Comparing Offline Editors For Bloated Code

If you are not familiar with what an offline editor is, it is a piece of software that you download to your computer. With it, you can write a blog post and send it off to your blog without have to visit your site, log in etc.

I read an article recently that said offline editors can add html and css code to your posts. The implication is that that’s bad because the web server is having to chew its way through more code than needed in order to display the site.

For years, I have been using an offline editor. It does not add extra code, and until I read the article it didn’t occur to me that any piece of software would add code.

Recently, I tried two others offline editors. I got one because it has an attractive minimal look that makes it easy to get on and write without disturbance. I got the other because of an image resizing feature that is built into the editor.

I have found that both editors do add code.

For the purpose of this article, I want to show you what the ‘extra code’ is.

To do this, I wrote two articles on a test site.

I used the offline editor that I have been using for years to write one post.

And I used one of the other offline editors to write a second identical post.

How To Show You The Code

I want to be able to show you the difference in the code ‘behind the scenes’, but I couldn’t just paste it in here or you wouldn’t see the difference. That’s because because WordPress would simply interpret it.

So I copied the code from each version of the article into Elliot Swan’s Postable tool.

With the tool, you paste in the code and it spits out the same thing but in a way that will show in the finished post the way the code is actually written.

So first, here is the text as it appears to you, the reader, with either editor.

Then there’s the behind-the-scenes code with editor #1. And finally the behind-the-scenes code with editor #2.

You will see extra paragraph and line break code and some css styling code with editor #2.

This is the text as it appears to you, the reader

---

I need to add some text paragraphs, of which this is the first. And coming up now is the second paragraph.

Pellentesque sem nisl, tincidunt sed fermentum id, sodales sit amet neque. Ut magna odio, mattis eu varius a, scelerisque eget eros.

This is a fine romance

It is styled with with the h2 heading that is generally used for sub-headings. From the web usability point of view there can be any number of h2 headings on a page, whereas there should just be one h1 heading – and that is reserved for the title

Other things that people say

There are more sub-headings beyond h2, and visually they tend to be smaller and smaller as one goes down the list.

This is some bold text.

And this is some text in italics.

Here is a line or two of quoted text.

Have you noticed how very differently different themes in WordPress treat quoted passages?

This is the code with editor #1

---

I need to add some text paragraphs, of which this is the first. And coming up now is the second paragraph.

Pellentesque sem nisl, tincidunt sed fermentum id, sodales sit amet neque. Ut magna odio, mattis eu varius a, scelerisque eget eros.

<h2>This is a fine romance</h2>
It is styled with with the h2 heading that is generally used for sub-headings. From the web usability point of view there can be any number of h2 headings on a page, whereas there should just be one h1 heading - and that is reserved for the title

<h3>Other things that people say</h3>

There are more sub-headings beyond h2, and visually they tend to be smaller and smaller as one goes down the list.

This <strong> is some bold text</strong>.

And this is some <em>text in italics</em>.

<blockquote>Here is a line or two of quoted text.

Have you noticed how very differently different themes in WordPress treat quoted passages?</blockquote>

This is the code with editor #2

---

<p>I need to add some text paragraphs, of which this is the first. And coming up now is the second paragraph.</p>
<p>Pellentesque sem nisl, tincidunt sed fermentum id, sodales sit amet neque. Ut magna odio, mattis eu varius a, scelerisque eget eros.</p>
<h2 class="">This is a fine romance</h2>
<p>It is styled with with the h2 heading that is generally used for sub-headings. From the web usability point of view there can be any number of h2 headings on a page, whereas there should just be one h1 heading - and that is reserved for the title</p>
<h3 class="">Other things that people say</h3>
<p>There are more sub-headings beyond h2, and visually they tend to be smaller and smaller as one goes down the list.</p>
<p>This is <b>some bold text</b>.</p>
<p>And this is some <i>text in italics</i>.</p>
<blockquote>Here is a line or two of quoted text.<p>Have you noticed how very differently different themes in WordPress treat quoted passages?</p></blockquote><br><br><p></p>
<p></p><br>