What an eye opening week I’ve had.
I’ve discovered that the Webmaster for the company I work for does not give one frikkin toss about web standards and has been designing one of our division’s web site using Dreamweaver’s Properties Drop Down Menu Window.
(If you’re not HTML-literate, I suggest that you skip this post, it might get a bit too technical. Why not visit one of my outbound links at the side there and come back when this post is done?)
For those of you familiar with Dreamweaver, you know that it magically creates CSS tags on the fly! Fine and dandy if you dont already have an external CSS page linked to the page you’re amending/editing. Which he’s been doing. Our webmaster is behaving exactly like some college dude that comes home and spreads all his stuff all over the frikkin apartment. Let me show you:
<html><head>
<!– #BeginEditable “doctitle” –>
<title>My Slave Driving Job Inc.</title><br>
Here we see our intrepid Webmaster using a line break tag within HEAD tag. <sarcasm>Sheer brilliance. </sarcasm> I dont know what he thought would happen…widen the title bar on the browser?
// End –></b>
Look deeply inside this Javascript “hide from old browsers” comment tag, still nested within the HEAD tags. See that poor little orphan closing BOLD tag? Weep with me people. Its all alone! And yes, it did screw up the page royally.
The next is a doozy:
<TD> <span class=”formtext”><font color=”#000066″><font color=”#000066″><font color=”#000066″><font color=”#000066″>*Province/State</font></font>
</font></font></span><span class=”style6″><font color=”#000066″>
<font color=”#000066″><font color=”#000066″>
<font color=”#000066″>:</font></font></font>
</font></span>
<font color=”#000066″><font color=”#000066″><font color=”#000066″>
<font color=”#000066″></font></font><span class=”style2″>
<b><b><b><font color=”#000066″><b><font color=”#000066″><br>Various FORM information…
</font></b></font></b> </b></b></span></font>
</font></td>
Gaze upon the horror is that is Dreamweaver mangling code beyond recognition! Look as a Webmaster completely turns his back upon web standards, good code and neatness for the sake of “getting it done”. Weep with me as we think of the poor slob who will be stuck cleaning up after his thoughtless stream of HTML diarrhea.
You are looking at our Webmaster’s attitude in code form right there. This is what I have had to put up with all week. I am on the verge of saying full on to his face: “If you dont like your job then fuck off.”
Thing is, I am unsure if he is doing this because he doesn’t know better or he’s a lazy slob. He’s fresh out of Media school and I think they soaked him for his tuition. What school would allow this past their doors into the working world? DeVry?! Academy of Design? When I showed him this code he snorted and said: “I think there’s a spelling error in there too, Ted.” and turned away. Which makes me believe he’s a slob.
But today. Oh today. I learned today that he allowed one of our divisions’ websites to link to our main corporate site within it’s frameset…
GASP!
Think about it. You’re walking into Sears and within the first set of doors is another set of doors into a Dollar store. Would you not get confused and leave? I am not suprised to see the stats for the site are hovering around 10 to 20 seconds in lenght of stay. Effectively, the site is confusing the hell out of visitors and they are not booking online at all. No wonder. The trust between the company and visitor is ruined within seconds when they see a new website open up under the banner of the site they are currently in. It says to the guest “This site is poorly coded, and we don’t care.” Would you hand over your credit card number to these people?
So I am asked to redesign this site. Looks like I have a bit of work in front of me.
Damn. And I just got Half Life 2
13 thoughts on “Still My Dreamweaver Gently Weeps”
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I got to that exact point last night. I am slow too because my frigging life gets in the way (ha ha ha just kidding, dear). It reminded me of when I use to play CS online with Evil Panda and other GABbers. One thing that I loved doing was ramming into the squad to see what random thing pops out of their mouth “Oh Sorry Dr Freeman!” “Pardon me.” etc.
Thanks for the tip. I will look into that and maybe thrust it upon the hapless Webmaster.
The original Homesite 1.2, back when it was owned by Allaire, was pretty rockin’. I still have a zip of it somewhere buried on a CDR.
I can’t complain about the Macromedia version of it, except that they’ve bloated it with a ton of stuff I don’t end up using. But it’s still a good HTML editor. Just doesn’t load as fast as Notepad! 🙂
Actually, what I use is Notepad ++, an open source text editor that automatically color codes tags (not too dissimilar from Homesite) based on the type of file extension you save your file with. Very handy.
About HL2: I must be the slowest gamer ever, because I’m STILL trudging through this game! Just got to the part where you have human squad buddies. Fun fun!
Oh man, that made me laugh out loud. I’m teaching Dreamweaver now, and there was no prerequisite at this college for HTML. I managed to fit in one two-hour lecture on HTML/XHTML so my poor students have a tiny clue.
I’ve posted this link to my class website as a fave site of the week.
Miss you, Ted!
– dawn, AKA Candie Kohrne
I am no fan of Dreamweaver, really. Homesite was what I used before Macromedia bought it up. I still use it for nostalgia sake.
I should start using it at work, to freak out my webmaster…
I can’t stomach WYSIWYG html editors for this very reason. Frontpage, Dreamweaver, they’re really all the same.
Sure they can make pretty pages, and I used them myself for years, but if you take a look at the code they produce, its always a frightening experience.
I gotta agree with JazzCrazed. If you want pretty code, type it yourself 🙂
Ah. A co worker!
Kara, realize that I wrote that in utter frustration.
Our intrepid Webmaster may have a heart of gold but he does have an attitude problem when it comes to compliance. I pity his soul if XHTML is made standard tomorrow…
And I am glad that YOU are the poor HTML janitor. Thanks for your help.
hahahaha…ted…ted…ted…
I’ve just got the machine gun in the sewers, so I am no longer zooming in for head shots.
I would like to do away with frames but the company I work for is stuck in 1998 when it comes to web-think (“Can we put a spinning 3D globe on the home page?”). They 3rd-partied this form out and we can’t access it without it sitting in it’s own frame.
Nice site, btw, Jazzcrazed. Like your style.
Ew, frames.
If you have the choice, do HL2, first. Otherwise, if you’re like me, you won’t get to play it for a month while you do your redesign. Thankfully, I’d started mine in October, and finished just in time for the game’s release!
Down with Dreamweaver! Yeah to text editors!
OMG! I’m surprised you didn’t go completely berserk. I’d be choking the living sh*t out of that idiot. Someone needs to take away that incompetent fool’s computer.
You got Half Life 2?
yikes! i know nothing of html and do my site in dreamweaver. i don’t think you are ever allowed to look at it again! 😉 i don the blanket of shame.
hey doesn’t that dominion or whatever it is have a dollar store in it?