The following is from the: Techencyclopedia Web site / techweb.com
A low-level Web site authoring tool that is essentially a text editor, specialized for writing HTML code. It assists the HTML author by cataloging all HTML tags and common structures in menus and by being able to catch certain syntax errors. It often displays tags and contents in colors so they pop out for easy reference.
There are many different levels of HTML editors, some will only provide the Web author with "objects" that represent chunks of code that can be dragged and dropped into a Web page and edited in the "source" view. Other HTML editors will display graphics, and will allow the Web author to incorporate other "components" into their Web pages (video, audio, animation, plug-ins, activeX controls, exc.). However these types of editors fall more into the Web Authoring Software and WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) category.