May 11, 2004

Curious, George: HTML editor? i'm looking for a new HTML editor. and i'm picky. any suggestions?

i've been using arachnophilia for years. unfortunately the author decided that he hated microsoft and now only has a java version. and i hate, hate hate it (not least because it lacks features that the original had - and it's java, so it's damn slow!). since the old windows version i have is starting to show it's age, i'd like a replacement. the catch is that i can't find one that i like as much. arach is free, it's customizable, and it's easy to use. it also crashes and freezes these days. for it's limits it has some features i don't want to give up - i want a source code editor that will highlight code, allow me to assign keyboard shortcuts for common things, etc., spell-check, edit existing pages (remove or change tag format, etc.) - all of which arach does - but i'd also like easier browser preview, easier character entry (currently i have to punch in html codes for things like em dashes and curly quotes), perhaps the ability to check links & validate code rather than posting to server and doing so afterwards... you know, all the bells and whistles. i don't know of anything that allows this. most editors i find are either pricey or try to put too many superficial unnecessary things in at the expense of including stuff i'd actually use. dreamweaver is great in theory and i have access to a copy but to an old-school hand-coder it does too much mucking with source code in my existing pages for me to like it. html-kit came sort of close but the lack of a global batch find-and-replace in all open files was a killer for me. i've tried texturizer, but not free = beyond my price range. what do you use? what do you recommend? any suggestions on where to look, at least? or should i stick with what i have? oh yeah i should mention that i'm on a windows box, and as you might have noticed above i'm not a big fan of java. other than that i'm open to suggestion.

posted by caution live frogs 20 years ago
  • I hate most java apps too, but I love jedit.
  • i've been using dreamweaver for awhile, it does what i need it to, fwiw.
  • Nothing beats HTML-Kit.
  • and in a serendipitous bit of link-frotteurism : Just got forwarded this. But seriously, man, jEdit's the frikken bomb -- it's free, has an incredible XML/ HTML interface, syntax coloring, code completion, entities, code folding, tidying, and so much more. Check it out.
  • f8mulder...that rocks!! Humm....html editor? Internet Explorer (heh heh)?
  • Notebook. Sorry, completely unhelpful, couldn't resist. My brother-in-law does a lot of web design and swears by Dreamweaver, but I believe that costs money.
  • Yeah jEdit is da-bomb for sure - oddly I don't use it for HTML, but I do for perl and other stuff. It is extremely configurable, has syntax highlighting for just about anything you like, and has a plugin architecture that, although a little confusing at first, means it can just about do anything you want, including FTP etc. For HTML coding, I still use dreamweaver - which is a buggy pile of argh! but its also the best thing out there for site maintenance, templates and library items etc if you set it up right (turn code changing off, change the xml config files so that it formats your HTML nicely, etc) Have you thought about Homesite? Never used it myself - but apparently its a baby brother of Dreamweaver that is less wysiwyg, less "get in the way" of what you want to do, and has less bells and whistles that don't work correctly (if thats not an oxymoron). When I was hiring for Web Developers, nearly every applicant cited homesite as their prefered HTML editor. Don't know if thats a reflection of it being cheap enough for out-of-work developers to own, for learners to pick up or what. Theres a free 30 day trial here . The other big commercial products you have open to you are Adobe GoLive, and MS Frontpage. I've never had reason enough to try Frontpage, although I'm not in the "I hate MS" camp in the slightest (I actually like their products >ducks<) After a painful relationship with Quark Express for many years I recently successfully converted to Adobe InDesign, but it was a painful and innefficient transition period - I love all of the other Adobe Products. I don't have the same painful stimulus to get through the Adobe GoLive learning curve though - it wasnt very Adobe-like from what I could see, and I reckon it needs a few more version numbers under its belt before I look at it again... Try jEdit. It might even make you change your outlook on Java-Based products... (but then again it may not)
  • I just read the arachnaphilia site. Jeez that guy comes across like he has a serious chip on his shoulder eh? "If, while reading this, you think, "No one would be so stupid as to consider this course of action," think again. The average IQ of Internet users is in ballistic free-fall and has been for some time, and it appears there is no end in sight for utterly brainless schemes like the one described above, an example of which just came to my attention." and "Very few of the bug reports I receive are actually reports of bugs at all, or, if that, bugs in Arachnophilia." Sheesh whatever happened to "feedback is a gift"... eh?
  • theoss: Werd.
  • Enthusiastic second for HTML-Kit. I was an Arachnophilia die-hard a couple years back, but HTML Kit turned that all around. For free, too. I'm pretty sure it has just about every feature you requested. Very customizable. Lots of standards stuff. Oh, and color-codes PHP. That in itself is priceless.
  • I use EditPlus, which is not that sophisticated, but it is quite fast to use. It also supports other types of syntax highlighting - I also used it for assembler. Previously, I used HTMLed Pro, which only supports HTML, but it's really fast to use. When I next do some design, I will try out HTML-Kit, it looks good. I have been thinking about writing a HTML editor for years, but I don't really want to write my own textfield - and I have been unsuccessful at making the RichTextBox work fast enough.
  • i second editplus. it's more of a text editor than an HTML editor (no wysiwig), but it is fast, small, sensible and what HTML it writes it writes very nicely.
  • Nicolo, I also use editplus (I am a web developer) and I thought I must be the only one!! I second dirt2's comments also. I used dreamweaver for a while but honestly it's wysiwyg interference was annoying to me!! I am a control-freak!!! bwah!
  • I agree with boo_radley, jedit is the best. I've used it on OSX, FreeBSD, and Windows. There's no competition.
  • I use FirstPage, which is free, text-based and does what you want ti to do with little fuss.
  • thanks, y'all... i'll have to give some of those a try. i might reconsider HTML-kit but i still can't get over not being able to find and replace a specific thing in all open files - the only way to do it (unless this has changed since the last time i downloaded it) is to do a batch replace on a specific folder. this seems not right to me - i can find/replace all in a file, or in all files, but not in specific files? ugh.