HTML Editor Reviews

HTML Assistant

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HTML Assistant V1.4 -- H. Harawitz

Found: http://fox.nstn.ca/~harawitz/index.html

Overview:

• MS-Windows editor
• stand alone program
• Text-style
• NO HTML checking
• Very stable
• Freeware, Pro version $99 USD
• Score = B
• Screen Shot (~19Kbytes)
• User Comments

Nice features Found in this package include:

User Definable Text

A nice dialog box for defining text is present. This text can be scrolled through and selected for placement into a document. However, there is no simple way of setting up single click access to this feature (you must scroll through the list each time). I almost prefer the method used in the alpha release.

Nicely done link and anchor dialogs

These are a great improvement over the alpha version of the software. All the normal URLs are supported in the simple dialog. Browsing local files is supported which really is a must. A simplified dialog for creating named anchors is appreciated (no wading through a complete link dialog). In addition, this editor has a nice dialog for creating files containing URLs accessible from the link dialog (from Mosaic ini files, or cello bookmark files).

Undo Selection

Overlooked when I first used this editor, but very useful. Some other editors have forgotten this.

Missing/Poorly Implemented Features:

No HTML 3.0 or Forms Support

There is a limit to the amount of customizing that can be done to provide HTML 3.0 and form commands. Using the user definable text strings is difficult at best (though the included text strings are for forms).

Inconsistent in presentation

Limited clues are provided on how to use most of the tags presented in the toolbar (exception is the styles button which does state what the tags are). However, this editor does include a one-click solution for creating lists from lines of text in the file (useless when updating already existing lists). To further confuse the issue, some things are only accessible if you know the tags. Other times, only a description is present ("preformatted text" for example) without the raw tag available in the HTML menu. Basically, some things are simple and include some "automation", others require in depth knowledge of HTML.

Conclusion:

This is a much better editor than the original alpha version I saw. If some of the presentation inconsistencies were corrected, and a more useful customization tool were included, this could be an excellent editor. Otherwise, this is a good editor, with a reasonable user interface. A "pro" version is available which has adds some enhancement, but I have not had an opportunity to review it.

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