Bluefish editor : Java Glossary

Advantages

• free and open source
• When you highlight a tag, it automatically highlights the matching end tag. This does not affect the usual keystroke insertion logic.
• It checks spelling as your type.
• It can convert chars to entities and back, with fine control.
• It properly highlights entities. The colour scheme for syntax highlighting is well chosen.
• It supports plug-ins. There are a number available to extend the editor.
• It supports many languages besides HTML. You could use it as your general programming editor. This saves you adjusting keystrokes an editing techniques for every editing task.
• It will convert tags to upper or lower case, but it won’t do it automatically.
• You can insert common entities from a structured menu. Entities are property highlighted.
• The type is unusually clear. The trick may be a combination of using anti-aliasing, choosing a good mono font and avoiding a high contrast black text colour.

Disadvantages

• It does not provide any means to apply style classes to selections. With three clicks, it will wrap a <span>…</span> sandwich around a selection, but does nothing to apply the <span class=xxx>
• You cannot edit visually. It does not even have a preview mode.
• It’s keystroke look-ahead suggestions about what you might be about to type are a bit brain-damaged. It does not even understand the notion of nested tags.
• It has no syntax checker or beautifier.