What's the best HTML editor on the Mac right now?

Brian Kendig

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Mar 15, 2005, 8:39:04 AM3/15/05

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What's the best HTML editor available on Mac OS X right now?

I've tried Nvu and also the editor that's part of Mozilla; both of
these feel clumsy and non-Mac-ish. I understand that iWork can import
and export HTML, but I've heard it's not very good at this, and can't
handle images. I've been told that Claris Homepage 3.0 is good, but
that's no longer sold and is way outdated by now, right?

Is there something better out there I'm missing? I'd like something
that works like a word processor but has good, solid, native support
for HTML.

Davoud

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Mar 15, 2005, 8:54:51 AM3/15/05

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Brian Kendig:

> What's the best HTML editor available on Mac OS X right now?

Macromedia Dreamweaver is a very strong candidate for those who want to
do it the easy way -- WYSISIG.

BBEdit is a very strong candidate for those who want to do it the hard
way, i.e., write raw html code.

Davoud

D P Schreber

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Mar 15, 2005, 9:10:47 AM3/15/05

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On 2005-03-15, Brian Kendig <br...@enchanter.net> wrote:
> What's the best HTML editor available on Mac OS X right now?

For general html, emacs or vim would be your best bet, depending how you
feel about modal editing. These are free.

BBEdit is also excellent and will feel more familiar to you. But it
costs a lot.

> Is there something better out there I'm missing? I'd like something
> that works like a word processor but has good, solid, native support
> for HTML.

What are you trying to do in html?

If it's just formatted text, maybe with the occasional embedded jpeg,
you might as well use Word or whatever and convert the result. Text
Edit isn't bad either.

If it's more than that, I think you should reconsider your approach.
For general html, the word processing paradigm really isn't the right
one at all. Writing decent html is a lot more like writing code than it
is like writing formatted text. That's why code editors like emacs or
vim or BBEdit do html so well.

Brian Kendig

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Mar 15, 2005, 9:13:45 AM3/15/05

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Right now I use Emacs to edit raw HTML. I don't see a need to pay for
BBEdit, 'cos I don't see that it has anything better than what Emacs
offers. (Does it?)

Dreamweaver seems like overkill (and overpriced!). All I want is a
WYSIWYG editor which lets me see italics as italics, and bold as bold,
and headings as headings, etc. and saves it to an HTML file.

(What is WYSISIG?)

D P Schreber

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Mar 15, 2005, 10:17:52 AM3/15/05

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On 2005-03-15, Brian Kendig <br...@enchanter.net> wrote:

> Right now I use Emacs to edit raw HTML. I don't see a need to pay for
> BBEdit, 'cos I don't see that it has anything better than what Emacs
> offers. (Does it?)

Drag-and-drop? But overall, no, it's no better. It just feels more
like a Mac application than emacs does.

> Dreamweaver seems like overkill (and overpriced!). All I want is a
> WYSIWYG editor which lets me see italics as italics, and bold as bold,
> and headings as headings

If you're using a decent html mode in emacs, it should display these
sorts of things in the buffer. For more elaborate display, use a
browser. Even better, use several different browsers. You can easily
send an emacs buffer to your standard browser with a mouse action (in
the carbon and X11 versions).

This is how html is designed to work: you use it to specify structure,
not presentation. The presentation is up to each browser. There's
nothing wrong with editing "raw" html. I would say this is exactly what
you _should_ be doing, at least for anything non-trivial. The wysiwyg
approach is bound to keep you focused on a specific presentation instead
of on structure.

Stick with emacs. If you don't have an html mode you like, I can
recommend one. And definitely build the carbon version if you haven't
already.

Howard Shubs

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Mar 15, 2005, 10:11:52 AM3/15/05

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In article <1110893944....@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
"Brian Kendig" <br...@enchanter.net> wrote:

> Is there something better out there I'm missing? I'd like something
> that works like a word processor but has good, solid, native support
> for HTML.

BBEdit

--
"It is very easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of them by the
sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all." Hitchiker's
Guide to the Galaxy on the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation. Does that seem
familiar to anything on THIS planet at THIS time?

Howard Shubs

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Mar 15, 2005, 10:13:06 AM3/15/05

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In article <1110896025.0...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>,
"Brian Kendig" <br...@enchanter.net> wrote:

> Right now I use Emacs to edit raw HTML. I don't see a need to pay for
> BBEdit, 'cos I don't see that it has anything better than what Emacs
> offers. (Does it?)

I wouldn't touch emacs with a stick, so I don't know. BBEdit has
everything I need. Since you can, IIRC, side-grade from other editors,
I figure the "expensive!" argument is bogus.

AES

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Mar 15, 2005, 11:15:12 AM3/15/05

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In article <150320050854517129%st...@sky.net>, Davoud <st...@sky.net>
wrote:

>
> BBEdit is a very strong candidate for those who want to do it the hard
> way, i.e., write raw html code.
>

Yes 限 and if you're willing to learn at least some elementary HTML its
built-in tools for entering tags, formatting your source pages, checking
your syntax, and handing off pages to your selected browser for viewing
are all quite good and fairly easy to use.

Davoud

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Mar 15, 2005, 11:27:23 AM3/15/05

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Davoud:

> > Macromedia Dreamweaver is a very strong candidate for those who want to
> > do it the easy way -- WYSISIG.

> > BBEdit is a very strong candidate for those who want to do it the hard
> > way, i.e., write raw html code.

Brian Kendig:

Yes, that's what Dreamweaver does. You asked "Is there something better

out there I'm missing? I'd like something that works like a word

processor but has good, solid, native support for HTML" and the answer
is "Dreamweaver." I don't what "overkill" means; I find Dreamweaver to
be well suited to the task at hand; it doesn't do more or less than I
require. As to price, since I find DW to be well suited to my purposes,
I do not find it to be overpriced. You didn't say that you were looking
for a free solution.

> (What is WYSISIG?)

I put a team of skilled analysts on this question. They agree that
there is a 99.77352 percent probability that it is a typographical
error, and should read "WYSIWYG." The analysts agree that there is a
vanishingly small probability that it means "What you serve is some
indigestible glop."

Sorry I couldn't help.

Davoud

Tom Stiller

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Mar 15, 2005, 11:34:11 AM3/15/05

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In article <1110893944....@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
"Brian Kendig" <br...@enchanter.net> wrote:

I like PageSpinner. It has a one-click preview and the ability to
specify a number of browsers with which to view the pages under
development.

--
Tom Stiller

PGP fingerprint = 5108 DDB2 9761 EDE5 E7E3
7BDA 71ED 6496 99C0 C7CF

DJ Craig

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Mar 15, 2005, 1:16:09 PM3/15/05

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I use Dreamweaver, and I hand-code all of my pages. Dreamweaver has a
lot of useful features that BBedit doesn't, like the built in
HTML/XHTML validator (that will even fix the errors for you!), the
tooltips for selecting colors and tags, tooltips for function
parameters in server/client scripting, and it's also useful having the
instant preview in the design pane without having to launch the
browser. (hit F5)
The only advantage to BBedit is that you can modify a file directly on
the server with most FTP clients (Fetch, Transmit).
But then Dreamweaver has it's own built-in FTP client.

Scott

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Mar 15, 2005, 1:51:00 PM3/15/05

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In article <68mdnUuxiLl...@comcast.com>,

D P Schreber <schre...@rayban.net> wrote:

> If it's just formatted text, maybe with the occasional embedded jpeg,
> you might as well use Word or whatever and convert the result. Text
> Edit isn't bad either.

Word generates really, really rotten HTML. And you have to be careful:
it embeds some personal information into the code (name, etc.).

Just now, I wrote a simple page (just a single word) in Word, exported
as HTML (Save as Web Page in Word 04), then opened the page in Safari.
The entire page consisted solely of the word "Test"; here's what Word
created (first manually removing my personal info):

<head>
<meta name=Title content=Test>
<meta name=Keywords content="">
<meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=macintosh">
<meta name=ProgId content=Word.Document>
<meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 11">
<meta name=Originator content="Microsoft Word 11">
<link rel=File-List href="Test_files/filelist.xml">
<title>Test</title>

<style>

</style>
</head>

</div>

</body>

</html>

Phil Stripling

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Mar 15, 2005, 1:58:00 PM3/15/05

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"Brian Kendig" <br...@enchanter.net> writes:

> Right now I use Emacs to edit raw HTML. I don't see a need to pay for

What mode are you using?

> BBEdit, 'cos I don't see that it has anything better than what Emacs
> offers. (Does it?)

Depends. I have an older version of BBEdit that I've been using (6.5),
having seen no improvements worth the price of the upgrade. I'm using emacs
in the terminal -- the old style, plain vanilla, Unix-style CLI emacs, with
not Mac-like functions at all, and I give BBEdit the nod over that. I've
recently upgraded to Panther, so I'm going to look at other versions of
emacs that may offer more features. It's hard to beat emacs if you can get
along with it. Like Macs and PCs, there's a real love-hate relationship
between people who like emacs and those who don't.

>
> Dreamweaver seems like overkill (and overpriced!). All I want is a
> WYSIWYG editor which lets me see italics as italics, and bold as bold,
> and headings as headings, etc. and saves it to an HTML file.

Having used BBEdit (and BBEdit Lite before that) for decades, WYSIWYG is
oversold. You shouldn't be using <i> and <b> anyway. :->

--
Phil Stripling | email to the replyto address is presumed
The Civilized Explorer | spam and read later. email from this URL
http://www.cieux.com/ | http://www.civex.com/ is read daily.

Phil Stripling

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Mar 15, 2005, 1:59:33 PM3/15/05

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D P Schreber <schre...@rayban.net> writes:

> Stick with emacs. If you don't have an html mode you like, I can
> recommend one.

Please point out a few with features you like.

> And definitely build the carbon version if you haven't
> already.

Any references on how? And where is the carbon version? I'd like to play
around with a more nearly mac-like version, if you please.

BreadW...@fractious.net

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Mar 15, 2005, 2:06:35 PM3/15/05

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Phil Stripling <phil_st...@cieux.zzn.com> writes:
> D P Schreber <schre...@rayban.net> writes:

> > And definitely build the carbon version if you haven't already.
>
> Any references on how? And where is the carbon version? I'd like to play
> around with a more nearly mac-like version, if you please.

Don't bother. Here:

http://www.inf.unibz.it/~franconi/mac-emacs/

--
Plain Bread alone for e-mail, thanks. The rest gets trashed.
No HTML in E-Mail! -- http://www.expita.com/nomime.html
Are you posting responses that are easy for others to follow?
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/2000/06/14/quoting

D P Schreber

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Mar 15, 2005, 2:26:00 PM3/15/05

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> Word generates really, really rotten HTML.

I know. There are lots of reasons for this, but one of them, for sure,
is that the word-processor paradigm is a very bad match to html.

Anders Eklöf

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Mar 15, 2005, 2:35:23 PM3/15/05

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AES <sie...@stanford.edu> wrote:

> In article <150320050854517129%st...@sky.net>, Davoud <st...@sky.net>
> wrote:
>
> >
> > BBEdit is a very strong candidate for those who want to do it the hard
> > way, i.e., write raw html code.
> >
>

> Yes - and if you're willing to learn at least some elementary HTML its

> built-in tools for entering tags, formatting your source pages, checking
> your syntax, and handing off pages to your selected browser for viewing
> are all quite good and fairly easy to use.

PageSpinner has all that too - I've been using it for ages.

--
I recommend Macs to my friends, and Intel machines
to those whom I don't mind billing by the hour

D P Schreber

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Mar 15, 2005, 2:41:20 PM3/15/05

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On 2005-03-15, BreadW...@fractious.net <BreadW...@fractious.net> wrote:
>> > And definitely build the carbon version if you haven't already.
>>
>> Any references on how? And where is the carbon version? I'd like to play
>> around with a more nearly mac-like version, if you please.
>
> Don't bother. Here:
>
> http://www.inf.unibz.it/~franconi/mac-emacs/

I don't recommend downloading some random build of carbon emacs,
unless you're just not able to build it yourself. These are cvs
sources; they change daily.

As for how to build it, it's pretty simple: check out the sources (cvs);
run the configure script with the options '--with-carbon --without-x';
run 'make bootstrap' and 'sudo make install'. That's it. The cvs root
is :ext:ano...@savannah.gnu.org:/cvsroot/emacs. In short:

cvs -z3 -d:ext:ano...@savannah.gnu.org:/cvsroot/emacs co emacs
cd emacs
./configure --with-carbon --without-x
make bootstrap
sudo make install

Of course you can specifiy more configure options if you want to. In
particular you might find --prefix useful.

Emacs.app will be in emacs/mac/

Phil Stripling

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Mar 15, 2005, 4:12:59 PM3/15/05

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Phil Stripling <phil_st...@cieux.zzn.com> writes:

> D P Schreber <schre...@rayban.net> writes:
>
> > Stick with emacs. If you don't have an html mode you like, I can
> > recommend one.
>
> Please point out a few with features you like.

This request seems to have been lost in the 'build your own' answers.

Message has been deleted

Paul Mitchum

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Mar 15, 2005, 8:42:40 PM3/15/05

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Brian Kendig <br...@enchanter.net> wrote:

> What's the best HTML editor available on Mac OS X right now?
>
> I've tried Nvu and also the editor that's part of Mozilla; both of
> these feel clumsy and non-Mac-ish.

Nvu is quite good. You tell it how to connect to your server via ftp,
and you can just double-click on the documents to edit them 'in place.'

And it's free. :-)

Shawn Hearn

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Mar 15, 2005, 10:55:35 PM3/15/05

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In article <1110893944....@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
"Brian Kendig" <br...@enchanter.net> wrote:

Best is a relative term. I like Adobe Golive, but I have not tried many
other alternatives so I cannot possibly claim that Golive is the best
HTML editor for Mac users.

Phil Stripling

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Mar 15, 2005, 11:31:16 PM3/15/05

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D P Schreber <schre...@rayban.net> writes:

> I like html-helper-mode. It has a nice collection of operations on the
> menu (if you enable 'expert') and good syntax highlighting. I'm running
> a very old version, 2.19.1.1 from 1998. It works fine and is available

Wow, that _is_ old. I'm on 3.something. Take a look at
http://www.gest.unipd.it/~saint/html-helper-mode.el.gz
to see if that is still around.

Phil Stripling

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Mar 15, 2005, 11:33:28 PM3/15/05

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Shawn Hearn <sr...@comcast.net> writes:

> Best is a relative term. I like Adobe Golive, but I have not tried many
> other alternatives so I cannot possibly claim that Golive is the best
> HTML editor for Mac users.

One of the issues unaddressed is that writing a Web page is one thing, but
you end up with a few hundred pages and that's a Web site. I use GoLive for
maintaining a couple of Web sites, and it's much better than trying to do
that with a page editor (like BBEdit, for example). Conversely, if the
original poster _only_ wants to do a page or two now and then, GoLive is
overkill.

D P Schreber

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Mar 16, 2005, 7:39:55 AM3/16/05

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On 2005-03-16, Phil Stripling <phil_st...@cieux.zzn.com> wrote:
> D P Schreber <schre...@rayban.net> writes:
>
>> I like html-helper-mode. It has a nice collection of operations on the
>> menu (if you enable 'expert') and good syntax highlighting. I'm running
>> a very old version, 2.19.1.1 from 1998. It works fine and is available
>
> Wow, that _is_ old. I'm on 3.something. Take a look at
> http://www.gest.unipd.it/~saint/html-helper-mode.el.gz
> to see if that is still around.

It isn't, but I found 3.0.4k here:

http://savannah.nongnu.org/download/baol-hth/html-helper-mode_3.0.4kilo.tar.gz

It's definitely an improvement, though it also seems a little slower.
In any case thanks for prodding me to update after a mere 7 years :)

Scott

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Mar 16, 2005, 8:50:07 AM3/16/05

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In article <1110910569.4...@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
"DJ Craig" <sp...@djtricities.com> wrote:

> I use Dreamweaver, and I hand-code all of my pages. Dreamweaver has a
> lot of useful features that BBedit doesn't, like the built in
> HTML/XHTML validator (that will even fix the errors for you!),

"Fix the errors for you"? I've seen the Validator note the errors, but
not fix them. Where's the option?

--
to respond (OT only), change "spamless.invalid" to "optonline.net"

<http://www.thecoffeefaq.com/>

Philip Meech

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Mar 16, 2005, 1:37:07 PM3/16/05

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Brian Kendig wrote:

What's the best HTML editor available on Mac OS X right now?

I've tried Nvu and also the editor that's part of Mozilla; both of
these feel clumsy and non-Mac-ish. I understand that iWork can import
and export HTML, but I've heard it's not very good at this, and can't
handle images. I've been told that Claris Homepage 3.0 is good, but
that's no longer sold and is way outdated by now, right?

Is there something better out there I'm missing? I'd like something
that works like a word processor but has good, solid, native support
for HTML.

TextEdit will do it, but with programs like Site Delux, you don't need to go there unless you are a Website Developer.

Howard Shubs

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Mar 16, 2005, 3:57:04 PM3/16/05

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In article <BIKdneftHtd...@adelphia.com>,
Philip Meech <macm...@adelphia.net> wrote:

> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">

This is not a binaries group. Lose the HTML.

Jason Perez

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Mar 16, 2005, 5:04:09 PM3/16/05

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In article <1110896025.0...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>,

Brian Kendig <br...@enchanter.net> wrote:
>Right now I use Emacs to edit raw HTML. I don't see a need to pay for

>BBEdit, 'cos I don't see that it has anything better than what Emacs
>offers. (Does it?)
>

>Dreamweaver seems like overkill (and overpriced!). All I want is a
>WYSIWYG editor which lets me see italics as italics, and bold as bold,
>and headings as headings, etc. and saves it to an HTML file.

Try Pagespinner. It's not quite WYSIWYG (no images shown), but if you
have it up side-by-side a browser you just hit the render button and
it shows you the page in the browser.

-Jason

--
Jason Perez | "Frodo Lives!" "Gig 'em!"
Austin, TX

Joe Davison

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Mar 16, 2005, 6:34:49 PM3/16/05

to

A few years ago I wrote some perl scripts to hack MS generated HTML to
make it a bit cleaner, as I was trying to do some stuff for browsing
within the company's developer crowd. They were unusable as generated.
The nesting of lists, bold, italics, etc. was totally confused.

However, I think MS probably 'improved' Word's html since then -- or
at least changed it so my scripts are no longer relevent -- I see much
more CSS use than was used in those days.

joe

Joe Davison

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Mar 16, 2005, 6:44:27 PM3/16/05

to

On 15 Mar 2005, Brian Kendig wrote:
> What's the best HTML editor available on Mac OS X right now?
>

I wouldn't know about "best".

I usually use xemacs, but sometimes when I want a wysiwyg option I use
Taco <http://www.tacosw.com>.

joe

Message has been deleted

turver

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Mar 17, 2005, 2:48:01 AM3/17/05

to

Brian Kendig wrote:
> What's the best HTML editor available on Mac OS X right now?
>

> I've tried Nvu and also the editor that's part of Mozilla; both of
> these feel clumsy and non-Mac-ish. I understand that iWork can import
> and export HTML, but I've heard it's not very good at this, and can't
> handle images. I've been told that Claris Homepage 3.0 is good, but
> that's no longer sold and is way outdated by now, right?
>
> Is there something better out there I'm missing? I'd like something
> that works like a word processor but has good, solid, native support
> for HTML.
>

If you want a text editor that supports html syntax highlighting, you
could also try TextWrangler (formerly known as BBEdit light) or
SubEthaEdit, a free (for non-commercial use) text editor with very good
support for real time collaborative coding/writing.
BTW, SubEthaEdit also sports a WYSIWYG mode for html documents.

If you're looking for WYSIWYG, a choice that hasn't been mentioned in
this thread is Freeway Express/Pro ( http://www.softpress.com/en/freeway
), available for $89,-/$229,-.

DJ Craig

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Mar 17, 2005, 3:37:51 PM3/17/05

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Dreamweaver has a feature for fixing word HTML, and making it into more
normal HTML. (Commands -> Clean up Word HTML...) It works pretty good;
doesn't make XHTML, but there's another feature for converting HTML to
XHTML. (File -> Convert -> XHTML)

Scott Lowe

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Mar 17, 2005, 10:11:16 PM3/17/05

to

On 2005-03-15 08:39:04 -0500, "Brian Kendig" <br...@enchanter.net> said:

> What's the best HTML editor available on Mac OS X right now?
>
> I've tried Nvu and also the editor that's part of Mozilla; both of
> these feel clumsy and non-Mac-ish. I understand that iWork can import
> and export HTML, but I've heard it's not very good at this, and can't
> handle images. I've been told that Claris Homepage 3.0 is good, but
> that's no longer sold and is way outdated by now, right?
>
> Is there something better out there I'm missing? I'd like something
> that works like a word processor but has good, solid, native support
> for HTML.

I won't say it's the "best," but I use Taco HTML Edit. It's a native
Mac OS X Aqua app with a "Live Preview" option that uses WebKit to
render the pages for you as you build them. And you can't beat the
price--free.

--
Scott Lowe

Michael Weinstein

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Mar 18, 2005, 9:25:24 PM3/18/05

to

On 2005-03-15 08:39:04 -0500, "Brian Kendig" <br...@enchanter.net> said:

> What's the best HTML editor available on Mac OS X right now?
>
> I've tried Nvu and also the editor that's part of Mozilla; both of
> these feel clumsy and non-Mac-ish. I understand that iWork can import
> and export HTML, but I've heard it's not very good at this, and can't
> handle images. I've been told that Claris Homepage 3.0 is good, but
> that's no longer sold and is way outdated by now, right?
>
> Is there something better out there I'm missing? I'd like something
> that works like a word processor but has good, solid, native support
> for HTML.

Long long ago (like around 1996 or 1997) I bought Visual Page and still
use it. You have to run it in classic mode but it's a good WYSIWYG HTML
editor and you can always drop into the native code for tweaking and
then back out to the WYSIWYG page. Uploads directly to your website.
It's very old but it works.
--
Michael | "He's dead, Jim."