1. Text editors
If you "viewed source" on the previous slide you should still have an open window which contains the source code of the last page. (If you closed it, or never opened it, try opening one again now.) If you opened that window through Internet Explorer, you are already seeing the page in Notepad which is the simplest of all text editors.
A text editor is little more than a glorified typewriter but it is all you actually need to create the web pages which browsers interpret and display. If, for whatever reason (including using a different browser than IE), you do not have a Notepad window open, return to the Desktop and open one now. Either leave this new window blank, or press Ctrl+N to start a new blank document (there is no need to save the previous source code). On the next slide, we will be using this window to create a simple web page.
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2. HTML generators
Before doing that though I need to mention HTML generators like Dreamweaver and Front Page. These are web design tools that place you at one remove from the HTML by, basically, writing it for you. Instead, you design your page on a "canvas" that will make it look like the finished version. They are "WYSIWYG" or "What You See Is What You Get" editors.
Although these can be useful tools they do not bypass the HTML stage, merely hide it. And sometimes, if you don't know what is going on in the HTML "underneath" the generators, it can be difficult to get them to do what you want them to do. Also, it is not so easy to use HTML in creative or different ways because these new possibilities may not have been programmed into the generator. Because of this, many pages designed using generators tend to look similar.
Experience has shown that people who only learn generators find it difficult to grasp important, and sometimes quite fundamental, principles of web design. Once this course is over you will have more than enough HTML knowledge to turn to Dreamweaver - should you choose to - and use it well. But - apart from one occasion in the Advanced Web Techniques option - it won't play a part in this course.
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