HTML Editor Reviews

1-4-All

[Main Menu] [Comparison Matrix] [Carl's Home][Selection Helper Applet]

1-4-All Ver. 0.91

Found: http://www.cs.tu-berlin.de/~minibbjd/software/1-4-All.html

Overview:

• Windows 95
• Stand alone program
• Text Style
• No HTML checking or validating
• Very Stable
• Shareware: 30day trial then $30 USD educational, $90 USD commercial users.
• Screen Shot
• User Comments

Nice features found in this package include:

Nice button bar.

1-4-all includes a nice button bar which utilizes tabs to separate the different buttons. This keeps the interface uncluttered, but still offers a large assortment of buttons for quick access. The button bar includes a tab with selection box including all the supported tabs. Also, the button bar provides a tab for user defined buttons for tags and text.

Permanent file dialog, with drag and drop.

Like many quality programming editors, this package includes a nice open-file dialog which remains on the screen during editing (it can be switched off, however). You can drag graphics and documents from this window to create links and in-line images quickly.

Table and frame editors and "quick-table" feature.

Like many editors, 1-4-all includes a useful table editor dialog which allows you to enter the contents of the table before inserting it into the document. Unfortunately, you cannot edit existing tables with the same dialog. Often, table editing dialogs get in the way of creating the content (normally most of the editors features are not accessible within the dialog). 1-4-all offers an alternative approach. Quick-table allows you to graphically determine how large the table should be and insert the overall structure into the document. You can then quickly fill in the data cells using the normal editing features. The package also provides a useful frame creation dialog. Unfortunately, it does not allow a user to specify all the information about the frame.

Nice list handling and formatting.

Lists are also handled as the "quick-table" feature. You simple select the number of lines and 1-4-all will build the basic structure. I like this approach far better than entering the list contents into a dialog box.

Built in canned JavaScript routines.

With a single click you can add several simple JavaScript routines to your page. These include a on-screen clock, scrolling status message, and a fade in transition. I think most users will find this feature useful once, but would appreciate more support with creating JavaScript routines.

Multi-file search and replace.

Definitely a plus for any editor. If you create many pages with a similar look, you'll find a need to change something on many of your sites pages. 1-4-all can search and replace text in a number of user-defined files. Unfortunately, 1-4-all does not support regular expressions, so you can only perform simple searches.

Internal previewer.

The package includes a basic internal previewer (including table support).

Other features

1-4-all also includes right-button support and allows you to display all the links in the file your working on.

Missing/Poorly Implemented Features:

Minimal attribute support.

1-4-all includes many of the latest tags, but doesn't provide the user much information about the supported attributes for the tags. As tags become more complicated with more necessary attributes, an editor must include information on what is supported and offer assistance with entering them. Many of the tags available on the "all tags" list do include some of the attributes, but do not provide any support for what are valid values.

Needs support for multiple open files.

The package needs support for multiple documents. This would complement the permanent open dialog nicely.

Color coding was inconsistent.

Color coding of tags was inconsistent when opening existing files.

No copy/cut/paste on right button menu.

All right button bars should include these basic capabilities.

Minimal help file.

The help file includes a basic tutorial on the package, but little else. A user can specify an external HTML help file, but does not provide one.

Undo does not work for inserted elements from button bar.

Undo does not affect text entered from the button bar or dialogs.

Conclusion:

1-4-all is an interesting HTML editor and tool. Some of the design decisions make the editor a joy to use, but overall it falls a little short of the current leaders of the pack. I look forward to seeing the authors extend some of the better features (multi-file searching and dialog window) and fixing some of the weak areas (attribute support). Some of the features (canned JavaScript) seem targeted at new users, but overall an experienced HTML author will be more at home with 1-4-all.

[Home] [Top]

This page is brought to you by: Carl Davis