EditPlus
...a nifty HTML text editor
Web pages are written in a language called HTML. One can use a simple text editor like Notepad (available with Windows) to create and edit HTML, but it's tedious. On the other hand, FrontPage, a full-featured HTML editor from Microsoft, may be too complex to learn and use for some HTML page work. Consider EditPlus. This $30 shareware program from ES-Computing not only color codes syntax, but offers an HTML toolbar to make coding HTML faster and easier. It has an integrated Web browser for previewing HTML pages, plus FTP commands for uploading local files to an FTP server.
During a recent project, I found the HTML toolbar particularly useful for quickly making text bold or italic, and for creating links, lists, and tables. Simply select a portion of text and then click "B" on the toolbar - and <b></b> tags are placed on either side of the selected text. To create a link, select the text and click the anchor symbol on the toolbar, and selected text tags appear. Between the "" marks, type the URL or mailto link.
You can set fonts and colors from the toolbar. A ruler is provided, as is line numbering, which can be turned off or on. Toolbar commands include:
The program also offers search and replace, spell check, and customizable shortcuts, plus extensive Help capability.
When creating a new document, menu choices are text, HTML, browser window, or C/C++, Perl, or Java. Additionally, Java Script, VB Script, JSP, CSS, and PHP are listed. Not enough choices? You can create your own syntax files. On the EditPlus Web site (www.editplus.com), click on User Files for syntax files that have been contributed by other users.
It is easy to switch back and forth between the edit and preview views in browser. I was able to immediately check the links I had just input. A few URLs were incorrect, but after a quick Internet search (without opening my regular browser) I found the correct URLs and made changes.
WS_FTP LE
...a fast and efficient FTP utility
If you create Web pages on your PC and want to move them to your hosted Web site, you need a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) program. WS_FTP LE is fast, easy to use, and inexpensive.
Initially, you set up a host directory and your local directory. Sending files back and forth between directories is just a matter of selecting the filename on one side of a two-pane window and clicking the appropriate arrow. You can select Binary, ASCII, or auto transfer.
While looking at both directories, you can make a new directory, change directories, delete, and rename files. You can also look at a subset of files by file type. For example, type *.gif and only the gif files will be listed. Choose Directory Info to get a text file listing all of the files in the directory, including files sizes and dates.
The limited edition is free (not shareware) for non-commercial use. WS_FTP
Pro is available for $37.50. See www.ipswitch.com
for details.
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