After having reviewed countless supposedly WYSIWYG HTML editors, I've come to the conclusion that for me, at least, they leave a lot to be desired. I'm constantly working on Web pages to test a new technique, figure out a solution to a reader's HTML problem, design some new WebDeveloper.com ® style, or to work on my own personal Web site. I want the HTML editor to load fast, be light on its feet (by not hogging resources), and I want to be able to open several pages at once, even if they're a full megabyte long. I'd like to have some shortcuts to my most often used HTML tags, and I'd like the same functionality that my word processor has, including a spell checker. Is this too much to ask? Apparently so, judging from the available software out there.
Of course, every now and then a jewel will fall from the sky, or more directly, from a fellow programmer's insight. My Editor, David Fiedler, knows well the needs we both share towards HTML software. So he told me about this small editor called Super NoteTab. I'd been using another small editor called HTMLNotepad until then, but it had limitations on file size which was causing me to have to use another editor, and in this case I choose Super NoteTab. I also liked Super NoteTab for its ability to open multiple documents, and search and replace text and HTML tags within multiple documents. Hey, this thing started saving me time...big time!
After using it for a month or so, I decided to take a look at the official Web site of
Super NoteTab, and was surprised to see that a newer version had come out, this one being commercial. Understand that up until now, Super NoteTab has been strictly freeware. I started to think, ah, here we go--it's a great product, so the price must be representative of the quality. Not so...NoteTab Pro is commercial, but it's only $5 dollars (now $10 as of July 1998 -- Ed.)! We spend more than that for lunch every day! So naturally, wanting to support Eric Fookes' fine efforts, I went to the NoteTab Web site and promptly paid my shareware fee...here's what you get:
multiple-level undo/redo
bookmarks
URL and HTML-tag highlighting
a spell checker
will read up to a 16 MB file
Thesaurus
can wrap text to column
extremely configurable
tabbed interface allows easy comparisons and editing
In-Context Clipbook (which allows "instant" HTML coding)
choose from multiple Clipbook templates (including HTML, HTML2, Acronyms, HTML Color, Application Launcher, and Smilies)
the ability to create new templates
This is a full featured editor, with both a small price and a small package. If you're constantly working on JavaScript or JScript, Dynamic HTML, or Style Sheets, and you like to get in there and get your hands in the code, you can't beat this tool. Software like this deserves to be supported. This isn't Microsoft, folks, but it is quality software for Web professionals none-the-less. Sometimes you get more than you pay for after all.
Scott Clark is technical editor of Web Developer®.
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