authoring enviroment:

Setting up your authoring enviroment

Before you actually begin to write some html there are a couple of things to consider.
Make sure that your PC has enough free memory  (RAM) to run the text  editor or WYSIWYG and the browser simultaneously.
So that you can switch quickly between the text  editor or WYSIWYG and the browser to view your handy work, and to repair any errors in your html code.
Many people resize the text  editor and browser windows, so that they have the text  editor in the top half of the monitor and the browser filling the bottom half.
So that they dont need to switch windows to look at the document after making changes to it.
Some people have the windows as large as possible so that there is just a sliver of the other window visible, just enough to click on to bring it into view.
If you like to work with both of the windows maximised (at full screen) you can click on the buttons  on the task bar to switch between windows.
This is a great technique to use, I found it in a book by Danny Goodman on JavaScript, and the typical workflow entails the following steps.

Windows OS:

  1. Enter html code into your source document in the text  editor.
  2. Save the document to disk  (HDD).
  3. Switchto the browser.
  4. If this is a new document open the file via the browser's menu, ie File/Open
    If the document is already loaded then just reload the document, by using the browser’s reload/refresh button, or press F5 on the keyboard.

The steps 2 to 4 are the key one in the process  you will follow frequently when your writing html code.
Danny Goodman calls this three–step sequence the save–switch–reload sequence.
Once you have got comfortable  with the arrangement  of the application windows you will perform the sequence so often it will soon become second nature.

Using the Windows Alt+Tab task–switching  keyboard shortcut makes the save–switch–reload steps outlined above a breeze.
If you run a Windows PC and the text  editor you are using is Windows–compatible you can use the Ctrl+S file–saving  keyboard shortcut, and Ctrl+R will reload the page in the browser or press F5.
It is possible to effect the save–switch–reload  sequence from the keyboard with just your left hand with a little bit of practice.
By using this technique as long as you keep switching between the browser and the text  editor via the Alt+Tab task–switching keyboard shortcut, either program will always be just an Alt+Tab away.

Mac OS:

On a computer that runs the MacOSX  you can change between the text  editor and browser, via  the Dock.
This can be done more easily by typing  xding character - Tab.
As long as you only have these two applications  open, then the other program is always
one xding character - Tab away.

  1. Press xding character - S ( save source file).
  2. Press xding character - Tab (switch to the browser).
  3. Press xding character - R (reload the saved source file).

To return to the text  editor and the source file,  press xding character - Tab again.

light bulb icon On the whole the simple page reload is enough to let you test a revised version of an html document, but some times the browser’s cache may preserve parts of the previous pages attributes when you refresh/reload the page, even though you have changed the source code.
It is possible to make a more thorough reload by simply holding down  the shift key whilst you click the reload/refresh button on the browser.
You could disable the browser’s cache in the preferences, but this may have a negative effect on performance when you are browsing the web later, if you forget to enable the browser’s cache again.
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