Level

HTML Skills

Software

Years

I

Very basic skill level. Mostly uses GUI Web editors, or even just “HTML export” from non-Web programs, rather than hand-coding. May be able to tweak some code manually but with uncertain results.

Basic GUI editors, such as:

Adobe PageMill

Symantec Visual Page

Hotmetal Pro

Microsoft Frontpage

Net Objects Fusion

II

Can hand-code basic HTML tags acceptably, but may not be able to hand-code tables or frames. (May use GUI table editors in conjunction with hand-coding other tags.) Little or no experience creating image maps.

An HTML or enhanced text editor such as BBedit, or Web Weaver (Mac); or Home Site, Hotdog, or Webedit (Windows); or a plain text editor such as Notepad (Windows).

May also use a basic GUI editor (as in Level I above).

FTP front-end programs (for file transfers to servers) such as fetch or anarchie (Mac); or CuteFTP or WS_FTP (Windows), etc.

1+




2+

1+

III

Can hand-code all HTML including nested tables, frames, meta tags, and hooks to embedded media or scripts. Has experience with clientside image map creation. Can create and manipulate cascading style sheets. May be able to modify pre-developed scripts (Javascript, Perl). Can manipulate pre-developed behaviors in GUI editors. However, not expert in tactical tradeoffs related to code for different Web browsers, platforms, etc. Same text editors and FTP programs as in Level II.

Same text editors and FTP programs as in Level II.

Possibly an advanced GUI editor, such as:
Macromedia Dreamweaver
Adobe Golive

At this level or above, may not use any GUI editor (codes directly!)

Photoshop Light (but see “Web Graphics Production” page for specialists in Photoshop).

2+

3+






1+

IV

HTML guru, capable of tactical coding tradeoffs, newest coding proposals, code validation, predicting problems, and Javascript. Aware of ASP or other clientside scripting, with some experience probable. Knowledgeable about different mime types and streaming-media issues. Knows CSS (Cascading Stylesheets). May be able to code some DHTML (Dynamic HTML) by hand, but mainly uses a front-end program such as Dreamweaver or Golive.

Same as above.

May have knowledge of Unix-based text editors such as Emacs, or HTML-enhanced Unix text editors such as TKHTML, ASWedit, or HTML Tools for Emacs.

May have knowledge of direct Unix command-line (shell).