The Editors Thread

I realize everyone has favorites and least favorites.

If you spend anytime in html you understand the importance of source view.
One can claim expertise in the format untill one has a solid grasp of source code.

As you add your favorite to the list attach a quick summary of what advantages or disadvantages it has.

Example:

Notepad
Notepad has come standard with windows since 3.1 While many users have blown it off as a non rich text document editor. Notepad devotee's are generally old school html coders. There are no wizards no color coding text and no predefined tags or wysiwyg editing. It's the acid test of how well you actually know html source code. Some hardcore html codes use nothing but notepad to format html.

Evrsoft 1st Page 2000
This is an older product still available as freeware. With all of it's faults it's still my preferred source code editor. It's lean so the program loads quickly and yet still allows easy access to commonly used tags. The most noteable feature is "my code" If you commonly find yourself wanting to reuse scriptlets such as pre defined tables div's and javascript. you can write the code in Mycode then simply drag your custom code into the source code you are working on. The gui is not as lean as Notepad++ Nor as complex as html-kit. Note. While 1stpage 2000 is free 2006 is not 2006 has a wysiwyg editor

Eversoft 1st Page 2006

Aside from cosmetic changes this thing actually rocks. Granted one can argue why pay when you can get several wysiwyg editors for free. While sometimes abit sluggish in wysiwyg mode. It rights the cleanest code I've ever seen. myCode has been enhanced with folders for organizing your code snipets however you like them.
intuitively you can simply drag your code on to a document.

1stpage 2006 doesn't have the clutter of html kit yet yet has all the features not even a few hours have passed since I've tried it and I'm liking the product already.

Dreamweaver 8


The integration with the rest of the Macromedia/Adobe suite, it's extensibility (Extension Manager plugins), massive feature set and integrated site definitions make it a breeze to code anything from a database driven php site using a full range of recordset abilities (paging ,etc) to database driven backends more suited to the Flash environment and everything in between. It has a huge userbase, a well known name brand and plenty of third party support to allow for almost any server model to be supported. It's find and replace routines are invaluable and it's syntax highlighting for the many types of documents it's supports plus it's many other features has always made it a pleasure to build with.

Microsoft Web Developer Express 2005 (free download)

From the folks that brought you Frontpage and Frontpage Express comes Microsoft's latest incarnation, Microsoft Web Developer Express. MWDE is a WSIWYG editior with an array of features ranging from integrated FTP deployment, code hints, and rich formatted text. MWDE also comes equipped with tools for validating your site on older browsers. Combined with both Microsoft's free SQL express and XML Notepad 2006, you'll have all of the necessary components to develop feature-rich websites with a higher productivity to time spent developing ratio than ever before.

360mb download will all features? that's huge

I use Dreamweaver 8, I use it mainly as a text editor but I like its template and site functions, makes organising files and projects a lot easier. No it doesn't stick its own code into yours and it doesn't interfere with what you're doing.

I use ultraedit for server side stuff.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Frets

360mb download will all features? that's huge

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That's only because they include a "compact" version of the MSDN library in each version. Without it, it's only about 60MB. I really wish they'd release the entire express suite as a bundled package. The MSDN Express library is around 250 MB, so multiply that by the 5 express suite options and you're already over a gigabyte of redundant data.

From what I've seen, if you're just looking for a well-balanced web developer's suite, I'd say it's worth the download, though I haven't personally used it for much more than its structured HTML view for debugging large site's source, like MySpace.

Geneis F5

I dabbled in asp 3.0 But to me it was like trying to break dance in a body cast. When .NET was introduced I just couldn't hang. There are plenty of wamps out there it made me more of a php advocate.

aversion
I'm not knocking Dreamweaver or for that matter Front Page Although it seems pretty bulky if all your using it for is text editing.

I'm not just using it for text editing.

We use UltraEdit at work, it's not bad. Pretty fast and lightweight (Dreamweaver always killed my work computer), but it has nice colour coding, code collapsing, good search functions and a handy diff tool. Although I'm sure I barely scratch the surface of what it can really do.

I'm not going to lie...I use Dreamweaver mainly to bugcheck complex syntax for other users or when I build from scratch. After the fact it's faster to edit an existing page of mine with notepad (and less horsepower consuming).

I do however constantly use the Find/Replace routines which will snake/digg down through all pages in any drive/folder I specify. Just love that ability. Same with search.

Like Frets, I'm also a WAMPer and I tend to swap dyndns addys every six months and rearrange directories so it's just a must have for what I do.

PHPDesigner 2007
This is by far my favorite coding application. It has a very nice, easy to use interface as well as syntax highlighting for: PHP, SQL, HTML, XML, CSS, JavaScript, VBScript, Java, C#, Perl, Python & Ruby. It also has an intelligent highlighting mode that will color different parts of the file based on what they are. For instance a file could contain html, javascript, css, and PHP. It goes through and highlights each accordingly. It also has code snippets allowing you to save and easily insert commonly used code chunks. This doesn't even scratch the surface so check it out yourself.

Glad you started this thread Frets. This info will utimately be very useful and offer solutions for every budget from a non existant one to an unlimited one.

All these seems like great editors guys :thumbsup:

Thanks,

Composer
Composer is an add on for Mozilla family browsers (Firefox, SeaMonkey et all)

Free - This product is aimed at the novice.
There are four modes Normal , Html tags Html source and preview.
It's fast it's lean it writes clean code. It lacks many features such as syntax highlighting scriplets etc etc. If you've never used a source code editor or you major goal is to write content quickly with only marginal scripting but having css integration, then this is your editor. However as your skills and requirements grow any of the above are would make more then suitable replacements.

HTML-kit

Granted thier webpage looks terrible. HTML kit is the mother of source file editors
Plugins consist of mainly reusable source code for respective languages. If your constantly working in as, php, asp, css xhtml xml you'll find these plugins a godsend.
The interface easily gets cluttered as you build up plugins however they are easy to install and remove.

Notepad2

This is basically a re-vamped, freeware version of the original Notepad program, specifically designed with all kinds of programming in mind. It's most common feature is syntax highlighting, available to all the coding lanuguages found in Notepad2. It can code almost anything besides HTML and CSS... Python, Pascal, C++, Actionscript, Metafiles, Program Resource Files, and a lot more.

The advantages of Notepad2 is visually-assisted code design (syntax highlighting), which makes for a great help when your an ameteaur coder, plus the scheme customization makes all the better for those who want to associate different formatting for different elements. Also, being an open-source program, you can customize the internal functions and menus any way you like.

Disadvantages.... well, not a whole lot on the front end of tips or snippets, which would further increase productivity, even if included as an optional feature. Also, most HTML-coding programs at least have a nicely-emulated browser preview mode built-in -- Notepad2 doesn't even have that. This can create clutter on your desktop if you are working on multiple files. Further expanding on that, each file corresponds in a new window, whereas the bigger programs have one main instance running with a clean, organized tab rack for all currently opened files.

Visual Studio 2005

Website development software doesn't get much bigger than this so, first the bad points:

It's big and bulky and if you want you want to make a change to some text on a web page, you might want to put 5 minutes aside depending on how you've got things set up. It also has a really annoying habit of adding inline styles - even when you tell you it not to. Sometimes I even end up copying code into Dreamweaver just to tidy it up and then copying back to Visual Studio. It's ftp client sucks as well. Also - it's very expensive compared to the others....

What are the good points then? Well - there really isn't a development environment like it (Visual Web Developer was also mention earlier but Visual Studio does have more features even for web development). Visual Studio Intellisense is brilliant (TBH, I've probably become too reliant on it..).

Clearly Visual Studio is geared towards developing .NET websites and windows applications so, if you're not happy working with asp.net or the languages used to program against the .NET framework - vb.net or c#, it might not be for you.

Support for XHTML is actually pretty good now (apart from the inline styles thing but that is mostly with tables and we dont use tables now do we?). The CSS editor is ok but still not as good as Dreamweaver's.

Where it really shines though is in building properly structured web applications using object oriented programming languages and fantastic support for database driven apps. As a .net web application developer I couldn't work without it.

Adobe's ExtendedScript Toolkit 2 (part of Creative Suite 3). Absolutely wonderful Javascript editor. It allows you to debug right on the spot without having to embed it into a page. It offers code hinting and syntax highlighting. Highly recommended for streamlining any Javascript application.

Dreamweaver CS3

I like most things about it form quick down and dirty page design and code view is good for code correction and changes.

When it come to database driven pages [asp, php] Dreamweaver is not the best for me. I always need to go back and do some heavy cleaning up.

All in all it saves much time. I could never think about code everything by hand in my job...

I'm looking forward to CS4 based on the beta.

What's a good or best free WYSIWYG editor?

Is there anything that will generate a CSS to use across a number of pages? I got basic stuff but want to pull things like repetitive links so i only have to change the one thing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jaffasoft

What's a good or best free WYSIWYG editor?

Is there anything that will generate a CSS to use across a number of pages? I got basic stuff but want to pull things like repetitive links so i only have to change the one thing.

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In general, WYSIWYG editors are not that great. They generate code that just isn't... quite right. This is just a department that requires a bit of a human touch to be able to interpret how you want something to act, not just how it should appear. It needs to be aware of it's position in the document as well as it's surrounding elements. For the sake of learning just a little bit of HTML and CSS, it'll take you a loooong way, and it's real simple compared to most other things. There's really only a few key concepts, and the rest can just be retained in Google's memory. :)

Now, as for text editors, I'm a Mac user, and I'm all about TextMate. Beautiful, simple, beautiful, LOVE IT! I'm in pain if I don't have access to it, and at ~$50, it's totally worth it.

Dreamweaver CS5
it includes new features for building sites with WordPress, new CSS enhancements and a new set of tools that let you see code changes in real time as you work, much like the popular Firebug add-on.Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 is a computer program that you can use to create and maintain a website.

it is good for edit the any info.

The biggest plus for the Notepad2 is the syntax highlighting IMO

Granted thier webpage looks terrible. HTML kit is the mother of source file editors
Plugins consist of mainly reusable source code for respective languages. If your constantly working in as, php, asp, css xhtml xml you'll find these plugins a godsend and if you need a cheat engine table. The interface easily gets cluttered as you build up plugins however they are easy to install and remove.

Granted thier webpage looks terrible. HTML kit is the mother of source file editors
Plugins consist of mainly reusable source code for respective languages. If your constantly working in as, php, asp, css xhtml xml you'll find these plugins a godsend and if you need a cheat engine table. The interface easily gets cluttered as you build up plugins however they are easy to install and remove.