Low Cost HTML Editors

Having just started making websites, I only offering advice to others just starting. I use Windows and ask Mac users to stay with me substituting SimpleText for NotePad and ignore Wordpad references or anything else that doesn't apply to Mac. I am making a Mac page for links to Mac tools (see navbar above).

I started writing HTML in Windows NotePad and viewing my file "locally" with the browser and recommend you do too. Use basic tags without tag attributes ..ignore them if you are copying an example). You need to make one main page (ie the index or homepage) and one other page it links to. Once the links are created between the main page and the single page and work ok make two more copies of the single page changing the file names and add two more links to these two pages in the main page.

That's it, you have a website consisting of your main/index/hompage or whatever you want to call it and three pages hanging off it! Don't worry about content that's not an issue for a beginner. You are building a system that works not doing creative writing, making graphics or working on page layout and presentation ..just make sure all the links work and you can jump between the main page and any of the pages.

If all this does not sound like much fun and you would rather have started writing a list of your favourite rock bands music, compiling a definitive work on frog breeding or designing a cutting edge graphic display then, fine, go to work on that because it's essential to get the content you are going to put up on the Internet right!

Maybe your worried what fonts will be suitable, what sort of background fits in with what you are doing or how to display your text and graphics work so it combines well and kicks ass just looking at it then, again, fine go to work on that ..collect together some options, check out possible background, icon and color combinations, sketch some possible layouts on paper, copy bits and pieces off the web and get it all together in one place and make a decision abut how you want the pages to be laid out and presented.

I'll agree that, whatever anyone says, you should do what feel comfortable doing first until you get so experienced you do everything in a logical order without really thinking about it. The point is one person can't do all these things at the same time and you can't do much of it on a a computer. That's right folks switching the computer on should mean that it's mostly over bar the shouting and your just entering it all up to see what it looks like, do some fine tuning and see if there are any browser compatibility problems.

You do need a big desk to sort all the bits of paper around and a wall board to pin things up. The sooner you turn the computer on the longer it will take to build the website because you will squander time doing detailed work on the computer that turns out to be not where you want to go then squander more time trying to save and utilize part of that effort. Probably your new direction is still not satisfactory because you were too influenced by trying to salvage earlier work and you end up junking everything and starting again.

If the idea had been pencilled on a piece of paper in the first place you would have scrunched it up and trashed it long before.

Some people call this stuffing around with a computer "program development" or "de-bugging" or some other word which sounds positive. Sorry ..trying to fix up what was never going to be satisfactory in the first place because it was never thought out in the first place is none of these things.

These are the stand-alone tasks that have to be done individually and right when building a website. They are in the order an experienced person would use:

Create or gather together the content.
Create the structure and the way the pages will be linked together.
Create the layout and presentation of everything on the pages.
Decide on the tools and coding techniques that will be that will be needed then turn the computer on and do it.

This is the modular approach and without it you may have problems that can't be fully fixed without junking large amounts of work. Ok when you get better you could sit down at a computer and do everything on the fly that, as a beginner, you did in discreet steps and struggled with but you are talking about a more experienced person doing a beginner's task. The reality is, as a you become more experienced, you take on bigger wider ranging tasks and use a modular approach because experience has taught you is necessary.

It is important to do your first website in Notepad because it acts like a stepping stone up to dedicated HTML editors. You can write stylesheets (ie CSS) as well as HTML with Notepad or any HTML editor which gives you tremendous power for negligible cost.

Instead of NotePad you could have used WordPad. I avoid WordPad because it is a budget word processor offering extra features which you might be tempted to use and not produce plain text. Worse it saves in different formats that all sound like plain text while only one is. NotePad can only save the right way.

There are other considerations. With NotePad you have to open it, say, three or four times initially if you want to work on three or four pages in the same work session. Each is minimised so it appears on the start bar along the bottom of the screen in exactly the same manner as if you had opened a number or different applications in one work session. You click on whichever one you want to work on then then save and minimise it and click on the next one you wish to work on and so forth.

I prefer this heads-up method of working with the array of minimised pages clearly visable along the start bar. I also have my browser opened and minimised to so I can check what the changes look like periodically by getting it up and hitting refreash or browsing locally for one of the other pages if I am commencing work on it.

However a possible advantage of WordPad is that all the files you choose to open remain itemised in the recently used file list that displays when you select File Open to open a file to work on and some people may prefer this approach. You can open a far bigger file in WordPad than in NotePad although by the time you are dealing with HTML files that large you will have a range of tools and the skills to use them.

www.jgsoft.com
For EditPad Classic (discontinued), EditPad Lite and EditPad Pro. All can be used from a diskette!
The author says they have resisted becoming bloatware (true!).
(Developers should check out HelpScribble and Deploy Master.)
JGSoft was formed by Jan Goyvaerts who wrote the original EditPad now referred to as EditPad Classic.
At the bottom of the various download listings is EditPad Classic (discontinued). It is the original EditPad renamed to work in with the range of products now available that use the word EditPad in their descriptions. It is provided for download free of monetry charge. Jan Goyvaerts refers to it as "postcard ware", meaning that sending him an email or similar expressing your appreciation is the necessary motivation for authors (like himself) to keep on providing resources for new users. I suspect he is good people.

www.textpad.com For TextPad which is much better than Windows NotePad (or WordPad). If you use NotePad (or WordPad) much you might want to get TextPad to use as an alternative for other uses in addition to using it to write HTML and CSS.
The just released current version is TextPad 4.4.2 (2.45Mb/6.2Mb) Shareware (US$27). It's size is becoming a worry to me and they don't seem to be retaining a base version that fits on a diskette. If you start chasing features that "Bloatware" has, you end up with bloatware too, and cheaply priced bloatware is still bloatware.

I have to be honest I don't know why TextPad is so large, but that is my problem and not necessarily a problem of TextPad if it does what it does do economically and well. Just make sure you consider EditPad referred to in the link above (the biggest is 1.1 Mb) when evaluating text editors in general or looking for an alternative to MS NotePad to use with Windows in particular. Frequently used combinations of commands can be saved as keystroke macros (and the spelling checker has dictionaries for 10 languages?!)

www.intermania.com For HTMLpad ver2.6 (Shareware) 1.2Mb
A little powerehouse. Fits on a floppy so take it with you wherever you go.

www.arachnoid.com/arachnophilia For Arachnophilia 4.0 A powerful free HTML editor/web development tool.
You should also visit www.arachnoid.com, homepage of this interesting website, for the varied content, tutorials and observe the techniques he uses. For the html tut and faqs about Arachnophilia 4 you have to proceed as if you were going to send a message to him then you are directed to these resources.
This guy running this website is good people. The net lives!

www.evrsoft.com For 1st Page 3 New release! replacing 1st Page 2000. Award winning free software. Free!

Recommended but see contrasting comments below from an obviously text editor type and an authoring package type (refers to the authoring facility of Homesite which even Homesite don't mention except to recommend using the 3rd party package -Macromedia that integrates with Homesite) who indirectly supports the first by saying "powerful ..for non-experts":-

Anonymous "Annoying"
There are several very annoying "features" with this editor:
1. Why does this editor generate a non-standard HTML to begin with; you have to do convert to XML to fix those;
2. Too many colors both on the menu bars and default text coloring;
3. way too many options for doing a simple single task;
4. Complete ignorance of KISS principle, since that's what HTML is - simple; it's not coding or programming - it's only a markup.
Basically, if you are new to all this, this may look nice, but if you know what you're doing it's very annoying. Just use Textpad.

Anonymous "Powerful HTML, for non experts"
1ST Page 2000 is one of the best software packages I have ever seen for HTML programming. I have used many programs including Dreamweaver, Frontpage 2000 and Homesite, but all of these because of their WYSIWIG interface take you away from the root of the website, the coding, due to 1st Page 2000's concentration on coding, websites look as complex or as simple as you want to make them, there are no times when you have to check back on what HTML was added by the software as there is no extra HTML added, not unless you want there to be.
The simple brunt of it is if you want a Professional piece of software for free, that won't alter or corrupt your programming, 1st Page 2000 is the one to get, simple.

www.visicommedia.com Vision Media.
Choose between AceHTML 5 Freeware or the AceHTML Pro version. Free !

www.winsite.com/bin/Info?4021 A download site for AceHTML Freeware (still ver 4 as at 9Dec02). The homepage of the download site is www.winsite.com check out their other free software downloads. *You can get their top 50 downloads plus 400MB of other software titles sent anywhere in world for US$12.*

www.thehtmleditor.com
The HTML Editor (THE) Ver 1.3 (2.3 Meg) Win95/98/2000. Run edsetup, remove with Windows "Remove Program".
Enter html in the left screen and it renders in the right screen. To change the render, change the html alongside it!
This looks like a gem for US$50 (US$35 if go through this page link www.sitetipsandtricks.com/thehtmleditor.html).

www.allaire.com/products/homesite *Now merged with Macromedia
www.macromedia.com/software/homesite New Macromedia URL.
Was HomeSite 4.5, now they have "Macromedia's" Homesite 5.0. It is excellent but you are talking commercial software that can be used by a developer to do heaps of stuff that you should not be taking on too soon. Ships with TopStyle Lite or probably Topstyle 1.51 ("Nagware") a scaled-down, free version of TopStyle 2.0 referred to below). Also ships with Dave Raggett's HTML Tidy. Also works in conjunction with Dreamweaver if you want to use both programs strengths. (And code sweepers and link validators that include integration with third party ones if you prefer them.)

www.digital-web.com/reviews/product/review_2001-12.shtml
An article contrasting Macromedia's Homesite 5 with Homesite 4.5. Positive overall. They did not wreck it as part of their wysiwyg vision and indeed have improved it from a hand coders point of view even getting rid of the fairly useless (I suspect dangerous) Design View. Has varification for XHML and XML ( ie validates to HTML 4). US$99 or US$29 to upgrade.
Several of the Tag Editors have different interfaces. This is mostly due to the functionality to create extensions using VTML (Visual Tool Markup Language) to extend the Homesite user interface. You can use VTML to build Tag Editors for additional tag-based languages not currently supported by Homesite. This sounds good but out of my league.

www.notetab.com Fookes Software's NoteTab 4.85.
NoteTab Light ..totally free. No ads no nags. Free!
NoteTab Std ..plus thesaurus and spell checker (US$10).
NoteTab Pro ..everything the website builder or html author could want (US$10).

www.40tude.com/html MMSoftware's 40tude HTML editor 3.2.

www.aspedit2001.com/ Tashcom's ASPEdit 2000. To edit ASP (Active Server Pages), HTML, VBScript and more. ## 400 Internal Server Error 5May03 ##
www.reradus.supanet.com For their pop-up window terminator (ie an "ad killer").
*21/9/02 Timed out but came up ok.

www.chami.com/html-kit Chami's HTML-Kit (build 290).
www.spiderwriter.com Actipro's Spider Writer 5.2

www.bradsoft.com For TopStyle 2.5 Lite (small subset of Pros features but free!) or TopStyle Pro 2.5
They use to have TopStyleLite or Topstyle 1.51 (full version) but when they brought out 2.0 they discontinued the Lite version and just let you have the old 1.51 for trialling purposes but with message urging you to register (ie "Nagware").
This is in fact a style sheet editor that you should get about the time you feel your ready for Homesite 4.5/5. We are talking US$50 shareware here.

www.westciv.com.au For StyleMaster 2.1, LayoutMaster and other related CSS aware editors, authoring and website development packages. He has possibly the most readable and up to date CSS resources. They sell training packages but often put them up free to do on-line in weekly installments ..I have done four eight week courses like this ..keeps you visiting the site!

www.castillobueno.com Castillo TextEditor 940Kb(zip unzip?).
Has HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Visual Basic, C/C++, Java Perl, Pascal/Delphi and SQL syntax highlighting. Has a unique feature of special interest tor developers called PowerTag which allows the user to set tags to the selected text, without converting the program in a specialized HTML editor. The user can totally configure the tags.
Has an internal clipboard with support for 100 Mb of text (cf Windows Notepad's 64Kb).

Provides multiple toolbars, for different editing/windowing options, such as Find Toolbar, Files Toolbar, Window List Toolbar, Bookmarks Toolbar and Internal Clipboard Toolbar.
Can perform searches for a specified text in all the hard drive or an specific directory as easy as editing a document, you can even save the search results and reload them again later.
Allows you to edit multiple files using a convenient multi-document interface approach. The editor can load files of any size (limited by memory only).
The editor makes it easy to open recently used files and access already opened files through the Window List Toolbar. You can also open files by dragging-and-dropping them from the Explorer or the Files Toolbar.
Lets you have different settings for each document such as word wrap, auto indent, syntax highlighting language, etc, with a single click in the document toolbar.

The Internal Clipboard works similar to Windows clipboard, except that Windows clipboard can only handle 64 Kb of data while Castillo TextEditor's Internal Clipboard capacity is up to 100 mb of data.
The internal clipboard data is shown in the Internal Clipboard Toolbar, where you can edit the Internal Clipboard without having to paste in your document, editing it and cutting it again, just edit in this little window. This window also provides commands to copy Windows clipboard into Castillo TextEditor's Internal Clipboard and viceversa.
Also line numbers are shown in the leftmost part of the editor. They can be configured to show either the line numbers or paragraph numbers, by right-clicking in it and choosing Show Lines Numbers or Show Paragraph Numbers. This component also shows where bookmark are specified.

ZDNet: "Castillo TextEditor enables you to edit text in a 32-bit environment with a feature set that will make you forget about Notepad. It lets you open several large text files using a multiple document interface, find and replace text, change the font and syntax used, and encrypt/decrypt text using two methods. Other features include word wrap, a toolbar and status bar, the ability to export text in Mac or Unix formats, and an internal clipboard with support for up to 100MB of text. Developers will appreciate the program's Pascal/Delphi, C/C++, HTML, CSS, JavaScript and Java syntax highlighting. Plus, the PowerTag function allows you to set configured tags to the selected text without converting Castillo TextEditor into a specialized HTML editor. The program is simple to set up and use and is well documented. If you're interested in a text editor that offers more than just the standard fare, try Castillo TextEditor.." ZDNet Sep 29 1998.
www.castillobueno.com/free_stuff.htm Their free downloads page.

Netscape Composer and MS Front Page Express Once you have done some practice websites by hand I found it interesting to make some pages using the code generating authoring packages like Netscape's Composer that comes with a full installment of Netscape or MS Front Page Express that comes with a full installment of Internet Explorer.

MS Word 2000 and MS Front Page You should also try saving as a webpage in MS Word 2000 and maybe make a website with MS Front Page (if you have access to it). After an initial play with them I stopped using them. You don't learn anything from the complex markup that is generated, you can't fine tune it (ie "tickle" the code) easily and the file size blows out to buggary.

I would use Word or Front Page if some one was paying me. A different principle applies if your being paid ..namely do as little as possible. Forget about maintainance, file size or even the user's needs. The object is to satisfy the CEO (and all the Department Heads) who will be expecting to see existing (Word 2000 format) marketing material, company mission statements and, of course, pictures of themselves, included in their new "web presence" that has a structure which replicates the corporate structure (which is should never ever be the basis of a website design). Hint Check the CEO's, VP's and Department Heads computers. Prestige demands they be brutishly powerful with the biggest screens. Design the site for their machines with large glorius images and effects (and pics of themselves!). They will think you're great and so what if ordinary users machines time out trying to load the spectacular entry page.

Third party MS Word 2000 and MS Front Page HTML code cleaners Interestingly some products promote as a feature their capacity to fix up HTML generated by Microsoft products. Says a real lot for Microsoft.

DreamWeaver is another story. It addresses stylesheets, has an internal editor and respects any alterations to the code you make. It seems to be an excellent option to consider once you start serious DHTML and can be used in conjunction with HomeSite 4.5 for example. I approve of DreamWeaver but don't use it yet because I am not experienced enough with html and stylesheeting to use a serious code generating tool which by it's nature will generate a lot of code, and with it, a proportional number of problems that will require editing by hand.

Converting text to HTML It is also instructive to type, without tags, in a text editor (like Notepad) then have it converted to html. All the tags appear and then you tickle it a bit (ie add further tags or whatever to improve the appearance). I had such a shareware program and lost it. It was promoted as a learning aid because it also put in comments explaining the markup. If you know of anything like this please let me know. I think these early aids are interesting because they generated simple tags to which you can apply your (existing?) basic tag stylesheets.

Learn to touchtype! I suggest getting a typing tutor and learning how to type up to 15 or 18 words a minute. It is not speed you want so much as being able to work comfortably with less typing errors in what is very much a word processing type of enviroment. A college electrical engineering course I was involved with wanted you to do a standard typing test before they would enrol you in the computer modules. They argued that half of the errors that caused students computer programs not to run were typing errors.

www.psylon.com For Liquid FX 4.5 Pro, Liquid FX Express, Psylon FTP and other products as well as some free graphics downloads
An Australian company producing an authoring package and suite of programs.

Aussie John's Site Page Last Updated and Links Checked: 29 June 2003

Low Cost HTML and CSS Editors