Showdown: HTML Editors

To all of those budding web developers out there: this showdown is for you. Today, I am going to look at 5 HTML editors, and find which one really is the best. The five editors are: TextMate (€39, app. $60), BBEdit ($125), Taco HTML Edit (freeware), SubEthaEdit ($35), and xPad (freeware).

Installation
TextMate: 5/5
The installation for TextMate was very simple. The download took about 30 seconds on my cable internet, but if you have a slower connection, be prepared to wait! Once the download finished, I was presented with a plain DMG with an icon for TextMate, and my Applications folder icon. I dragged the TextMate con into Applications, and boom, I was done.

Taco HTML Edit: 5/5
Another simple installation. After quickly downloading the DMG, I just dragged the Taco app to my Applications folder (via the Finder sidebar, this DMG does not have an alias for your Applications folder). Simple! When you first run the app, there is nothing to fill out. You are presented with an untitled HTML document to begin writing a website.

BBEdit: 5/5
After downloading the DMG from the demo download site, I was presented with a nice DMG. I dragged the BBEdit app to my Applications folder…yadayadayada…When I started the program, I had to get through a few windows first, but overall it was simple.

SubEthaEdit: 5/5
Downloading the SubEthaEdit DMG was easy, and so was the installation. A creative DMG simply took you through the steps of dragging the cute icon to the Applications folder alias. When I first opened the app, I was greeted with a window asking if I wanted to automatically check for updates. Why not?

xPad: 4/5
After downloading the DMG, I was faced with the best DMG background so far. After dragging the app to my Applications folder, I was done. When I started the app, I was shown a window asking me to register. This can be the confusing part of the installation. The app was never updated when the developers decided to start offering it as freeware, so you have to look on the website for the license key. When you are shown this window, you have to press Enter Code, and then X6893-2055-5686-9378 for the registration code. Make sure you enter the username as “xPad User” and the email as “support@getxpad.com”.

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Creating a new Website
TextMate: 5/5
Starting a new HTML document is fairly easy. When you press Command+N, you have a plain text document to edit. If you want to hand code from scratch, just go to the bottom of the window and where you see the Plain Text tab, just click and find the HTML tab on the dropdown menu and click on it. If you want to start from a template, click File>New From Template>HTML>*CHOOSE THE DOCTYPE YOU WANT*. All very simple. All of the HTML tags are color coded by what type of tag they are. To change the color, press Command+*COMMA* (Preferences), go to the the Fonts and Colors tab, and choose what color scheme you want to use from the dropdown menu. You can also customise the colors used in a specific scheme, and you can create a new scheme as well. My personal favorite scheme is Expresso Libre. CSS, PHP, JavaScript, Java, etc are all supported by default in TextMate, with their own color schemes. Just choose what you want to edit from the same tab at the bottom.

Taco HTML Edit: 4/5
When you first open the program, you are presented with a blank HTML document, with all of the necesary tags prewritten for you. This app also has color-coding, and you can change the tag colors from a preferences menu (use the same hotkey as TextMate). The downside of this app is that it only has color coding for HTML tags. Opening a JavaScript file in Taco will just give you black text, no colors. CSS comes out the same way. I would recommend a CSS editor such as CSSEdit from MacRabbit if you are dealing with CSS files.

BBEdit: 5/5
BBEdit supports many different types of website components, such as JavaScript (JS), CSS, and (of course) (X)HTML. There are no templates to start you up, but for the experienced hand coder, that is no problem. There is a large library of tags built-in though, so if you want a quick way to add tags to your document, they are there for you (from the Markup menu). (X)HTML, JS and CSS are all colored, wich makes for easy editing. BBEdit is not for the novice coder though, because it has many different menus and functions. This app seems to be ranking up high with TextMate.

SubEthaEdit: 4/5
SubEthaEdit supports (and colors) (X)HTML, CSS, and JS (among many others). There are different “modes” for editing, so you can easily change between (X)HTML, CSS, and JS (again, among many more that do not have to do with websites). Due to it’s (somewhat) confusing menu layout, finding the function of the app you want can be (slightly) difficult. A useful feature is adding HTML colors. Using Mac OS X’s color wheel, you can find a color you like and SubEthaEdit will put it in your code for you.

xPad: 2/5
Unfortunatly, xPad does not come with any special HTML editing features (such as color-coding). For the experienced hand-coder, this will be easy. If you are using this app but are accustomed to having color-coding and a library of tags, you are out of luck.

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Other Useful Features
TextMate
HTML Tidy, W3C Validation, Tag/Word Documentation, English SpellCheck, Tag/Word Libraries for all bundles, Preview in Open Browsers (does not work for me), “Bundles”

Taco HTML Edit
Preview, Live Preview, Tidy, Quick Insert of special characters, Image Map creation, Tag Clips

BBEdit
Search, W3C Validation, Insert Tags/Words, Tidy, Tag/Word Documentation, Change Case, Convert to ASCII, Save to FTP/SFTP, Save Copy to
FTP/SFTP, Open from FTP/SFTP

SubEthaEdit
“Collaborative Text Editing”, Insert Color (from Mac OS X color palette), W3C Validation

xPad
none

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The Verdict

1st PLACE TIE!!: TextMate and BBEdit

• TextMate-For those who need a powerful HTML editor, but do not have loads of money to spend on one, grab TextMate (a 30-day trial is available at it’s website.
• BBEdit-If you have $125 to spend on an extremely powerful editor, go for it! BBEdit may be the grandpa of the group, but it’s strength is awesome. Grab a 30-day trial at BareBones Software.

Note: If you don’t want to spend a lot of money on BBEdit or TextMate, then go with Taco. I used to use it before I got TextMate, and it works great!