I'm on a quest for the ultimate Web page editor
Wednesday December 24, 2008
I've been looking for the best Web page editor for years now. When I started designing Web pages, Web page editors didn't exist. I used vi or Notepad or SimpleText (now TextEdit) and was amazed that I could even read the stuff I was writing, let alone have it make Web pages. Then I learned about a tool with a name that inspired me - "Dreamweaver". Isn't that what I wanted to do? Weave my dreams into reality? Of course, my boss had a different idea and bought me the program "FrontPage". I couldn't afford Dreamweaver on my own, and after 10 minutes of using FrontPage (version 1), I was back to writing HTML in my text editors. But since then, I've started looking for the best of the best Web editors. In that quest I've downloaded and evaluated over 130 Web editors on Windows, Macintosh, and even Linux. I have come up with 35 weighted features that I think are important to Web editors. And I've even developed criteria for Web editors that are targeted at a different market than I'm in, such as: Web designers, Web developers, Small Business Owners, Newcomers to the Web, and even Kids. Here's my quest to find the perfect Web editor.
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Comments
Thanks for the very informative article.
While it’s good to see the top three and the bottom one listed by name, are the other editors and their rankings posted anywhere? I didn’t see a link to such a list in the article. (If it’s there, sorry, I must have missed it.)
I am also interested in making a good choice on a web editor to make available to employees. My question to you evaluated any that were freeware or shareware? How did they fit into your point rankings? - Thanks!
I have ranked the editors in many different ways on these three pages -
Windows HTML editors
Macintosh HTML editors
Linux HTML editors
The very first link on each of those pages is my estimation of the best HTML editors for that operating system. I also list things like best WYSIWYG, best text editors, best free editors, best editors for newcomers, etc. Check out those pages - they have what you want.
The only lists I haven’t built is the “worst editors” lists. I felt bad telling software producers their editors are bad, but I get the message - you want to know. So, I’ll have my list of the worst HTML editors for each platform in a week or so. I have them ranked, as I told you, so it’s just a matter of writing the three lists.
Garrett:
I know the article is long
But if you make it to the 4th page you’ll see that I did take price into account. I don’t consider shareware or trialware (ie ## days to try for free) to be free - so their listed price is what is used as the price evaluator. Editors that are listed as free on my lists are truly free - they aren’t trialware or shareware - they cost no money.