What's your favorite HTML editor?

[Gargantuan]

I've been thinking of putting up a personal website, and I've been wondering which html editors there are out there and which one's you guys recommend. I know there is Dreamweaver, but that would take alot of training to use that. I'm looking more into ease-of use. I know there is CoffeeCup's software and that looks like one of the easier one's. Also MS Frontpage which is not as easy as CoffeeCup's.

If you guys can post your favorites and give a rating of 1 to 10 for ease-of-use(1 being easiest, 10 hardest). And also for pricing, 1 being cheapest(free) and 10 being most expensive.

TIA for all your guys input!!

[Faustus]

I use Dreamweaver, great program.

[WeedVender]

Notepad

[Conquest10]

".Notepad works great on a pc. on a mac its simple text.

[acid512]

Dreamwever, no competion.
Its not hard to learn. The GUI lets you do all the stuff the basic editors do, plus it makes the cleanest HTML. If you want to add 'advanced' features such as dhtml, javascript and css, it only takes a few hours on an online tutorial and you can play to your hearts content.

For ease of use, it gets 3 (has difficult stuff, but you needent touch any of it if you dont want), for cost it gets either 1 or 8 ( 1 if you are naughty, and use a crack to extend a free 30 day trial into the full product, 8 if you pay $280 to buy it)

As for notepad, right click somewhere near the edge of ths page, and select 'view source'. If you think you could write this html from a blank page in notepad, go ahead.

Happy webmastering

[EaBa]

it makes the cleanest HTML

ummm, not exactly. For a regular text editor, look for a program called Crimson Editor. It color codes html specific words as you code it, and it can save in a UNIX format automatically. It also has a built in FTP client that will automatically allow you to save to the remote server.

[sterno]

Personally, I like vi better than Notepad or SimpleText. Normally I use vim on Windows or UNIX, and BBEdit Lite on Mac. But they're plain-text editors, not WYSIWYG web editors. Most of those seem to be more trouble than they're worth, and many of them have a history of producing nonstandard HTML that only looks right on IE or on Netscape, but not both (forget other browsers, blind people using screenreaders, etc.). The decent ones tend to be very expensive, aiming at the professional designers rather than the home users.

I didn't use/like it, but where I used to work a lot of the people writing web pages for a living liked Allaire Homesite (I think Macromedia bought Allaire a while back). It was a text editor, but it had syntax highlighting and a lot of HTML-specific tools built in so that even people who weren't that good with HTML could use it. It's a commercial product, but I think there is a demo available if you want to try it.

As for needing something like dreamweaver to produce pages like the ones on this forum, that's just ignorance speaking. I've known people who produced layouts of comparable complexity with basic editors, or who used a combination of fancy tools and plain editors. However, they were experienced professional web designers who liked the control and simplicity of the basic editors, not beginners trying to get started with personal home pages.

[Baldrick]

Ultraedit and Dreamweaver....both have php,html syntax highligtning. Dreamweaver mainly for designing.

[acid512]

I maintain the argunent that dreamweaver is the most versatile program available. When i said it makes the cleanest HTML, i ment in comparison to other WYSIWYG editors (anyone use frontpage !!), and the intergrated text editor means you can manually clean the code yourself if want.

Something you should note, is that the guy who started this thread is just beggining in HTML. Thats why i recommend a WYSIWYG editor, and dreamweaver is the Dogs. What do you think is easyer way to learn:

1) Make a nested table with Dreamweaver (click and drag with mouse, hit a few number keys), then view the page in code view to tweek it a bit, and get an idea of how it all works.

2) open a blank page in notepad / BBedit etc, and make your design by reading an html book.

Now i know what you are saying, and i dont think Dreamweaver would be worth using atall if it didnt have the text editor. But just think back to when you had hardly seen HTML before. Just imagine the prospect of making navigation bars and frames when you dont know what you this code you are writting is going to look like.

I hope the guy who started this thread hasn't already left cause not very many people have taken note of the fact that he is just after some simple suggestions for a homepage editor, not for expanding his career in html programing, or building a multinational ecommerce site.

If you are still here, good luck Gargantuam.

[Conquest10]

2) open a blank page in notepad / BBedit etc, and make your design by reading an html book.

who needs a book? the cleanest html is the one done by hand. other programs like to add a lot of junk lines to the page.

[acid512]

who needs a book? the cleanest html is the one done by hand. other programs like to add a lot of junk lines to the page.

Well thats great providing you were born with an understanding of html, and can telepathicly learn the updates in standards.

However, for us lesser human beings that have to learn stuff in the first place, i think a book was quite a good example. If you prefer, you may read my post to be reconstructed with "interactive learning CD" or simular in place of book, if that makes you feel better.

[acid512]

Sorry, i didnt mean to be rude, just found it kinda anoying how everyone has seemed to have forgotten about the guy that started this thread, and what he wanted help on.

[tgpo]

PC - Wordpad: Cheap, included with Windows
MAC - BBedit Lite: Free

[Gargantuan]

Hey, just want to say thanks for all of your input! Looks like most of you guys like Dreamweaver. I've been thinking of picking up the Dreamweaver MX Bible, since it has a demo version packed along with it. It looks like a MASSIVE book!! Over 1100 pages! Guess it's chock full of good stuff.

I'll also be checking out your other suggestions, wouldn't hurt to give them a try also.

If there are any other html editors that haven't been listed that you guys prefer, please post more!! Hopefully other people that read this thread can benefit from your input as well. I'll still be coming back to check this thread for more suggestions.

Thanks again guys!! I really appreciate it!

[tgpo]

I remember using one on the PC that was really good, but I dunno if it is still around. It is called Hotdog. It was a really nice editor.

[acid512]

Yeah, i used hotdog a bit i think.
If i am thinking about the right program, it was a free text based editor, and it was pretty good. You could also get a pro version, with more tools, but i never tried that (you had to pay i think)

This is a link to a free trial of Hotdog pro 6.6 ftp://ftp.sausage.com/pub/hotdog/hotdog6/hotdog66install.exe

Here is the website if you dont want to download the exe directly http://www.sausage.com/products/index.html

The download is about 12MB

[herculesCA]

i use TextPad like note pad but WAY better. Its free but at times it asks you to register.