HTML Editors

[Turner]

So...wanting to learn HTML. Mostly because I have an active desktop at home, and it's starting to upset the wife. I figured if I could get my active desktop on a local webpage, it would be a good compromise between the two. I've got the basic webpage done, but now that I've got it done, there's more I'd like to do.

Looking at www.snapfiles.com, and I see a lot out there. But I haven't the foggiest idea about any of them. So what are some good, basic, HTML editors out there? The ones I'm looking at are here.

Thanks

 

[lord_yoshi]

www.Textpad.com

 

[Turner]

Thanks....perhaps I should have also said Free....very important, that part.

 

[lord_yoshi]

textpad is free.

 

[Turner]

Oh...it said 'Free Trial'....

 

[Thrawn]

Notepad.

 

[Detlef Richter]

I always use the editor from Visual C. But if you havn't, use the notepad.
You can better learn to structure your code when you use an editor without bonuses.

 

[bobgote]

depends what you want. The IDEs (free ones include eclipse and netbeans) will usually have html editing rules etc. they do a bunch of nice things to help out in general, and probably would for html as well, although i haven't used them for such.

MS frontpage probably comes with office these days, so you may have that somewhere. It's fairly easy to use and you don't have to write the source (but can view/edit it at any time), but use insert component, and what-you-see-is-what-you-get word processing to add what you want. Good for websites which will use anything more complicated than forms and buttons.

Dreamweaver's also good, but costs money.

I've heard good things about textpad which has already been mentioned.

i guess the one i'd normally use is jEdit, which is a slimmed down, simplistic java editor, but it does html well. just a text editor with line numbers and syntax highlighting really (a good way to learn). makes a big difference when it's a 4MB download rather than > 50MB in the case of the IDEs too, if you're a dial-up user.

I haven't heard of any of the editors mentioned in the site you linked.

i'd also remind you of http://www.w3schools.com as an excellent site for html guides and tutorials.

 

[Detlef Richter]

I didn't prefer Frontpage. It's good for simple sites but you can't learn very well with this 'Klick & Drop' thing. You should also try to use PHP code. Then you can forget Frontpage.

 

[Jeratain]

Notepad.

Seconded.

Do NOT use Frontpage. Dreamweaver is fine.

 

[Turner]

Thanks for all the advice.

Part of my problem is that I don't have real patience to sit down and learn for a quick and dirty local page. I have the basic page, and I did do it in notepad. But I seem to learn best by reverse engineering programs, and tweaking them as I go. I'm really looking for something that allows me to preview the changes and tweak them so I can figure it out. Probably, when I get back to school I'll take some kind of HTML class. Now, I just want my page to look pretty, and pick up the language at a later date. So I'm looking for a free, easy editor....

Well, I will check these out. Thanks again for the help.

 

[ManOfMiracles]

For quick and dirty, the Composer built into Netscape isn't too bad.

 

[hbdragon88]

I personally use Syn Text Editor, which is really neat. It has highlighting (it highlights HTML tags), better find-and-replace, and tabs - you can open up many documents in one window.

 

[Blackbird_SR-71]

also write your documents in XHTML 1.0 Tradition instead of HTML as XHTML 1.0 is the successor of HTML and W3C recommends it.

 

[hbdragon88]

also write your documents in XHTML 1.0 Tradition instead of HTML as XHTML 1.0 is the successor of HTML and W3C recommends it.

*XHTML 1.1

They upgraded a little.

 

[Thrawn]

Do NOT use Frontpage.

Indeed. Frontpage is Dreamweavers very distant cousin. ie: Not very good.

 

[bobgote]

if he doesn't want to play with the code, a frontpage-like app is what he wants. if he has it already.

if you want to want to learn the language, or have neat source, don't use it.

 

[Thrawn]

Well he said he wanted to learn HTML, so I'm assuming from this he'll want something like Notepad. It's what I used when I wrote websites in html, and it's what I'm going to use when I write a couple of websites in the future.

 

[bobgote]

you can still do that with frontpage, and it does have the preview panel which i think was a specific functionality that turner mentioned. unsure of any free programs that have that.

notepad is fine, and really the only thing i think would be useful to add is syntax highlighting.

 

[Jeratain]

Frontpage enjoys to throw in useless code - I do not recommend it for learning HTML as it will only confuse.

I do recommend it if someone wants to make an amateur site without actually needing to have any knowledge of HTML or advanced features that programs like Dreamweaver offer.