What's Your Favorite HTML Editor?

[Toby Inkster]

Whta's your favorite HTML editor?

brucie's big list:
http://brucieslittlevoices.me.uk/editors

I highly recommend SciTE (it's on the list). Why?

* It's free

* It works on Linux, Windows and Mac, so I can use the same
shortcut keys and features on all my usual platforms

* It's got Syntax highlighting in tonnes of languages, including
HTML, CSS, PHP, Perl, Javascript, SQL and XML

* I can hit "F5" to view the page I'm working on in my
favourite browser (even with PHP)

* Autocompletion & context-sensitive help in several
programming languages

* Folding

* Search and replace with regular expressions

* Line numbering

* PDF, LaTeX, HTML and RTF export of syntax-highlighted source
code.

* Can be scripted in Lua.

 

[patrick j]

The trouble is that no indenting is easier to edit... trust me on
this.

This is true

The tabs get in the way all the time when editing if the indenting is
with tabs.

It's one of things I miss about the classic Nisus Writer which was a
word processor with awesome text editing capabilities.

With Nisus Writer you could indent using the word processor's para
indenting capability.

Then you would edit away to your heart's content, dragging this here
and there, and there'd never be a problem with a tab turning up in the
wrong place.

The classic OS Nisus Writer saved all files as type TEXT so all you had
to do before uploading was remove the resource fork and you had a
"pure" text file.

However one thing I'll say for BBEdit 8.5 is that to indent a wrapped
paragraph you only need to tab the first line, the para then
wraps-on-the-left under the tab position.

This is a very good thing imho

 

[John Salerno]

This is true

How is that easier? What about using spaces?

 

[genedefcon2006]

That is my new favorite HTML/text editor.

 

[dorayme]

How is that easier? What about using spaces?

Go do it and see, do hundreds of pages. Do it over a long time.
When editing, you will be forever messing about if the text is
all nicely formatted and indented like crazy. If it is all banged
up to the left, just line breaks to help the eye, there is much
less to be distracted by. You can just concentrate on the
content. Yes, i know you can edit and later use a Tidy. But it is
a messy ugly at thing at the time. As for "live formatting", it
is too nerve jangling.

What I have sometimes done (but can't even be bothered to do any
more) is get a Tidy to reformat nicely when the work is done. And
keep a 'plain' master copy for later edits. But now, for example,
if I cannot find the source of trouble in plainly formatted
source on local machine, and want a nicer formatted version to
assist the eye, I just "View Source" in a browser not set to
deliver my local text.

 

[John Salerno]

I highly recommend SciTE (it's on the list). Why?

* It's got Syntax highlighting in tonnes of languages, including
HTML, CSS, PHP, Perl, Javascript, SQL and XML

I would love using Scite except for one thing that is very unsatisfying:
you can't define your own syntax highlighting. Actually, I find this to
be a problem with every text editor I've used except UltraEdit (which I
use and love).

I know there is syntax highlighting, but it's very inflexible. There are
a limited number of groups of words that can be highlighted, and you
have to settle for what Scite wants to highlight. With UltraEdit, you
define your own groups (such as "Methods", "Keywords", "Exceptions",
etc.) and customize the highlighting. With Scite, you can highlight main
things like keywords, but you can't define your own groups (so no
exception highlighting), and you also can't highlight methods and
functions wherever they appear, only when they are first defined. Maybe
some people like this behavior, but I like the more flexible behavior of
highlighting exactly what I want.

 

[Marvel]

I would love using Scite except for one thing that is very unsatisfying:
you can't define your own syntax highlighting. Actually, I find this to be
a problem with every text editor I've used except UltraEdit (which I use
and love).

I know there is syntax highlighting, but it's very inflexible. There are a
limited number of groups of words that can be highlighted, and you have to
settle for what Scite wants to highlight. With UltraEdit, you define your
own groups (such as "Methods", "Keywords", "Exceptions", etc.) and
customize the highlighting. With Scite, you can highlight main things like
keywords, but you can't define your own groups (so no exception
highlighting), and you also can't highlight methods and functions wherever
they appear, only when they are first defined. Maybe some people like this
behavior, but I like the more flexible behavior of highlighting exactly
what I want.

Yea I have to totally agree it's all about control, if you can't do it the
way you want it messes with your head.

 

[Joel Shepherd]

But is there even a way to change the indent level?

With the A Bomb? Damn right, you can change the indent level with an A
Bomb. How many kilometers do you want to move it?

 

[dorayme]

With the A Bomb? Damn right, you can change the indent level with an A
Bomb. How many kilometers do you want to move it?

!!!

 

[Marvel]

With the A Bomb? Damn right, you can change the indent level with an A
Bomb. How many kilometers do you want to move it?

 

[Toby Inkster]

I would love using Scite except for one thing that is very unsatisfying:
you can't define your own syntax highlighting. Actually, I find this to
be a problem with every text editor I've used except UltraEdit (which I
use and love).

I've not really looked into this area with SciTE, so I don't know how far
its capabilities go. I would imagine it's possible to define your own
syntax highligher using the Lua scripting interface, though that seems a
bit like overkill -- should be possible to do without scripting.

Nedit certainly allows you to define your own syntax rules for
highlighting. That is my second editor of choice. (Nano is my third.)