Any advice on HTML/PHP editors

[Guest moo_ski_doo]

I know a lot of people using this site also have their own websites, so I thought this would be a good place to ask this question.

I've been developing my own website for a little while but until now I've been using fairly naff HTML editors. It's been annoying me for a while but I'm finding it very difficult to find a decent editor - there's hundreds of them out there and I can't possibly try them all! The main ones I've used to date are HTML-Kit, which is OK but a bit messy, and Source Edit which looks quite nice but doesn't really take any of the effort out of writing HTML. All I want to know is if anyone has any advice on a good editor I should try using? I'm looking for something free, with decent syntax highlighting and that handles PHP well. Any ideas?

[Guest ferret]

Context is brilliant in my opinion.

http://www.fixedsys.com/context/

haven't tried it with php though.

[Guest moo_ski_doo]

Context is brilliant in my opinion.

http://www.fixedsys.com/context/

haven't tried it with php though.

Cheers for that, I'll give it a go and see if it works out for me. Anyone else got any other ideas?

[Guest ferret]

I should add (after reading your post correctly :!: ) Context doesn't take the effort out of writing html, it's just a posh notepad with decent highlighting for numerous languages. But it's free and still worth checking out.

[Guest stuF]

it depends how much of the work you want to do.

I use notepadXP (notepad with an NSword style interface) a search on google should unearch it, its freeware/shareware if i remember rightly.

I also use dreamweavers code view, basically becuase it colour codes the whole shabbam for you, which is handy when youre working late into the night trying to nail a piece of code.

When i first started out, i exclusivley used notepad, it may be a laborious process, but it allows you to learn exactly how HTML works, and gives you the opportunity to gain a lot of knowledge of the way websites are constructed.. keep it simple!

[Guest moo_ski_doo]

Cheers for the advice,

I was hoping to find something that does a reasonable amount of stuff for me, although still gives me the option to go in at a lower level if necessary; I already do enough programming as it is! Although I tend to agree that it's good to know how HTML works, I'm not too bothered about getting in to it all that seriously, so something to speed development up a bit would be superb. I think I already know enough HTML to be able to dive in deeper if the need arises anyways.

Thanks for the ideas anyway :)

[Guest midnight]

gotta say, the one ive been using for years is AceHTML, shows you a preview pane and all that and has a php parser build in (so long as you have php installed), built in css editor and lovely little tabs for all the standard commands

[Guest moo_ski_doo]

gotta say, the one ive been using for years is AceHTML, shows you a preview pane and all that and has a php parser build in (so long as you have php installed), built in css editor and lovely little tabs for all the standard commands

That looks like the business! Will definately have a look in to that, cheers :)

[Guest elstcb]

I've been a big fan of Macromedia Homesite for years, mainly because you can group code together then hide and show at will, great for looking over big files. Probably a bit pricey just for home use though...

[Guest Will]

i use phpcoder, but that's personal choice, it's free so try it out!

Will