fresh version of WordPress one of the first things I do is turn off the visual editor. I just know I’m not going to use it and when I insert any other code, such as PHP, into my posts the visual editor flashes annoying warnings at me.
Those who use both tend to write articles in the visual editor and then clean the code up with the html editor. I want to see what I am writing looks like too, so I write in html and then use the “Preview this Post” button to view the article is a new browser tab. Those who reported other use either a Word Processor and Windows Live Writer. And, I, of course, use a text editor.
So, do you use the Visual Editor, the HTML editor, or other? If you could let me know what you use and why in the comments, I would really appreciate it. I would love to hear about something really creative or even about something absurdly off the wall.
photo credit: jenniewoo
“Those who use both tend to write articles in the visual editor and then clean the code up with the html editor” – this is exactly what I’m doing.
Vered – MomGrind’s last blog post – Wordless Wednesday: Mona Lisa, Enhanced
Hi Vered,
It’s interesting to me that so many people write their posts that way. Maybe I should try it – I might write faster and fuss less over the html.
This is an interesting topic :) Due to my programming background (and less editing/writing), I tend to use HTML directly even though visual editing features are getting better release after release.
Somehow, we were always taught to handcode and I am convinced that handcoding produces the lightest codebase.
Cheers,
Ajith
Ajith Edassery’s last blog post – Backlinks.com – Make money out of your blogroll and site links
Hi Kim,
I have a suggestion for an article for you, perhaps you’ve already written something like this. But as a non-technical guy who is learning a good glossary of terms would be very helpful. Sometimes I don’t understand what you’re saying. You coders do use a whole different language. Image padding for example – I haven’t a clue.
Here’s another idea that has been frustrating the hell out of me. Comment Luv. As you can see buy the post above it did not pick up my latest post. I’f say it’s working about 50% of the time for me. Techies tell me that if that happens it’s on your end not mine. But I look up and see other commenters on your blog who it did work for. Any idea what’s going on?
Tom Volkar / Delightful Work’s last blog post – Finding Your Business Sweet Spot
@Ajith – Thanks for visiting and for your advice last night :-)
I’m with you on this. I just don’t trust visual editors to produce the code that I want. Admittedly, I have not really used a visual editor since my first disastrous experience with FrontPage – did you ever use it? It was terrible. I agree that visual editors have improved since then but even Windows Live Writer messes up image code. I actually turn the visual editor off for my username in WordPress and don’t touch it again.
Hi Tom,
Thanks for raising the point about terms used for techie and non-techie types. That issue has actually been coming up for me a lot lately especially in one of the projects I am working on with someone. I have to remind myself that just because something is common knowledge to me that it may not be for others and I’m working on explaining things in everyday language. Sometimes it is difficult to find a balance as I have a diverse group of readers.
Are you referring to a guide about HTML and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) or WordPress? I think you mean CSS but I’m not positive. All of these are enormous topics and that would be quite an undertaking – perhaps it is something for me to consider over the long term. A good idea for an article, however, may be the most commonly used terms – the ones that you are most likely to encounter and need to edit.
Image padding is basically the amount of white space around an image. It is similar to a margin. If you look at the image at the top of the article, the amount of white space between the border and the text is the padding.
I searched for some CSS Tutorials for Beginners and found that most of them still assume a certain level of knowledge. This one is the best that I’ve located so far. http://www.cssdog.com/css_intro.html
Ok – about CommentLuv. I would need to look into this a little bit more and may email the developer (he actually helped me with a problem I was having with the plugin) but it is my understanding that the plugin is trying to do a lot of work in a short time period. If it doesn’t post the link to the commenter’s last article, the fault is not with the commenter, the author, or the actual plugin, but is instead the interaction of all three.
The code in the plugin starts working on this site. When someone leaves a comment the plugin needs to read the URL of the commenter, find that website, find the last article, and bring the information back to to where the comment was posted. At any point there can be a breakdown in communication. If my server is slow and your server is slow, commentluv can’t bring the link back quickly enough and I believe it stops working and then allows the comment to be posted normally.
I hope that explanation didn’t make it more confusing. Interestingly enough, commentluv was able to do it’s job on your second comment but failed the first time.
Kim thanks for your thorough response to my questions/issues. I agree a beginners glossary of just the most common would be helpful.
Commnet Luv has been driving me nuts because it works sometimes and other times not. But sometimes when it does work – it pulls my next to most recent most not the most recent one. That’s what it did above, even though I put a new post up on Thursday it grabbed Mondays. That’s why I thought it could have something to do with my feed. I’ll stay subscribed to this comment feed just in case you find something out form the developer. Thanks again. You know your stuff!
Tom Volkar / Delightful Work’s last blog post – Spirit and Business
Tom – I emailed Andy Bailey , the author of commentluv, and he told me my explanation on why the URL isn’t always found is correct.
There is a theory as to why it will pull the previous post rather than the current one. In order to reduce load on the web server the server will be set to deliver a cached page to this kind of “backdoor” request. If your webhost is doing this, your current post isn’t in the cache and your previous post is delivered.
Andy also suggested testing your feed URL at http://internetsupervision.com/
If it takes longer than 5 seconds to any of the servers being tested then commentluv probably won’t be able to add your post to the comment.
Also, he is beta-testing the next version, which should be released soon. It will do the following “you can choose your default feed location which makes retrieving much quicker and the last blog post is shown before you submit the comment so you know if it’s worked or not” Of course, this will only work on sites that install plugin updates.
I hope that helps.
Kim thanks again that’s above and beyond what I expected. I tested my feed time and I’m under 5 seconds so it must be the servers. I’ll talk to Bluehost and see what they say.n Thanks again.
Tom Volkar / Delightful Work’s last blog post – Authentic Business Discovery
Hi Tom,
It really wasn’t a big deal. :-) I’ve corresponded with Andy before. He’s really helpful and answers questions super fast.
Just an FYI – I posted a comment on Blogging Without a Blog yesterday and comment luv pulled my previous article too. Granted, the newest one hadn’t been up long but my guess is that web servers do serve pages from the cache to reduce load. It sounds like the upcoming version of the plugin may help alleviate this issue.
Hi Kim ~ I just came across your post (and your blog) and it’s funny … I’ve often wondered how other use WordPress to write their posts too (visual or html). I’m not very confident in my coding abilities but I do make myself look at the code as often as possible so that I can train myself to “like” it. LOL
I look forward to following your blog. *SmiLes* Suzanne
Suzanne@Money Making Ideas’s last blog post – What is an RSS Feed and Why You Should Offer One on Your Blog
Hi Suzanne – Thank you so much for visiting and commenting. It takes a very special person to think I’m as funny as I think I am ;-) I think it’s a good idea for bloggers to become familiar with some html even if they use the visual editor.
I use the HTML editor, sometimes shifting to visual if I need to.
Hardeep Singh’s last blog post – Forest fire
@Hardeep – Thanks for visiting and commenting. I use the html editor and then preview rather than switching to the visual editor.