HTML Editors

You mean I have to hire an Editor?

NO!

heh heh ... an HTML Editor is software that you use to write HTML. In it's most basic form it is Note Pad which comes with Windows. You probably already have it. In it's more advanced forms it's WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) programs that actually show you what the page is going to look like as you type on the screen. There are a lot of programs out there. Some of the WYSIWYG programs incorporate FTP software within them to upload your pages to your server.

Beginners are often drawn to the WYSIWYG editors because of the ease in writing HTML with them. That ease of use comes at a cost though, which is a page heavy with commands that are not needed. Looking to the future of HTML and the changes we will see it go through in the years to come, I believe that the pages these editors are producing today will be rendered unreadable by the browsers of the future, simply because of the way the WYSIWYG system works. My advice is to stay away from them.

My favorite HTML editor, and I highly recommend it, is NoteTab. It's basic, but does everything ... and then some! I tried many editors, some looked great but failed to deliver and froze up a lot. Others really didn't do much at all beyond copy/paste and a few whistles. NoteTab goes way beyond simply being an editor. It is an excellent stable program that I have been using for years and have never yet had a problem with it.

I have to tell you to shop around for your HTML Editor. I also have to tell you that no matter what your needs, NoteTab is going to meet them. It is by far the absolute BEST editor around. It goes way, way beyond what is required of an HTML editor. If you care to, you can even program it yourself to do many of the mundane tasks that are part of writing web pages and maintaining web sites. I haven't figured out how to do the dishes with it yet ... but it has flawlessly done everything else for me.

One thing about HTML Editors is that they need to save your work in plain text, more commonly referred to as pure ASCII. If you use Word, or many other word processors (or Desk Top Publishers) you'll find that they place their own code in the document to control the type face, size and weight of the type. This coding will render your HTML document useless. You can not use Word or other Word Processors to write HTML. Even if they can save your work to pure ASCII text, you are better getting something that is meant to write HTML. NoteTab Pro is the answer to this.

You may have heard alot about Front Page the MicroSoft HTML software. Believe it or not (or maybe you are familiar enough with MS products already to understand) Front Page will alter code that is required for your site to operate correctly. It usually messes things up after you have created the entire site, and then try and edit a page or two. Especially with URLs. I've seen it alter links rendering an entire site virtually useless. It was a business site too, linking to Affiliate Programs, and no sales were then made.

Using NoteTab you can view your pages as you write them easily with a simple click of an icon, which makes NoteTab much like the WYSIWYG editors. In reality it is better because it does not write code for you, but allows you to easily see what you are doing. It's best to learn the code itself and be able to write it, than to rely on a WYSIWYG editor to do the work for you. Those editors also add in lots of code and attributes that you really don't need all the time. They have to cover all the bases and do so by creating extra code. Think of it like you're a pilot. If you always fly on auto-pilot you'll never really know how to fly. If you only use a WYSIWYG editor, you'll become lazy and never really know how to write HTML. Learn to fly.

NoteTab Lite is the free version of the more robust PRO version. I suggest you start there. Their Standard Version is $9.95. The PRO version sells for $19.95. If you are serious, and you can afford the $20, go for it. You won't be sorry.

This is a basics tutorial so I won't get too technical, but to attempt to demonstrate the power of NoteTab Pro I'd like to relate a story about a site I run which is a searchable list of restaurants. Each restaurant is an entry in a database.

The database itself is a plain text file. The order of the database is name|address|city|state|telephone ... each field is pipe delimited which means it's separated by the "|" symbol as shown.

I needed to rearrange the listing moving the telephone number to the second field instead of the last field. Like this; name|telephone|address|city|state. There are over 5,000 listings in the database. To do all that work manually would of taken me a very, very long time. With NoteTab (the PRO version) I was able to rearrange the entire database in a matter of a few seconds. Yes ... SECONDS!

OK. Enough of the technical, I just wanted to demonstrate the power of the software. I hope you will develop good habits writing HTML, and learn to use good tools writing HTML, so that as you advance into more complicated sites you'll have the skills and tools at hand to achieve your goals.

I have no interest or advantage to you using NoteTab. I just believe in the software and think it is the best going. I receive no compensation at all for you purchasing and or using the software. After reading what I just wrote I wanted to be sure you don't think I'm trying to sell you something.

MicroSoft offers a Front Page system to create pages. You need special files installed on your server called Front Page Extensions. Some people think that it's a good thing. I steer clear of anything MicroSoft when it comes to the WWW. That's my opinion, and only my opinion. You need to make your own decisions. I haven't checked in a long time now, but there used to be an extra charge by many hosting companies to install the Front Page Extensions. I don't use Front Page, don't recommend it's use and consequently know nothing about it so I can't help you here. Again I stress, do what you have to do to learn, but please ... learn. Learn to fly.

If you really want to start off with a WYSIWYG editor go ahead. I hope you'll come down to Earth and use NoteTab eventually. It's actually easier!

It's time for your first quiz. It's an easy one. It will determine if you've been paying attention ... or not!