HTML Editor Reviews

Luckman's WebEdit

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WebEdit 2.0 -- KnowledgeWorks Inc.

Found: http://www.sandiego.com/software

Overview:

• MS-Windows 3.X/NT/95 Editor (Pro for NT/95 only)
• stand alone program
• Text-style
• HTML tag checking
• Stable
• Shareware: Pro $109.95, Standard $39.95
• Score = A
• Screen Shot
• User Comments

Nice features Found in this package include:

HTML 3.0/Netscape 2.0/Internet Explorer 2.0 Support

Though I did not verify that all tags were present there certainly were enough to say it supports 3.0. The breadth of support was impressive including MATH, FIG, and the associated attributes. The expected client side image maps, frames, and applet tags were present for Netscape 2.0, as well as marque and AVI support for Explorer. The support includes adding new attributes to the appropriate dialogs.

Extremely Friendly Interface

The user interface is intelligently laid out and easy to use. The tool bar is uncluttered, with a row of drop down menu's for the classes of HTML (see screen shot). Clicking on a one of these buttons brings up a list of appropriate items (for example, a button with a list on it will bring up a menu of all the list tags). The menus are well laid out with related tags located together (for example, the "list item" tag is in the same menu as the ordered and unordered lists tags). Version 1.2 added floating tool boxes for each category which are very well done, but the Pro 2.0 beta I looked at had eliminated that feature (which was a personal favorite of mine). In addition, the program includes a right mouse button pop-up menu. This includes commonly used tags (list item, heading 1 and 2 for example) and the standard editing function.

Another friendly aspect of the program, is the use of the names of the tags in the menus ("Horizontal rule" instead of "HR"). This will be extremely useful to new HTML authors, and helps "old-timers" who sometimes forget the less used tags (what was the strikeout tag again?). However, most of the common tags are included as accelerator keys so you don't need to use the menus if you do not want to. Unfortunately, some of the combinations require three keys and you cannot modify the assignments.

The help file is also well done. HTML help is included and includes what "standard" supports the tag (Netscape, Explorer, HTML 1/2/3).

Complete Link and In-line-image Dialogs...many dialogs in general

The program offers a very nice link dialog box which includes a URL building (with a very complete listing of URL types) dialog and file browsing capability. The image dialog includes every possible option (including Netscape and Explorer specific ones). Also, there are numerous dialogs for tags which include the attributes which are supported by the tag.

Imagemap Builder Included

Webedit includes a rudimentary image map editor, which can help authors build client side image maps (as well as server side). An author can create normal rectangular hot spots and assign links to them. When finished the entire structure can be pasted into the document.

Quick Previewer Built-In

A very good previewer is built in for quickly seeing how your pages will look. Support for tables is included and the look of pages is similar to the default setup of a Netscape browser. However this is not a full featured implementation, and doesn't support all the tags or attributes that the editor does, such as alignment of paragraphs and headings.

Customizable Tool-bar and User Tags

The package allows the user to customize one of the tool-bars from a selection of supported functions and tags. This is help users to keep commonly used tags a single click away. Also, WebEdit allows users to define custom sets of text which appears under the "custom" drop down menu button. This supports compound tags (inserting highlighted text between the beginning and ending tags automatically), and also allows the user to define a file to include when the "custom" entry is inserted (good way to keep track of standard templates, such as navigation bars). I was disappointed that user created text entries could not be included on the tool-bar. I also was surprised to see limited ability to add the many special characters (including the copyright symbol) to the tool-bar. Fortunately, the special character window will remain on the screen for easy access.

Table Editor with Export/Import

WebEdit includes a simple table editor as many packages do today. In general, this is not as powerful as some and is aids an author in defining the overall structure (individual alignment attributes must be added after creation). As in many other packages, the editor is a help in creating tables, but does not allow users to edit existing tables.

However, WebEdit doe include one very nice feature. Authors can export or import text files into the table structure. The package will parse simple deliminated text files and build the table from them. Alternatively, the created table can be exported to a file in the same manner. This allows authors to save text version of the same tables for editing or publishing for browsers that do not support tables and a way to get information from a spreadsheet into a web page.

Tag Checking

You can ask WebEdit to check you HTML tags for correctness. This is not a full blown validator and only checks that tags are used correctly with respect to a particular standard (user can check against 2.0, Explorer, Netscape 1.1 or 2.0). In general, I did not find this all that useful, since it misses illegal attribute values and doesn't recognized mismatched tags (<H1></H2>)

Miscellaneous Features

The package includes color coded tags and a spelling checker. In addition, there is a home page wizard and "easy" links/image. The "easy" feature allows links and in-line images to be quickly added to a document by dragging their name from a file listing provided in the editor. Finally, WebEdit includes a basic project manager (does not appear to keep links between project documents synchronized).

Missing/Poorly Implemented Features:

Attributes only During Insertion

The package only allows users to add attributes to tags when inserting (using the dialogs provided). There is no way to modify a tag once it is in the document, nor does a list of valid attributes appear anywhere for the tags (except for information in the help file).

Color Coding Problems

The color coding function operated very slowly on large documents. Also, it would often become confused and highlight text which was not a tag the same color as tags.

Conclusion:

WebEdit continues to be a very easy editor to use and provides the broadest support for HTML 3.0 and other extensions. The clean layout and design should appeal to new authors. Experienced authors may be disappointed by minimal support for modifying tags and maintaining tables, but overall WebEdit continues to age well and keep up with the competition.

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