HTML editor : Java Glossary

HTML editor

You can create HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) files with an ordinary text editor, even Notepad, however if the editor has special features it can greatly speed up the process of creating, editing and validating files.

I tried out perhaps a dozen HTML editors. All were, to be kind, incompetent, even the preposterously overpriced Dreamweaver. There is a market here for someone to create even a half-assed HTML editor to corner the market.

An ideal HTML editor would have the following features:

Lets you view the raw source and rendering simultaneously. The two views should stay in sync. Failing that it should be possible to force a sync with just a click or keystroke.
You can edit the source code textually or the rendering visually, using the mouse.
It should let you enter entities with keyboard shortcuts or by selecting characters from a virtual keyboard.
It should let you apply styles by selecting from a list that by default contains only the most plausible choices for this context. You should be able to select either by keying part of the style name or by selecting it with a mouse, or by a combination. Applying the same style as previous should not require reselecting the style. Ideally you should be able to load the mouse with two styles, one for the left and one for the right button then paint selections with them. Sometimes this feature is called a CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) picker.
It should let you beautify/tidy/reformat/reflow the source code so that is indented to show structure, headings start on a fresh line, long lines wrap etc.
It should validate the syntax of your HTML without having to invoke an external verification program.
Its renderings should be of the same quality as you would get in a browser.
It should highlight the source code to make tags, entities, string literals and comments stand out.
It should let you automate common tasks and invoke them with a custom icon on the toolbar.
It should have a command to compact out unnecessary white space to prune the document size to a minimum to speed transmission.
Integrated spell checker.
It should fix simple errors such as non-lower case tags and missing end tags, missing DOCTYPE etc.
This might be a separate project, perhaps some sort of plug-in for the editor that expands the Wikipedia codes into HTML for proofing so that you can prepare and proof Wikipedia contributions off line.

Some of the editors I have used include:

HTML editors
Editor	Advantages	Disadvantages
Blue Griffon	Core is free. XP/W2003/Vista/W7-32/W7-64/Linux/OSX Written in C++. Does math expressions. Uses Firefox rendering engine. Has many optional, for pay add-ons, including the manual. WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get). Accurate renderings, better than Dreamweaver. Note the spelling: not Gryphon, not Griffin.	The download button is well hidden. Tries to trick you into installing an unrelated toolbar. You need several of the for-pay addons to make the editor useful, still way cheaper than Dreamweaver. I started getting BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) frequently shortly after I installed it, and they went away when I uninstalled it. Is suspect this initial version has a serious bug that triggers even when it is not running.
Adobe Dreamweaver	Gold standard — the most commonly used editor my web professionals. Many advanced features for handling server side tags as well as ordinary HTML. Very picky validator. When you are keying it is always guessing what you will key next. When it guesses correctly, it saves you untold keystrokes.	Expensive. Slow to start up. A bit overwhelming if you don’t need the advanced features. Lame beautify. Cannot configure the validator to ignore minor errors. Abominable entity support. Does not even highlight them.
Amaya	free, opensource. Many different ways of viewing your source. Virtual keyboard for entering entities. Small and quick.	Unpolished buggy renderings. Clumsy and slow to enter CSS span tags visually. No beautify.
Aptana Studio	free	No CSS style-applying or entity-entering features. It is essentially a text editor with syntax colouring.
Best Address	very accurate rendering in visual edit mode.	not suitable for applying CSS classes to selections.
BlueFish	free and open source. General programmer editor.	not suitable for applying CSS classes to selections. Missing many standard features.
Coffee Cup	well done code cleaner. No visual edit. Crashed.	not suitable for applying CSS classes to selections.
CSE HTMLValidator	Primarily an HTML validator. The source code listing is nicely colourised to highlight tags, entities and comments.	Does not display rendered HTML simultaneously, however, you can save and render without leaving the program. You cannot edit the rendered view. The default tidy program inserts breaks around equals. Reputedly there is a way to write a scripts to handle tidies the way you want.
Evrsoft First Page	It has beginner, intermediate, etc. modes to simply the program to make it easier to learn.	Too slow to use.
HTMLPad	inexpensive, configurable. It can convert chars to entities and back.	No visual editing. No CSS style-applying or entity-entering features. Salts your text with  s that you have to manually convert to plain spaces.
IntelliJ Idea	General programmer editor with special features for specific languages including HTML. Can write plugins in Java. The source code listing is nicely colourised to highlight tags, entities and comments. It has a decent, fast reformatter.	Expensive, but free for open source projects. Does not display rendered HTML simultaneously. You must save and render in a browser. Somewhat slow navigation. No specialised features for HTML editing. It is more potential that actuality since you can write plug-ins.
MicroEdge Visual Slick Edit	very quick, general programmer editor, arbitrarily elaborate macros, highly configurable beautify. After trying out all these other specialised HTML editors, I think SlickEdit is the fasted for inserting links and applying styles. This is because it has user-written macros you can invoke with a single mouse click or keystroke.	Expensive. Does not display rendered HTML simultaneously. You must save and render in a browser.
PageBreeze	free, very good renderings and visual edits.	No CSS style-applying or entity-entering features. Discards your end tags. Salts your text with  s that you have to manually convert to plain spaces.
SeaMonkey	free, open source, part of a browser, mail reader, news reader.	Quite primitive. It was written before CSS, and has not been properly updated to edit modern HTML.

Amper: converts stray & to &
Compactor: removes excess white space
CSS editor
CSS editors
editor
HTML tidiers
HTMLValidator
QEV: helps you balance left/right single/double quotes in your HTML
Wikipedia comparison of HTML Editors
Wikipedia on HTML Editors

	You can get the freshest copy of this page from:	or possibly from your local J: drive (Java virtual drive/mindprod.com website mirror)
	http://mindprod.com/jgloss/htmleditor.html	J:\mindprod\jgloss\htmleditor.html
	Please email your feedback for publication, letters to the editor, errors, omissions, typos, formatting errors, ambiguities, unclear wording, broken/redirected link reports, suggestions to improve this page or comments to Roedy Green : If you want your message kept confidential, not considered for posting, please explicitly specify that.
	Canadian Mind Products
	mindprod.com IP:[65.110.21.43]
view Blog	Your face IP:[38.107.179.211]
Feedback	You are visitor number 11.