BlueGriffon

About BlueGriffon

BlueGriffon is the latest in the series of web page editors that started with Nvu, went on to KompoZer and now culminates in BlueGriffon. It is a free WYSIWYG editor for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux. And it will build your pages in HTML5 (both XHTML and HTML) as well as HTML 4. I found the WYSIWYG hard to use as you can't see the sections unless you add border styles to them and it's not like other WYSIWYG where you can move sections around to change the layout. I was only able to get the layout to change by going into the HTML directly (source view). There was also an odd bug while I was editing in source view where the elements I was attempting to delete to repeated multiple times instead—the exact opposite of what I wanted to happen. BlueGriffon also comes with some nice extras like SVG editing, MathML support, and even support for getting web fonts from FontSquirrel. I was disappointed to find that some of the icons that come standard on the toolbar are actually just ads for plugins that you have to pay for. But BlueGriffon does offer a nice WYSIWYG editor for free, which is a good price.

Target Market(s): Professional Web Designers or Professional Web Developers

Review last updated: October 28, 2011.

BlueGriffon Version: 1.2.1
Score: 166
Percent: 49%
This score was generated using the methodology listed in the article: Finding the Perfect Web Editor.

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Operating System(s): Windows Macintosh Linux or UNIX

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BlueGriffon Features

• Text editor
• WYSIWYG editor
• Page preview
• Save pages as HTML with DTD
• Write HTML 5 documents
• Write XHTML documents
• Color coding
• Search and replace
• Edit multiple files/tabbed file editing
• Edit images
• Assistance with adding videos to websites
• Ability to add video and audio using HTML5 with fallback options
• Can edit CSS
• Additional CSS assistance
• CSS 3 properties and selectors
• Spell checking
• Save snippets of code
• Free templates
• Form wizard
• Customizable or extendable
• Upgrade discounts or freeware
• No limits on free or trial version
• No subscription fee required
• Support for MathML
• Edit SVG images right inside
• Connect to FontSquirrel to get web fonts

What’s Missing from BlueGriffon

• HTML validator
• Accessibility validator
• CSS validator
• XML validator
• Alternate browser or OS preview
• Mobile device preview
• Mobile scripts, functions, or links
• Create mobile web applications
• Package mobile apps for delivery on app stores
• Tag completion
• FTP or Site manager
• FTPs or Secure FTP
• Extended search and replace (across multiple documents)
• Connects to graphics software
• Multimedia functions
• Save Adobe AIR files
• Save files as PDF
• Link checker
• Special character tools
• Can edit JavaScript
• Helps with Ajax JSON, or jQuery pages
• CSS3 media queries tools built-in
• Can edit PHP, ASP, or JSP
• Dynamic page rendering and editing with server-side programming languages (PHP, JSP, ASP, CFM, etc.)
• Database connectivity
• Edit XML and/or RSS
• Google sitemaps
• Writes to blogs
• Free scripts
• Photo gallery builder
• Ecommerce tools
• SEO assistance built-in
• Captcha support or other methods of protecting forms
• Version control
• Support for teams editing the site (beyond version control)
• Some features that appear to come with BlueGriffon require a paid add-on

Full price: Free

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This product was reviewed using the free version of the software and information on their website. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.