Should I go for Dreamweaver or shareware?

[superslug]

I'm currently assembling a website. Eventually, I'm going to need a program to check my HTML code for errors so I don't get those annoying "Done with errors" messages in IE. I've heard Dreamweaver has some form of good code checking, but I don't know if I want to shell out dollars for that program given that I type my code by hand.

Is it the best for what I'm looking for, or does anyone know a good freeware/shareware utility that will do the same?

 

[Lucky]

Well, Dreamweaver is not a thing you want to get to check for errors in your code!

However, if you want to put really nice multimedia into your page, and offer more than the standard website out there, Dreamweaver is it.

Now, for an HTML code error checker, just use one of the following:

Official HTML validator (from W3C, the ones that decide how the web works)
You have to code absolutely correct for that to return no errors, i.e. you best go code manually. If you use Frontpage or other such stuff, you´ll still have errors.
Most errors seen in IE result from Javascript though, not HTML. Not sure if Dreamweaver can correct that.

The online HTML Tidy cleans your code automatically for you. Should be used together with the validator above.

If you get IE to tell you errors in your page, you really need to have done something DRASTICALLY wrong, because IE usually forgives almost every mistake you can make in your code.

Don´t forget to validate your CSS if you want a clean webpage though. That is if you use stylesheets, which you should do of course.

 

[Lucky]

You can also download Tidy, even as a GUI.
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/ablavier/TidyGUI/

 

[superslug]

Thanks much, Lucky!

I have gotten in the habit of manual coding, but I haven't learned style sheets yet. That'll hopefully be my next lesson/upgrade. I will definitely check out those links!