19 Dec Designing when it was all done in Notepad

Designing a website used to be a completely different experience compared to what it is today. In the early days of the web, designers would build sites using Notepad, a basic text editor that came with Windows. Designing a website in Notepad was a challenging task that required a lot of technical knowledge and a deep understanding of HTML and CSS.

Despite its limitations, Notepad was the tool of choice for many web designers in the 1990s and early 2000s. Designers would start by writing the HTML code for the site in Notepad, adding tags and attributes to create the basic structure of the page. They would then use CSS to add styling and layout to the page, using Notepad to tweak the code until the design was just right.

One of the biggest challenges of designing in Notepad was the lack of visual feedback. Unlike modern web design tools, which allow designers to see their designs in real-time, Notepad provided no visual representation of the code being written. This meant that designers had to rely on their knowledge of HTML and CSS to imagine how their design would look when it was finally rendered in a web browser.

Another limitation of Notepad was the lack of features and shortcuts that are now standard in modern web design tools. For example, there was no code completion or syntax highlighting, which made it easy to make errors in the code. Designers had to manually check their code for errors, often using a separate program to validate their HTML and CSS.

Despite these challenges, designing in Notepad had its advantages. It allowed designers to work directly with the code, giving them complete control over the design of their site. This level of control was not possible with the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors that were available at the time, which often generated bloated and messy code.

Designing in Notepad also required a deep understanding of HTML and CSS, which encouraged designers to learn and master these technologies. This level of expertise gave designers a competitive advantage in the early days of the web, when there were few tools and resources available to help them build websites.

In conclusion, designing a website in Notepad was a challenging and time-consuming task that required a lot of technical knowledge and skill. Despite its limitations, Notepad was the tool of choice for many web designers in the early days of the web, and it played a crucial role in the development of modern web design. Today, designers have access to a wide range of tools and resources that make the process of designing a website much easier, but the lessons learned from designing in Notepad continue to influence web design to this day.