Questions regarding assigning .html file names in TextEdit

[Antares]

Yes hello everyone. New kid on the block.

I am taking/learning XHTML and JavaSCRIPT from a book which appears to be well written and presented for the most part. However, in the first chapter the author has everyone creating various files to be eventually combined into a webpage main file and published.

I use TextEdit.app for my markup code work. The author in chapter one instructs everyone to save each page (file) we have created as a .html extension file even though the default "save" in TextEdit is .txt

He apparently does this so everyone can then go to and view it on our browsers to see what it will look like on the web and not as just XHTML code.

Well I did all of that and come to the start of Chapter 2, where he asks us to open one of the .html files we have created in chapter one. He then has two pages of code editing and additional code tasks he wants us to add to this file and others we created and saved.

Only trouble is if I open the .html files in safari as instructed, I can only view them as either coded markup text or as text but can not edit any of it. If I open the files in TextEdit I can view the text but there is no code markup language shown. It is gone. It appears as just plain or rich text with no code. So what to do?

If I would of known where this guy was going with this, I would of first saved each markup page as a .txt file. So I would have something to go back to and work/edit with. Then I would of made the .html file he wanted for browser viewing of the code. I think as an instructional book, he should have mentioned this or am I missing something here?

Is there anything I can do or will I have to go back and rewrite all the pages again in code, then save each separately as stated above?

That really %^&%s!

Any help appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Antares

 

[Antares]

Update:

It appears the only way you can save a coded XHTML file in TextEdit so you can go back and work on it later is to save your work and create it as a . HTML extension file.

Then when you are ready to work again, go to finder, open up the file.HTML, then go to view source, this will convert it to mark up HTML code. Then highlight entire page and then go to File : Copy. Then open up TextEdit application, it will open as rich text by default, then select plain text. Then go to edit and hit paste.

Now one has a document where you can again continue writing, then when you are done save it again. Repeat the process every time you want to work on your file.

Wow, what a ratty way to have to do something. But this is the only way I could find to continue working on my files without having to rewrite the entire code again and even if you did, saving your work apparently does not save the code, just the text. You would think there would be a way to save coded work.

So if anyone knows how to do this better, while using TextEdit program, then please let me know. Otherwise I may have to purchase a real program that allows you to write code on the bottom and see how it looks on the top of the page.

Otherwise if not, what a sorry approach to an application creation.