[WEB4LIB] Column on HTML Editors

[Chris Murphy]

My tools of choice: Arachnophilia + FrontPage 2002 + Vi

I use Arachnophilia to generate my pages, FrontPage to insert tables and cut/paste elements, Arachnophila to clean FP's mangled and bloated code, and Vi to make lightning fast edits.

Arachnophilia 4.0 starts fast, has low overhead, tag coloring, custom indenting, code analyzing, quick browser previews using multiple browsers if desired, can load multiple files with in one operation, can make edits across all open documents, and on and on. My favorite feature is that Arachnophilia is CareWare (http://www.archnoid.com).

FrontPage fits with our library's Microsoft Office standard, was cheap as FP98 and because of bundles and upgrade pricing, and is good for roughing out tables and routine cutting and pasting of elements. I don't like the way FP bloats and mangles code, although I agree with Andrew Mutch that FP2000 is much better than prior versions.

Vi is still my favorite text editor, in the same way I have a favorite screwdriver in my mechanics toolbox. If you did not need to learn Vi to work with Unix, I don't recommend learning the seemingly cryptic but innately logical commands just to edit HTML. Vi is one elegant editor, however, and once learned it can be highly useful.

Chris Murphy

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Christopher Murphy
Information Systems Manager
The Community Library, Ketchum, Idaho
chrism at thecommunitylibrary.org
(208) 726-3493 x111
http://www.thecommunitylibrary.org