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Introduction

Often when you are working of some "other" computers and do not have HTM editor you can install one.
There are several alternatives that can be used in such a role.

 

Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2007

The best free  HTML editor for Windows is Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2007. But it is quite big (which makes painful downloading it over slow links) and it can't be installed without root privileges.  It's somewhat buggy, even with SP3 applied but it is free and powerful as it was derived from famous FrontPage 2003.  No other free editor even comes close. Here is some info from Wikipedia:

Microsoft SharePoint Designer (formerly known as Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer) is a specialized HTML editor and web design freeware for creating or modifying Microsoft SharePoint sites and web pages. It is a part of Microsoft SharePoint family of products.[2] It was formerly a part of Microsoft Office 2007 families of products, but was not included in any of the Microsoft Office suites.

SharePoint Designer and its sister product, Microsoft Expression Web are successors of Microsoft FrontPage. While Expression Web serves as the full-featured successor to FrontPage, SharePoint Designer features focuses on designing and customizing Microsoft SharePoint websites. For instance, it only includes SharePoint-specific site templates. It retains more FrontPage features than Expression Web, such as web components, database, marquee, hit counter, navigation bars, map insert, etc. Although SharePoint Designer 2007 (this first version of this product) could be used as a generic HTML editor, SharePoint Designer 2010 (the subsequent version) may no longer operate in absence of Microsoft SharePoint Server or Microsoft SharePoint Foundation.[3]

All-in-all SharePoint Designer 2007 is a weaker and less debugged version of incredible Microsoft HTML editor FrontPage 2003. I used it for a week and found mass of errors even with SharePoint Designer Service Pack 3 applied.  The whole product a little bit smells with outsourcing :-(. Some annoying for me (I am longtime FrontPage 2003 user). Your mileage may vary. Here are some:

  1. Replacements in code view produces some strange side effects sometimes doubling the first letter of the sentence in which replacement was performed. I am not kidding.
  2. Replacements of html tags are performed incorrectly. For example when I tried to replace <strong> with <i> in the code view, the resulting code in several places contained closing bracket that was converted to /strong> which invalidates the HTML.
  3. Interpretation of  I and B buttons via styles with insertion of inline CSS stylesheet is questionable. The same is true about conversion of changing color for a fragment into span with style. It should be an option. 
  4. Attempt to shift code right does not insert <blockquote> tag like in "old" FrontPage, but generates a style definition for inline CSS stylesheet and adds a style to the paragraph.  It's plausible, but very questionable solution. If they want to be that clever they should give the Web page designer a choice as it deviates from "old FrontPage" behavior.   <blockquote> tag is not a deprecated tag so it's legitimate for indented parts (which are typically quotes). IMHO the blockquote tag has not changed from HTML 4 to HTML 5 and can be with cite tag, like in <blockquote cite="http://www.hermanmelville.com">
     
  5. There is no application of custom CSS stylesheet to code view.
  6. SharePoint Designer 2007 changes modification dates of many files that were not edited making tracing you changes based on modification date of the files virtually impossible. That's a really stupid bug .  

The most popular free HTML editor is probably Netscape Composer which was a part of Netscape Suit.  It is a GUI-based editor without access to the markup (which is a major weakness) but it is professionally written has a good set of features and is quite adequate for small documents.

KompoZer

KompoZer is pretty primitive WYSIWYG editor which is a derivative of Netscape Composer (which, like Netscape browser itself is kind of classic).  Or more correctly more debugged version of NVU. The latter was and isolated from browser version of Netscape Composer and as such it is  based on the Mozilla platform and its Gecko layout engine. It was a project initiated and soon abandoned by Linspire.  The version from NVU site is quite buggy and I do not recommend using it. among features:

 "KompoZer" is a bugfix/update  is available here. It is abandonware and the most recent version is KompoZer 0.8b3 (2010-03-02).

KompoZer is not a cure-all for all the bugs in NVU 1.0, but it does fix some of the major annoyances. So it is more usable version then NVU.  It can be used from USB drive.  KompoZer features are identical to Netscape Composer. It actually has the same announces. Among some features:

Komodo

komodo is not WYSIWYG  editor but still it is an interesting implementation with some advanced features, such as the ability to process editing buffer with scripts and macro capabilities. It is actually decent (not very impressive, but decent) general purpose editor.

Etc

Another alternative which I never managed to try is  radria.  It's a web based application that is compatible with mac, windows and linux. It includes tons of modules and Add-On scripts that NVU doesn’t have.

Another alternative to NVU is Quanta.


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Old News ;-)

[Feb 24, 2008] The Top 50 Proprietary Programs that Drive You Crazy - and Their Open Source Alternatives WHDb

Instead of NVU I would suggest Radria http://radria.sqlfusion.com/
Its active, i've been using it for sometime and I love it.

[Jan 30, 2007] Free HTML editor wysiwyg - Alleycode HTML, Text, PHP editor , Free website testing tools

Alleycode is a fast, sleek and highly productive award winning HTML editor with unique features. If you are new to HTML, Alleycode's great tutorial will walk you through your first coding steps... If you are an established coder you will find a refreshing, non-bloated infrastructure with fast and accurate delivery. Beyond HTML, Alleycode's wizardry focuses on PHP and CSS interaction for professional and easy management of your projects. Best of all, Alleycode is FREE! (we do accept donations if you find it useful).

[Jan 30, 2007] HTML Editors - Reviews and free downloads at Download.com

[Jan 30, 2007] Evrsoft 1st Page 2000. The world's free HTML editor.

From Australia to California to Germany, professional web builders are exploring 1st Page 2000, the world's free web builder to create and manage world-class Web sites. Its power and flexibility lets anyone create the web site they want. Ask any professional web builder and they'll tell you the sad stories behind using standard WYSIWYG editors. Professional web builders know that WYSIWYG editors never create clean html code which means they'll end up wasting more time fixing, cleaning and correcting code later on. With this common problem in mind, you'll be glad to hear that 1st Page never ruins HTML code, infact it doesn't even add unwanted html codes to your important projects.

Evrsoft 1st Page 2000 helps you write, edit and improve your HTML, its powerful tools let you author websites faster, easier and better! Most new builders don't realize the time they're losing by relying on traditional based text editors like WindowsTM Notepad to author their sites. Whether you're a beginner or an HTML guru you'll find 1st Page 2000 great to use!

"Nobody makes great looking websites that easily. You get what you pay for. If it takes you 10 minutes to create a website in a WYSIWYG editor, you're going to get a 10 minute result" - Mark Stevenson

"If I'm editing text files I use Notepad, if I'm creating high-end graphics I use SGI workstations, If I make web sites I use a HTML editor that's designed specifically for the job." - Juin Carter

[Jan 30, 2007] Downloads - CoffeeCup Free HTML Editor 9.0 Freeware Software

[May 19, 2005] Linux News Reviews Open-Source Web Editor Makes a Tasty Free Lunch
Open Source Hall of Fame

Although the concepts underlying open-source software seem almost counterintuitive in an age of greed and jealous guarding of intellectual property, it has worked well in several areas, notably in operating systems (Linux), server and several flavors of Linux -- as well as more than a half-dozen foreign languages.

The interface is built around two window panes. One is a site manager, which provides functions you'd find in an FTP program. FTP is how files that make up a Web site are uploaded to the Internet. The other pane is where you build your Web pages.

As you build a page, you can see various views of your work by clicking on tabs at the bottom of the editing pane. View changes are lightening fast.

Multiple Views

There's a "normal" view. It displays your page as it will appear online, but with table borders and anchors visible. Tables are like spreadsheets for objects on a Web page. Anchors are links to specific locations on a page. That contrasts with "links," which direct a browser to an entire Web page.

There's also an "HTML tags" view. Here your page appears as it would online, but its objects are labeled with yellow boxes that indicate the underlying HTML code. "P," for example, would indicate the code for paragraph. Changes in the code for an object can be made by clicking on a box.

When you click on a box, a form box pops up. Formatting choices can be made by clicking buttons and altering text fields in the pop-up.

Convenient Editing

There's a source code view too, which shows you the raw HTML code for your page.

Finally, there's the preview view. That displays the page as it would appear in a browser window, although links and JavaScript on the page are inactive.

What makes the view setup even more convenient is that you can make editing changes in any view. That includes dragging and dropping text and images from other applications or the Internet onto a page.

The program also allows you to edit multiple pages during a session. Each page you have open appears as a tab at the top of the editing pane. You can swiftly move between pages by clicking the appropriate tab.

One-Click Publishing

Elements on a page can be speedily created and formatted by using the toolbars at the top of the program's interface.

With a click of an icon on the main toolbar, you can publish your site and insert elements like anchors, links, images, tables and forms.

With the formatting toolbar, you can tag blocks of text, tinker with their size and color, and set their style -- bold, italic, underline, align them and create numbered or bulleted lists.

There's even a built-in CSS editor that advanced Web authors will find very useful.

Nvu is a tremendous piece of work that outshines many of its commercial competitors. Not only is it a free lunch, but it's a mighty tasty one, too.

software.visicommedia.com - Home - Products - AceHTML Freeware
HTML Syntax Checker
International Alphabet Support
Windows XP Compatibility
Code Explorer
175 predefined DHTML and JavaScript codes
Powerful Style Sheet Editor

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Building web pages Using Netscape or Mozilla Composer

Carl Davis's HTML Editor Reviews (Main Page)

Information Services - The List

Bluefish Editor Home Bluefish 0.13 features a new bookmarks functionality, much improved project management, auto tag closing, better navigation trough opened documents, a much more responsive user interface, again many user interface improvements, many bug fixes and much, much more!

Bluefish is a powerful editor for experienced web designers and programmers. Bluefish supports many programming and markup languages, but it focuses on editing dynamic and interactive websites. See features for an extensive overview, take a look at the screenshots, or download it right away. Bluefish is an open source development project, released under the GPL licence.

Bluefish runs on most (all?) POSIX compatible operating systems including Linux, FreeBSD, MacOS-X, OpenBSD, Solaris and Tru64.

www.suse.com: Bluefish is by far the most powerful among the HTML editors we tested. It is probably the most potent editor for Linux in general.

newsforge.com: GPL-licensed Bluefish has become an excellent "production tool" for those of who earn our living writing for Web sites, full of little "speed you up" features [..] It is an excellent example of how a multinational group of talented programmers can produce a piece of work under the GPL that is at least as good as any commercial program

www.linuxorbit.com: The Bluefish HTML editor is an excellent example of of how good open source programs can be. It is feature rich, with lots of time saving tools for experienced coders and friendly enough for newbies to be productive in little or no time.

software.linux.com: If you've ever longed for an HTML editor that is easy to use, yet doesn't try to do everything for you, Bluefish is just the editor for you. It has a wealth of features that will make your programming easier, but in the end you retain total control of the HTML

www.linuxplanet.com: Bluefish marries the best of GUI's and traditional text editing into a customizable, useful package.

www.lindows.com: One of the most powerful editors for Linux + Supports many programming and markup languages + Lots of time saving tools for experienced users + Friendly enough for beginners + Its wealth of features will make your programming easier + While letting you maintain control over your code


Vote for Bluefish on OSDir.com

NVU

NVU is a derivative of Netscape Composer based on the Mozilla platform and its Gecko layout engine. It was a project initiated and soon abandoned by Linspire. version from NVU site is quite buggy. An unofficial bugfix/update called "KompoZer" is available here. KompoZer is not a cure-all for all the bugs in NVU 1.0, but it does fix some of the major annoyances. Features are identical to Netscape composer:

KompoZer 0.7.7 beta Build your Web pages with this open source wysiwyg HTML editor built on NVU. Read editor's review...

[Dec 16, 2004] Techtree.com FrontPage Gets Open Source Foe

Based on Mozilla Internet technology and Netscape Composer the tool doesn't require programming or HTML coding. It is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, which means users can create Web pages like a word-processing document.

Linspire, producer of the desktop Linux operating system, started the Nvu project as a complement to the other desktop Linux Web browsers and tools offered by Mozilla. Nvu was created from the code base of Netscape Composer.

Mozilla was broken off from Netscape after Netscape was acquired by AOL and had been pouring most of its efforts into browsers and email programs. Since most of it's efforts were going into the development of Firefox and Thunderbird, there were fewer resources available for advancing a Web authoring tool based on Netscape Composer.

Linspire contributed to this part of the project by providing more development resources and capital to the Composer-based product - renamed Nvu - to round out the Mozilla Internet suite.

"Mozilla has done phenomenal work developing a Web suite with alternatives to Microsoft, including the Firefox browser and soon, the Thunderbird email program. But there was a void in developing a Web publishing tool, which is why we adopted the Nvu project," said Michael Robertson, CEO of Linspire, Inc.

"Our hope is that Nvu will compete with FrontPage just like Firefox competes with Internet Explorer," added Robertson.

The cross-platform Web editor works on numerous operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Apple OSX, OS/2, FreeBSD, Linspire, and many Linux-based systems.

Download here

Nvu - The Complete Web Authoring System for Linux

Nvu is the new Web editing environment based on the Mozilla platform and its Gecko layout engine. Primarily made for Linspire and other Linux flavors, its cross-platform architecture makes it available on a wide variety of other platforms.

Nvu 0.5 binary test builds are now available for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X and FreeBSD.

Amaya

Amaya Home Page

Amaya is a Web editor, i.e. a tool used to create and update documents directly on the Web. Browsing features are seamlessly integrated with the editing and remote access features in a uniform environment. This follows the original vision of the Web as a space for collaboration and not just a one-way publishing medium.

Work on Amaya started at W3C in 1996 to showcase Web technologies in a fully-featured Web client. The main motivation for developing Amaya was to provide a framework that can integrate as many W3C technologies as possible. It is used to demonstrate these technologies in action while taking advantage of their combination in a single, consistent environment.

Amaya started as an HTML + CSS style sheets editor. Since that time it was extended to support XML and an increasing number of XML applications such as the XHTML family, MathML, and SVG. It allows all those vocabularies to be edited simultaneously in compound documents.

Amaya includes a collaborative annotation application based on Resource Description Framework (RDF), XLink, and XPointer. Visit the Annotea project home page.

Amaya - Open Source

Amaya is an open source software project hosted by W3C. You are invited to contribute in many forms (documentation, translation, writing code, fixing bugs, porting to other platforms...).

The Amaya software is written in C and is available for Windows, Unix platforms and MacOSX.

Arachnophilia

Arachnophilia Home Page

Download Arachnophilia 5.2, build 1959 (12/08/2003) (Java)


License: CareWare
Size: 1.6 MB
Author: Paul Lutus
Rating: 5/5
ZDNet Rating: 4/5
Tucows Rating: 5/5

This is, without a doubt, one of the best freeware HTML Editors available. In truth, its many hidden features can compete with much of the low-end shareware or software out there. Its interface is not beautified the way HomeSite or HotDog is, but it still does suggest functionality and power in a non-overwhelming manner. Beginners will find the ability to convert an RTF file into HTML as well as the included basic HTML tutorial (included in the help file) very useful. One of Arachnophilia's more powerful features, find and replace functions that check all open documents, is very useful for large web sites. Arachnophilia's support of HTML tag coloring is not as advanced as many professional editors, but it certainly helps when reading code. You can also format or "beautify" your code to make it more readable. Another thoughtful feature is the ability to create up to 26 keyboard macros for repetitive blocks of code. Decent site analyzation, internal and external browser pre-viewing, wizards and site updating place Arachnophilia ahead of the rest. Arachnophilia is CareWare - an unbeatable price for such a good program.

Fix program (TP404F) available now!
Free trial version available now! New download option added (download as twenty-seven smaller files).
TopPage user's guide available now! New download option added (download as seven smaller files).
TopPage promotion video available now!
TopPage FAQ updated!
TopPage booklet available now!
"If you are planning to create a Web site or redesign an existing site, run out and buy this program." - PC Cafe review(May 26, 1999)
"TopPage jumps to the top of the list of Web page editors equally suitable for beginners and experts." - PC Magazine (Vol. 18 No. 9 May 4, 1999)

Etc

AOL Press - AOL has abandoned one of the best free web page editors. But you can still download it from the Internet. I know, it's from AOL, but they had to do something right sometime, didn't they? This is actually a good freeware wysiwyg website editor. With support for frames, forms, tables, link check, spell check, and a decent html tutorial


Etc

Society

Groupthink : Two Party System as Polyarchy : Corruption of Regulators : Bureaucracies : Understanding Micromanagers and Control Freaks : Toxic Managers :   Harvard Mafia : Diplomatic Communication : Surviving a Bad Performance Review : Insufficient Retirement Funds as Immanent Problem of Neoliberal Regime : PseudoScience : Who Rules America : Neoliberalism  : The Iron Law of Oligarchy : Libertarian Philosophy

Quotes

War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda  : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotesSomerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose BierceBernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes

Bulletin:

Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

History:

Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOSProgramming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC developmentScripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

Classic books:

The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-MonthHow to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater’s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

Most popular humor pages:

Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor

The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D


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Last modified: March 12, 2019