Here's a conversation starter.

I would like to hear everyone's thoughts on what the best HTML Editor for skinning using the ASCX method.

I personally like the HTML skinning approach, but only for the reason that it's easier to see what the skin will look like when using my aging copy of Dreamweaver.  One problem with the HTML skinning approach is that many skin object and menu provider developers only give you ASCX instructions on how to use their products.  It's also more efficient to skin by developing with ASCX files since you skip the parsing step.

But editing the ASCX files in Dreamweaver is tedious because I can't tell what it looks like until I upload and refresh.

OK, let's hear it.

Visual Studio has intellisense support, so it will show you the attributes supported by a skin object in the editor.

But IMO the best way to develop an ASCX skin  is to have a local install of DNN and edit the skin files in the installation.

(using any editor)

You only have to refresh the browser and your done (that's how I develop all my skins).

I use VS to add the skin objects to the ascx  and Notepad++ for tweaking and CSS (that's about 80%).

But in NP++ you don't have CSS intellisense.

Cuong Dang
Co-founder: Enliven, dnnGallery
LinkedIn | Twitter
I'm the author of DNN and Web Standards Wrox Blox