Free HTML editors that come with your system
Monday December 25, 2006
One of the things that makes HTML so easy to use is that you don't need any special software to write Web pages. You can use free text editors that come with your system - no matter what system you have - to write your Web pages.
Comments
TextEdit: friends with Macs say this no longer comes shipped with the OS.
The problem with note pad is that there is no preview. When you make a mistake in your code, you have do do alot of searching to find the mistake if it is not obvious.
I read the spotlight article, and agree with using the MAC TextEdit.app, but for all that have since done any kind of upgrade - (eg, purchased a single user upgrade OSX10.1 to 10.2 or later.) This came with a copy of Apple’s latest Developer Tools for free. On this disk is an awesome application mostly known for compiling and programming code while making your own Mac compatible software, It is called Xcode. This application can also be used as a great HTML / PHP / CGI - PERL / CSS / JavaScript, or whatever you can think of writer. It has all the elements like tag completion and validation. You don’t have to append any extensions as it will save to whatever you want. I consider it BBEdit on steroids. Best of all, if you use the Mac’s built in Software Update app, you will always have the latest edition of Xcode as the updates are posted there. I do a lot of hand coding as I don’t like any of the WYSIWYG editors on the market, well I guess accept for GoLive, because it integrates with the other CS apps.
“The problem with note pad is that there is no preview.”
If you save it as an html file, all you have to do is open it to preview. Right-click and choose “open with notepad” to change the code. Then, you can refresh the browser window to reflect the update.
For notepad and its functions save: If you type the file name in quotation marks (eg “thisisnewfile.html”), notepad do not add txt extension.
Hi VD, Thanks! I didn’t know that - that’s good information.
“If you save it as an html file, all you have to do is open it to preview. Right-click and choose “open with notepad” to change the code. Then, you can refresh the browser window to reflect the update.”
That’s good to know, thank you.
Writing modern HTML/DHTML/CSS/Javascript, etc. with a text editor is like writing a windows program with assembly code. Like cutting grass with scissors.
@pfg :
I disagree,I use VIM for my day to day coding, and I find it to be an excelent, productivity tool
I just love vim.
I use Notepad all the time for .htm pages because it means there’s no way it’ll put in something automatically through some auto function.
Well I started with FrontPage because I like the idea of wysiwyg but I’ve lately come to find that Notepad works good enough for quick fixes. I use Firefox 2 with Webdeveloper 1.0.2 plugin. I find the need to validate and turn on/off browser features an extremely useful feature.
I did this with Trellis, now I qwould like to do it properly, what system should I get
Notepad is handy and easy to find when working from remote locations. I used to use it a lot on my PC, but found Notepad++ to be very handy. It’s like a turbocharged Notepad with line numbers and some other features handy to coding.
Hey Guys,
I use Dreamweaver MX 2004 to design webpages, but can you please tell me what is the best wysiwyg editor that generates pure W3C (Recommended) HTML Codes ?
Taco is a good text editor for the Mac and it is free.
Firefox anyone?
John: Firefox? Firefox is an HTML browser not an HTML editor… While it’s possible to get plugins to edit pages while browsing with Firefox, those aren’t actually the browser doing it, but a 3rd party plugin. What do you mean when you say “Firefox anyone?”
HTML-Kit is a free extensible editor with tons of plugins available. I use the plugins for Firefox when I’m trying to fix something quick.
Jennifer: Some of the folks were talking about text editors. Firefox is much better than notepad, if you use the plugins. That’s basically all I was getting at
Ah John, but *what* plugins?
The article was about text editors that are available on your machine without having to download anything.
I’m not arguing that there are better tools for writing HTML than Notepad or TextEdit, just that Firefox is a) not native to either OS and b) once you’ve installed it, you have to get another plugin to have it act as an editor.
So if you’re going to suggest Firefox, I want to know what plugins you’re using to get it to act as an editor.
Jennifer