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Visual code editor. Free online HTML editor, cleaner and converter

An HTML editor is the first thing you'll need to start creating web pages using HTML and CSS. There are many free HTML editors out there, and choosing one can be a daunting task.

HTML is quite simple and so you can start working on your web pages using a simple text editor such as Notepad, WordPad or any other. You can also go further and use one of the more feature-rich editors, such as Coffecup, Notepad++, Brackets, Notetab or BlueGriffon. The advantage of using more advanced and functional editors is that you get more tools that can significantly speed up the process of marking up and creating content.

Whether you're looking to create blogs and articles that are well-formatted for browsers to read, or you're planning to build a fully functional website using HTML and CSS, choosing the right editor will greatly improve your productivity. Professional web page developers spend a significant amount of time selecting the editor and tools that the best way meet their needs and increase productivity.

Which free HTML editor is right for you?

The answer to this question depends entirely on your requirements, on the product you intend to create with using HTML, from your current level of knowledge of this markup language, if you intend to just learn. Since most of these editors are free, you can narrow the list down to 2-3, try out their basic functionality, and then decide which one you like best.

Plus, almost every editor listed in this article is supported on multiple operating systems, including Windows, Linux, and Mac, so you don't have to worry too much about compatibility.

Note that most of your editing needs can easily be met by Notepad++ for Windows, Brackets for Mac (this editor is also supported for Linux and Windows), or Coffecup and Notetab. However, if you plan to create a complex website, you should opt for a full-featured development environment such as Eclipse.

On the other hand, if you just want to play around with HTML and CSS, there are numerous online editors where you can write HTML code and see the results right away.

Let's look at the ten best HTML editors that are easy to use, rich in functionality, and popular among web developers.

1. Notepad++ (best free HTML editor for Windows)


notepad-plus-plus.org

This editor is only available to Windows users, so if you have a Mac or Linux, scroll on. Notepad++ is the best free HTML editor, which you can install on your Windows computer. At first glance it is very basic, but it is one of the most complex and at the same time easy to use editors.

Much of Notepad++'s enormous power comes from third-party plugins, including PreviewHTML, HTML tag plugin for tag highlighting, Tidy2 for indentation, and many others.

Key Features Notepad++ is a tabular interface for simultaneous work with multiple files, very easy folding and syntax highlighting, customizable GUI (with a minimalist option), tables with a close button, vertical tables, multilingual (meaning you can customize the interface in English, French, Spanish and Chinese, as well as 80 other languages) .

Notepad++ was developed by Dong Ho and released in 2003. It is free for both personal and commercial use and is licensed under the GNU General Public License.

For Mac users, a great alternative to Notepad++ is Brackets, which we'll cover next.

2. Brackets (free for Mac, Windows and Linux)


Brackets is another popular and reliable tool for web development and HTML code editing. Unlike Notepad++, this editor is supported for Mac, Ubuntu, Debian and Windows. It's also free for personal and commercial use (MIT license).

Brackets is easy to use and has many extensions that improve its functionality. Popular extensions:

  • Emmet – speeds up writing CSS and HTML code;
  • Beutify – formats HTML files, CSS and JavaScript;
  • W3C validation – checks your HTML code for validity.

Brackets is a beautiful editor with a modern, minimalist design. Changes made in the code are immediately displayed in the browser. You can make edits to CSS or HTML code and see how they change the look of your site in real time.

Read about Brackets here – Editor for HTML: Brackets

3. Coffecup (there is both a free and paid version)


Coffecup is perhaps the best HTML editor available in both free and commercial versions. The free one lacks some features, but it is complex enough to be on our list.

To key functions free version can be attributed:

  • customizable toolbars,
  • code completion for elements, attributes and selectors,
  • ready-to-use themes and templates,
  • support for markdown format for HTML,
  • FTP/SFTP support,
  • drag and place function for images,
  • preview option,
  • syntax highlighting,
  • a thesaurus to find alternatives for a word and much more.

The paid version is not too expensive. It includes several additional features such as HTML and CSS code validation, tag library, code cleaner, dynamic spell checker.

Coffecup also offers several advanced modules to work in a mobile friendly style, without the need to write any code, just using drag and drop functions. These modules include Foundation framer, Bootstrap builder and Responsive site designer.

Coffecup has been on the market since 1996 and is used by freelancers, startups, small businesses, as well as web developers from large companies. This is a great tool for creating websites, web pages, newsletters, notes formatted in HTML, and content for social media.

4. NoteTab (two versions, paid and free)


NoteTab is another HTML and CSS editor that offers features for fast development. This is a product of Fookes software, which has been working on tools to speed up the development process for the last 20 years.

The popularity of NoteTab is confirmed by the fact that it is used by NASA, FBU, VISA, CIA Hewlett Packard,MIT.

NoteTab has three versions, Light, Standard and Pro. The Light version is distributed free of charge for individual use. It does not have all the features of the Pro version, but it supports HTML5 and CSS3 libraries, bootstrap, HTML autocomplete, merging files into projects, HTML Tidy support, HTML to text, and also has many themes.

NoteTab can be launched directly from a flash drive and does not require installation on your machine. For bloggers and people involved in website content, this editor supports word count and SEO statistics.

You can get to know NoteTab better on the official website.

5. Eclipse (free HTML editor)


Eclipse is heavyweight and perhaps overkill for HTML and CSS development, but it can be used to great advantage if you don't mind installing and configuring the beast. This is a great tool if you plan to create complex sites with databases combined with other data sources, etc. Setup may take some time and require installing additional plugins.

Eclipse is the most popular open source integrated development environment source code. This editor is often used for Java, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, Android and many other programming languages.

You can find out more here –

6. HTML-Online


When it comes to editing HTML code online, in your browser, nothing beats HTML-online.com. You can start the coding process right away, without downloading or installing any software, and it's free.

One of the advantages of this editor is the conversion of Word to HTML, so you can copy your content from files Microsoft Word and automatically apply HTML markup to it. There is also support Google docs, PDF, Excel, PowerPoint and many other types of documents.

This is a reliable visual editor that will help you create your web page and at the same time monitor code changes in the adjacent window. Other features worth mentioning include HTML code cleaning, casting table elements to divs, and a search and replace option.

7. BlueGriffon (free, basic and EPUB license)


BlueGriffon comes from the house of “Disruptive Innovations SAS”. It is built on Gecko, Mozilla's web rendering engine. BlueGriffon is a powerful editor that inherits most of its features from Netscape, Composer, Nvu and Mozilla.

BlueGriffon has three variations, the first of which is free, the second is distributed under a basic license, and the most powerful is under an EPUB license.

The free version can do a lot too. It has black and light themes, support for audio, video and HTML5 forms, CSS3 editing features include transitions, 3D and 2D transformations, SVG creation, WYSIWYG technology, google fonts manager, font squirrel font manager, markdown format support, user interface in more than 20 languages.

You can download and install BlueGriffon on Windows. Linux Ubuntu and OS X on your Mac. You can find out more on the website -

8. Emacs with plugins


www.gnu.org

Emacs is one of the most beloved editors of all time. It is free to use ( GNU license). Emacs is a general purpose code editor that you can customize to suit your needs. Connecting freely distributed plugins turns it into a powerful code editor with rich functionality.

When it comes to HTML editing, Emacs offers an HTML mode that makes editing code very easy. Read more here – Emacs

9. Atom


atom.io

Atom is a configurable text editor from GitHub developers. Its popularity is growing very quickly. This editor is free for both personal and commercial use (MIT license). The developer community is constantly looking to enrich the editor with new features.

How to turn Atom into a free HTML editor?

Atom comes with all the basic features you need to edit your code, but to make it a fully functional HTML editor, you'll need to install additional packages. These include Emmet, atom-html-preview, Autocomplete-plus, Atom-color-highlight, Autocomplete-CSS, linter, minimap, haml and jade.

Atom is supported for Windows, Ubuntu (Debian Linux), Fedora (from version 22), Mac and Red Hat Linux. It is more suitable for web development than content writing as it is more code oriented and requires little customization.

10. Visual Studio Community


Visual Studio Community is a fully functional development environment from Microsoft, and it is free for everyone. Visual studio offers pre-configured HTML and CSS editing features that can be further enhanced with extensions.

Popular extensions worth mentioning are HTML Snippets, HTMLHint, HTML CSS support, Intellisense for CSS class name.

Like Eclipse, Visual Studio community is an excellent choice for complex, highly scalable sites that require many technologies.

Conclusion

HTML markup language is used everywhere. There are many HTML editors that were created a long time ago, but nevertheless keep up with the times and are quite suitable for web development. But there are others that no longer lack functionality and productivity. New editors are emerging, such as Brackets and Atom, which provide efficient code editing.

Most of the editors listed in this article have their own characteristics, but serve one purpose - creating web pages. They increase the speed of development and help organize code, while taking into account the possibility of scaling it.

Take a look at the options mentioned in this article, write down your key needs, narrow the list down to a couple of editors, try each and see which one you like best. You will surely find at least one good HTML editor for Linux, Mac and Windows.

The best real-time online HTML editor software kit with dynamic instant live visual preview and inline WYSIWYG editor using CKEditor and markup clean-up feature. Includes a HTML viewer, editor, compressor, beautifier and easy formatter. It's impossible to create invalid code with this tool.

How To Use The HTML Editor?

Activate automatic scroll. The two editors will scroll together when this option is enabled.

Adjust the font size according to your preferences.

Execute all options that are checked in the settings (see gear icon above).

Other important editing features

You can try these HTML editor features to practice and to maximize your coding efficiency.

  • Document converter- To convert any visual document like Excel, PDF, Word to HTML just paste the doc in the visual editor and the markup will show up instantly on the right.
  • Online text editor- Compose documents, just like in a rich text editor. Use the control panel to include images, tables, headings, lists and other items to your paper.
  • Copy-paste- The editor won't allow you to save the documents. For this you have to copy your generated code into a blank text file, change its extension to .html and open it in a web browser.
  • Work with tables- Using the WYSIWYG editor panel you can create a table of any dimmension in only 2 clicks. There"s a cleaning option to convert them to styled DIV tags.
  • Undo- Both editors have this function which allows to revert back the document to a previous state, ie. before the cleaning has been performed.
  • Interactive demo- Take a 4-step tour going through the features clicking the Quick Tour menu item. Learn how to use the editor and experiment with the demo text.

Never forget:

  • Have a backup before using this tool to make sure you can always revert back to your original document.
  • Always check your code before publishing on a live website.
  • This editor never saves or sends out your document, all operations are performed on your local computer.
  • Like most websites, this one uses cookies.

Div Table Styling

Make sure you apply the CSS code below when you publish tables converted to div elements. Try the interactive online table styler which can generate grids from both div and table elements. These are both supported by this editor.

Please note that the class names used by us are slightly different than the ones used by DivTable.com.

.rTable ( display : table; width : 100 % ;) .rTableRow ( display : table-row ; ) .rTableHeading ( background-color : #ddd ; display : table-header-group ; ) .rTableCell , .rTableHead ( display : table-cell ; padding : 3 px 10px; border : 1 px solid #999999 ; ) .rTableHeading ( display : table-header-group ; background-color : #ddd ; font-weight : bold ; ) .rTableFoot ( display : table-footer-group ; font-weight : bold ; background-color : #ddd ; ) .rTableBody ( display : table-row-group ; )

Click and copy the code from the field below: .rTable ( display: table; width: 100%;) .rTableRow ( display: table-row; ) .rTableHeading ( background-color: #ddd; display: table-header-group ; ) .rTableCell, .rTableHead ( display: table-cell; padding: 3px 10px; border: 1px solid #999999; ) .rTableHeading ( display: table-header-group; background-color: #ddd; font-weight: bold ; ) .rTableFoot ( display: table-footer-group; font-weight: bold; background-color: #ddd; ) .rTableBody ( display: table-row-group; )

Give users the opportunity text formatting without learning additional code is something that developers have been working hard on for the past few years. And it’s not in vain, they have already made significant progress. We present to you the 10 most used WYSIWYG editors. We hope you will find something for your own projects.

01. NicEdit

NicEdit is an excellent alternative to large and cumbersome editors. It includes all the required features but remains very easy to integrate into a website.

02. TinyMCE


TinyMCE is a free javascript HTML WYSIWYG editor. It is easy to implement into your site and provides a wide range of customization and appearance options. TinyMCE is probably the most “complete” editor in our selection today. Almost MSWord.

03.CKEditor


CKeditor is the new FCKEditor, which has early won the title of market leader. The editor is developed based on it, and is aimed at fixing what problems arose in FCKEditor. The result is a highly productive WYSIWYG editor that offers all the features you'd normally find in MSWord or Open Office.

04. YUI Rich Text Editor


YUI Rich Text Editor is a graphical user interface from Yahoo that turns a regular text input field into a full-fledged WYSIWYG editor. The application is provided in different versions, with different properties and content. But using any version, you will get all the functions necessary for the editor.


Markitup is a jQuery plugin that allows you to turn a regular text input field into a tags and formatting editor. Html, Wiki and BBcode are just a few of what the plugin offers. Markitup is not a WYSIWYG editor, but that doesn't make it any worse since it offers you all the functionality you need.

06. FreeTextBox


FreeTextBox is an HTML editor designed specifically for ASP.NET. The appearance of the editor is very similar to Microsoft Word. The free version doesn't really have many features, but it has everything you need.

07.MooEditable


WYSIWYG editors, for the most part, now provide plugins for the popular jQuery library, and in less cases Mootools. MooEditable completely fills this gap by being a simple but very effective javascript library. If you are a Mootools fan, then you will not have any problems with it.

08. OpenWysiwyg?


OpenWysiwyg is a cross-browser full-fledged editor with all the required functions. It even includes attractive drop-down menus and buttons. Unfortunately Chrome won't support it.

09. Spaw Editor- the site is dead


Spaw Editor is a WYSIWYG editor that allows website developers to replace standard text fields to a controlled HTML editor, with a wide range of settings, in many languages ​​and with the ability to change the appearance.

10.jHtmlArea


jHtmlArea is another WYSIWYG text editor, which is a plugin for Jquery. The goal of the plugin is simplicity and ease of use. It includes all the required functions. You can customize the appearance, features, and languages.

Every web designer and coder needs a good web page editor to create and edit HTML, CSS and JavaScript code. Notepad (Windows) and TextEdit (Mac) are great tools to start with, but as you gain more experience, you'll want to use a more robust and user-friendly tool.

There are hundreds of excellent editors from which you can choose the right one, but many of them are paid. What if you don’t want to violate copyright, but your budget doesn’t have the funds to purchase a commercial product? This article looks at some great free editors.

  • WYSIWYG editors. These are graphic editors that allow you to build a page layout and set styles visually, as in the well-known word processor MS Word. They are a convenient tool for building a page design, although, as every experienced web designer knows, the code still has to be tweaked to achieve a great result.
  • Text editors. This is a tool for directly editing HTML and CSS code. Some editors are general purpose and do not have special options for web code support. Others are specialized for using web languages ​​such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript and PHP, and have built-in properties for quickly entering HTML tags, CSS properties, and so on. Many of these editors allow you to view a web page in separate window.

KompoZer (Windows, Mac, Linux)

KompoZer is a great choice if you need a visual editor on a budget

Komodo Edit - good editor, easy to learn, yet powerful and extensible

Although it is a general purpose editor, it supports HTML and CSS, and has contextual autocomplete for HTML tags and CSS properties, as well as a collection of code inserts for various elements HTML. To get the most out of Komodo, you need to install the HTML Toolkit extension, which contains such wonderful features as auto-close tags, CSS appearance preview, and a temporary text generator.

Komodo Edit allows you to view the pages you are editing in any installed browser, or use the built-in browser in a separate window, so you can edit and see the results of your changes at the same time.

The editor has a built-in function for uploading files to the site (FTP, FTPS, SFTP, or SCP), and you can also neatly group your files using the project manager option.

Very useful feature Code > Select Block. It highlights the current main HTML block, for example the current closed one div element or ul. A very convenient function when you need to select an entire section on a page for copying or moving.

Komodo Edit has a lot of powerful and useful functions, such as the use of regular expressions for search/replace, the ability to execute external commands, and so on. Fortunately, the editor also has good help system, which makes it easy to harness the power of Komodo Edit.

Aptana Studio (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Aptana Studio is a complete integrated web application development environment with a large set of plugins. Although you can only use it as an HTML/CSS/JavaScript code editor

Notepad++ is a great replacement for Notepad on Windows. Although it doesn't have as many options as other editors, it's great for editing HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other code files

PSPad is another general purpose editor for Windows with a wide range of features useful for HTML and CSS coders

jEdit is a cross-platform text editor with powerful macro command and plugin features. Install the XML plugin if you need to edit web pages

TextWrangler is a lightweight general purpose editor. Despite the absence special functions for web development, it can be used to work with web pages.

Vim is definitely hard to learn, but once you get past the challenges, you'll never want to go back!

The granddaddy of text editors for programmers, Vim (a direct descendant of the vi editor) is an open-source console text editor. It is the default editor on almost all flavors of Unix, including Linux and Mac OS X. It is also available for use on Windows and many other systems.

Vim is not a system that you can install and start using right away without ever having worked with it before. Most editing commands include weird combinations like :wq and / . It also has three editing modes: mode inserts, in which text is entered; visual mode for selecting text; And command mode for entering commands. This functionality is a legacy of Unix from the days when there were no windows and no mouse.

Why was he on the list? If you master it, you will be convinced of its speed and power. With a few commands, you can do in a few seconds what might take minutes in other editors.

There are a large number of macros and plugins for Vim that make working with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code easier, including syntax highlighting, autocompletion, HTML Tidy, and browser viewing. Here is a large list of useful links:

  • Vim Omni autocompletion
  • HTML/XHTML editing in Vim
  • home page

Fraise (Mac)

Fraise is an intuitive editor for Mac, with a set of features sufficient for web editing

Like TextWrangler and gedit, Fraise is a wonderful, lightweight editor that's a pleasure to use. It is a fork from the editor. It is relatively new and does not have a proper web server. It is currently only supported on Mac OS X 10.6 ( Snow Leopard), that is, if you are using version 10.5, then you will have to download Smultron.

Fraise has some great options for web editing:

  • Code highlighting for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and several other programming languages.
  • Command Close Tag(Command-T) to close the current tag. This really saves time when entering lists.
  • Convenient preview in the built-in browser (using WebKit), with a very convenient Live Update option? which updates the browser as soon as the markup and CSS on the page being edited has changed.
  • Advanced Find option, which supports search/replace using regular expressions.
  • Support for blocks to quickly enter HTML tags and CSS properties.
  • Some handy commands for manipulating text such as HTML validation and converting characters to HTML elements.

Fraise is worth exploring if you use a Mac and want a user-friendly editor with more capabilities than the built-in TextEdit.

There are many ways to create your own website - from using ready-made templates on Narod.ru before applying for an ad like “website creation in two days from 300 rubles.” Even a child can create his own blog or simple home page. That is why almost everyone can boast of having their own website on the Internet. Various services provide anyone with website builders that can create a simple personal user page in a matter of seconds. There are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of such pages on the Internet. As a rule, they are similar to each other and are not remembered. For those who use free online tools to create a personal Internet page, owning a website is most often a joke; people create a page and forget about it. The content on it in most cases boils down to publishing photographs of your dog and a few information “about yourself”.

It’s another matter if a person perceives his own website as a method of communication, such as telephone or mail. Having your own website is useful for any entrepreneur who wants to present his business, a practicing doctor, a lawyer opening his own consultation, a training center, etc. In this case, the page must be original and meaningful, providing useful information for visitors. To get a website that meets these requirements, you can’t get by with free home page generators alone. However, mastering the basics of web programming can take a long time. You can, of course, hire a professional who will make any page according to your wishes, but this option has a very obvious drawback, so for many it is unacceptable.

Visual web editors are a good way to save time on learning web programming and quickly create a website, filling it with everything necessary information. On the one hand, to create a web project using such a program you do not need to have special knowledge or be a programmer. On the other hand, these types of applications allow room for creativity and ensure that the site does not look exactly the same as thousands of others. The work of visual web editors is based on the WYSIWYG property - What You See Is What You Get (what you see is what you get). In other words, during the editing process, web pages look approximately the same as they will be displayed in a browser.

⇡ WYSIWYG Web Builder 7.1.0

  • developer: Pablo Software Solutions
  • distribution size: 5.5 MB
  • distribution: shareware
  • Russian interface: no

Web pages created using WYSIWYG Web Builder and other visual editors consist of separate blocks. This can be text, graphics, flash videos, etc. All the user needs to do is select the necessary blocks and place them in suitable places on the page, and the code will be generated automatically by the program.

If you have no experience in web design, you should start creating your first project in the program with a ready-made template. By default, WYSIWYG Web Builder has about ten templates of different types, and several dozen more can be downloaded for free from the program’s official website. After downloading the template, you will be able to edit any element of it.

To do this, you can use numerous tools located on the vertical panel. For convenience, they are divided into categories: navigation (site tree, navigation menu), drawing (line, curve, polygon), multimedia tools (Flash player, YouTube player, Java, OLE object), tools for working with web forms ( field for inserting a CAPTCHA code, checkbox, button for downloading a file, field for entering text), Paypal ( various buttons to work with this electronic payment system), etc. If you do not need any category of tools in your work, you can minimize it to free up space on the screen for more popular tools.

It is worth paying attention to the Extra category. It contains tools for creating a photo gallery, adding a subscription to news in RSS format, slide shows, and searching the site. Here you can find a whole collection of ready-made Javascript code elements. These include a variety of visual effects, and such useful tools as determining the current browser version and displaying time information last change web pages, placing a link to bookmark the page.

Despite the fact that when working in WYSIWYG Web Builder the user sees ready-made page elements, in the browser the site may still look a little different than in the editor’s working window. To quickly view the appearance of the page in the browser, just press the F5 key. WYSIWYG Web Builder will open the project in the system's default browser. If you need to view pages in several browsers at once, you can add them to the list.

Typically, a website template consists of several pages. For convenient project management, the program window has a special Site Manager panel, which displays a tree of site pages. Using the tools of this panel, you can create new pages based on templates, add pages previously saved on your hard drive, copy existing pages, view their properties, etc.

In the process of working on a resource consisting of large number pages, such program tools as checking links for operability, estimating page size, and a site map generator in the form of an XML file that will be placed in the root directory of the site may also be useful. In addition, WYSIWYG Web Builder can help you collect all the images and other media files that are used on web pages in one place.

Despite the fact that WYSIWYG Web Builder itself is a fairly functional editor, you may not find any tools in it. In this case, it’s worth taking a look at the extensions gallery - perhaps the tool you need is available as a plugin. There are more than 250 extensions for the program, and their number is constantly growing. Extensions are written by active users of the editor and posted on the official forum. It is worth keeping in mind that you cannot connect extensions to the trial version of WYSIWYG Web Builder; for this you need to register the program.

⇡ Web Page Maker 3.21

  • developer: www.webpage-maker.com
  • distribution size: 3.66 MB
  • distribution: shareware
  • Russian interface: no

Web Page Maker is a fairly simple visual editor that is suitable for creating a small website that includes several pages. With its help, you can add text, vector elements, graphic files, videos in different formats, tables, web forms and other familiar page elements to the page.

The program also has ready-made options for this important element any site, like a navigation menu. Web Page Maker contains various menu options. Having selected the appropriate one, you can immediately edit it by specifying the orientation (horizontal or vertical), the distance between elements, text and link parameters.

Some elements (for example, the same navigation menu) should be located on all pages of the site. When editing any block, you can quickly place it on all pages of the current project or specify those pages where it should be present.

The main part of the program window is occupied by the work area, and on the right is the Site Contents panel. Using this panel it is convenient to manage website pages, as well as separate elements pages. The Elements tab displays all the blocks on the page, and when you click on each one, you can immediately see where it is located. In addition, you can immediately call up the properties window for each element or delete unnecessary blocks. As for the set of tools for creating a site structure, it is worth noting the possibility of creating new page based on an existing resource on the Internet. Just specify its address, and Web Page Maker will load the page, break it into blocks and make them available for editing.

To make your site more lively, you can use animation effects. Examples of ready-made Javascript code can be found in the Web Page Maker library. Using them, you can change the window scroll color, place a clock in the corner of the screen showing the current time, add a slide show, etc.

When work on the site is completed, the project can be saved to your hard drive or immediately uploaded to an FTP server. Moreover, additional client You don't need it for this - Web Page Maker has built-in tools for working with FTP.

⇡ CoffeeCup Visual Site Designer 6.06

  • developer: CoffeeCup Software
  • distribution size: 17.6 MB
  • distribution: shareware
  • Russian interface: no

The developers of CoffeeCup Visual Site Designer probably live by the slogan “make money on everything you can make money on.” Therefore, you need to keep in mind that if you buy this visual editor for $49, you will not get all the features that you can expect from purchasing most other similar programs.

Thus, the program comes with ten templates, and to download the rest you are asked to go to the developer’s website. By opening the corresponding page, you will find that additional templates are paid and sell for $9 each. Similar “surprises” await the user while working with the application. Click the web form builder tool and you'll find that you have to pay another $39 to use it; try adding a photo gallery to your site and you'll see that that feature comes at an additional cost, too.

The standard version of the program allows you to work with text, vector elements, and graphics. After selecting a tool, a floating palette with its settings appears on the vertical panel. It remains on the screen until the user changes tools. Thanks to this approach, the maximum amount of space is allocated to the work area.

Common web page elements such as counters and web forms can only be created in the program using a tool for inserting custom HTML code.

When working with vector elements (arrows, polygons, stars, callouts, etc.), you can use numerous tools to change their appearance. For example, it is possible to change transparency, add a shadow, make an object three-dimensional, make it glow, or change shapes when hovering the mouse cursor. In addition, you can adjust the fill of each object and add texture.

CoffeeCup Visual Site Designer has a built-in FTP client with which you can upload a site to a remote server. If, after loading the site, you decide to make changes to some of its pages, you can use the data synchronization function. In this case, the program will load those pages that have been changed. If necessary, without leaving CoffeeCup Visual Site Designer, you can even completely delete the site from the server.

⇡ WebSite X5 Evolution 8

  • developer: Incomedia
  • distribution size: 15.3 MB
  • distribution: shareware
  • Russian interface: yes

Most visual editors are similar to each other. This has its advantages, because once you understand one of these programs, you will already feel confident if you later decide to try another. However, if you have never created websites before, even the simplest visual editor can initially raise many questions, such as: “what should you do first?”, “which program tools are the main ones and which are auxiliary?” etc.

The WebSite X5 Evolution program implements a slightly different approach to creating a website, thanks to which many questions disappear by themselves. The application works according to the principle step-by-step wizard, so that a novice user can be sure that he has not missed anything important.

Despite the fact that the wizard guides you through all stages of creating a project, the user can, if desired, “jump” through some stages by selecting side menu the actions he wants to perform in currently. There are five stages in total.

The first one indicates General settings. So, here the site name, author and language are entered, keywords are selected, the Favicon is loaded, the menu type is selected (horizontal or vertical), a suitable template is selected (there are more than a hundred design options in the program library), and the appearance of the top and bottom of the site pages is set.

At the second stage, it is proposed to create a site map, that is, think through its structure. Using the "copy" and "paste" buttons on the toolbar, you can create new pages based on existing ones. Here you can determine which resource pages will be hidden and specify the update frequency for each page.

Double-clicking on the page title will take you to the next stage of work on the site, and here you can start working directly on its content. By default, the page is divided into four blocks, into each of which you can add an object: text, graphic file, slide show, table, flash animation, multimedia file, etc. If desired, the number of blocks on the page can be increased or decreased. Having placed an object on the page, you need to determine its settings, for example, specify the path to the graphic file, type text, etc. All these operations will need to be done for each page.

At the fourth stage, WebSite X5 Evolution will ask you to specify some additional settings, for example, determine the appearance of the introductory page, set parameters for displaying flash advertising, add a blog and an RSS news feed to the site.

Among the offered features there is also such an element as “E-commerce shopping cart”. Using it, you can quickly create your own online store. By going to its settings, you can quickly create product categories, define delivery terms, select payment options, insert a license agreement, and customize the appearance of store elements.

Finally, on last stage The project is being exported. The finished website can be saved to your hard drive or immediately uploaded to an FTP server. In addition, the program allows you to save project files in order to transfer them to another computer. Note that the created project can be saved at any stage in the program’s own format.

Perhaps the only inconvenience when working with WebSite X5 Evolution is the inability to preview pages in the browser. If you want to see what the site will look like, you can use the Test function, but it takes some time to generate the project. In addition, the program generates pages in its own viewer, created on the Internet Explorer engine.

⇡ KompoZer 0.7.10

  • developer: Fabien Cazenave
  • distribution size: 7.9 MB
  • distribution: free
  • Russian interface: yes

KompoZer is a free open source visual web editor. The program is available not only for Windows, but also for Mac, as well as for Linux. The editor is created on the Gecko engine, which runs the well-known Firefox browser. This provides a number of advantages: firstly, the engine perfectly supports modern web standards such as XML, CSS and JavaScript. Secondly, the Gecko-based editor can be extended with plugins.

Perhaps the first add-on you want to install will be a localization package for Russian. It is installed in much the same way as plugins for Firefox are installed: in the Tools menu, you need to select the Extensions command, and then specify the path to the downloaded localization file with the .xpi extension. After installing the plugin, you will need to restart the program, after which the interface will become Russian.

The program has an integrated FTP client, and it can be used not only to upload a finished project, but also to quickly edit pages of a site already hosted on the server. By specifying your server login information, you can navigate the directory tree and select pages to edit. Their contents will be loaded in the KompoZer window, and they can be edited on the fly.

KompoZer makes it possible to work with several pages simultaneously. Each of them opens to separate tab, between which you can quickly switch. Each page has its own history of canceling and returning actions. By looking at the icon in the tab header, you can immediately determine if changes have been made to the content of the page that have not yet been saved.

Although KompoZer automatically generates the code for web pages, you can review it and make some changes if necessary. At the bottom of each page there are tabs that allow you to switch between visually displaying the page and showing code.

By default, the most frequently used tools are displayed on the program toolbar: adding a hyperlink, inserting an image, tables, tools for creating web forms, etc. If you wish, you can change the appearance of this panel (for example, by making the icons smaller), and also add some other tools to it.

In general, despite the fact that KompoZer is a visual web editor, it is designed for users who already have some experience in creating websites. You will not find ready-made templates and examples of navigation menus in it, but a powerful CSS editor, there are tools for checking HTML code and for checking spelling.

⇡ BestAddress HTML Editor 17

  • developer: Multimedia Australia
  • distribution size: 7.1 MB
  • distribution: shareware
  • Russian interface: no

When a user decides to explore an area, e.g. computer graphics, video editing or programming, he often asks his more experienced comrades a question - which program is better to start learning a new craft with. In some cases, it is indeed better to use simple tools in the beginning, and then, having understood their capabilities, move on to more advanced editors. As for BestAddress HTML Editor 2010 Professional, we can say that this program has every chance of becoming the first and the last tool for a beginner web developer.

Working in the visual construction mode of a web page is reminiscent of working with a designer - you can independently set the sizes and colors of elements, place buttons, graphics, menus and other website components at your discretion. Convenient formatting, almost like a text editor, can be used to control the position of any page elements. You will not find templates in BestAddress HTML Editor 2010 Professional, but you can download a web page located at specified address. Once you open the page in the program, you can then edit it.

The editor can automatically upload a project to the server - for this, the program uses the Digital FTP Access FTP client that comes with it.

BestAddress HTML Editor 2010 Professional also includes professional tools for writing code. Beginners who want to understand the operating principles and writing HTML, CSS, Java and PHP code, can refer to the documentation. It outlines the most important rules for writing code, such as the purpose of tags, examples of simple operations, etc. Simple and understandable lessons give a brief idea of ​​the structure of HTML and bring the beginner up to speed.

⇡ Conclusion

The programs discussed in this review allow you to quickly create your own website and place it on the Internet. It should be remembered that all these applications are just tools in the hands of the user. Whether the site will attract the attention of visitors, whether it will become an additional component of business success, depends solely on the imagination of the author and on his desire to improve what he has started. And, of course, in order for the site to live up to your expectations, your endeavor must be successful, which is what we wish for everyone!