2005.10_Spinning the Web-a Tour of Linux Html Editors.pdf

A tour of Linux HTML Editors

Spinning the Web

The right HTML Editor can save you plenty of time and trouble. Read on for a roundup the best free editors

for Linux.

By Tim Schürmann

www.photocase.de

If you are familiar with HTML commands, you can use a simple text editor such as Emacs, Vi, or Kwrite to

design your homepage. Most text editors recognize the HTML command set and give you syntax highlighting

for tags.

For a few simple pages, this approach might look useful, but you will soon start to lose track of large-scale

projects. Luckily, many third party tools provide additional features for more complex projects. Text-based

HTML editors, that is text editors that specialize in HTML, expect the user to provide the necessary HTML

skills. In contrast, web generators allow you to create a page as you would with a graphics package. After

completing the layout, the tool then generates the Internet page. The results in the browser may be completely

different from the view in the web generator due to the restrictions that HTML imposes. So-called

WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors provide a useful compromise. Again, you can click

and point to create the layout, but the editor restricts you to HTML compliant features.

The number of Linux applications in both categories is fairly low. There are just a handful of WYSIWYG

editors, and I have yet to find a true web generators. The figures for text-based editors are better. In this

article, I'll show you some of the HTML editor options for Linux.

Spinning the Web

August

The August HTML editor [1] (Figure 1) is an old timer, and not exactly a famous representative of its species.

The latest version, 0.63b, dates back to 2001, but it still does the job perfectly. August simply requires a

working Tcl/Tk system, and this is something that any major distribution will give you. The documentation

additionally recommends Image Magick and Weblint as external tools. August uses the former to check image

proportions, and Weblint verifies the layout.

Figure 1: Click on the buttons in the August GUI to add HTML tags to your document.

After upacking August, enter ./august in the new august0.63b.src directory to launch the editor. The GUI

looks very much like a normal text editor with syntax highlighting. August has input boxes for some tags,

allowing users to click to specify the required parameters - filenames for links, for example, or the aspect for

an image.

August can save arbitrary strings of text as templates that form the basis for creating new documents. The

default template, Basic Structure , creates a HTML version 3.2 document, although August understands both

HTML 4.0 and CSS.

August can launch a selection of web browsers to Preview the results. The selection includes Netscape,

Konqueror, KDE help, and the Lynx text browser. Users can extend the list. Selecting Tools | Weblint Check

tells August to verify a file, but the program lacks a spellchecker. The help only gives you a rough overview

of the program's features.

Bluefish

The Bluefish [2] HTML editor (Figure 2) has a GTK interface that perfectly matches a Gnome environment,

and the program has an impressive set of features that have made it popular with users who favor the Gnome

desktop. This said, the sheer mass of options can make life hard for newcomers. On the positive side, Bluefish

supports customization, allowing web authors to assign frequently used functions to the quick-access toolbox.

The program also has project management facilities and a style sheet manager. Bluefish does not have an

integrated preview mode, and it uses an external browser.

Spinning the Web

Figure 2: Editing HTML in Bluefish.

The Dialogs menu has an assortment of wizards that handle critical HTML elements. The Quick Start wizard

gives you a selection of meta-tags that fill the HTML file header with details of the author or date. Bluefish

also has a wizard to help you publish photo collections. The wizard takes a pile of image files as input and

gives you a page with thumbnails as output. None of the other candidates in our test had a comparable feature.

Other details reduce the web designer's load. For example, the extended Replace function automatically

converts non-standard characters to HTML code. The dialog will replace expressions in any open files, if

needed; this is a useful tool if you need to modify all the subordinate pages in a project at the same time.

Although Bluefish was designed for use with HTML, it can handle other formats. Syntax highlighting also

works for XML and JavaScript, as well as for the C and Python programming languages.

Assuming you have installed Ispell, Bluefish will also spell check your documents. It uses the external

Weblint or Tidy programs to validate the code itself. To avoid oversights, web authors can enable a number of

input aids. For example, Bluefish will close any tags you have opened, or convert tags to lower case. Bluefish

does not have online help, but you'll find an excellent manual at the project homepage.

Erwin

Just like August, the Erwin [3] editor mainly focuses on performance and clarity (Figure 3). The project was

founded in 1999, although the pace of development is fairly slow. The editor looks a lot like Bluefish without

ever achieving the same kind of functionality. For example, Erwin has just one Quickstart wizard, and a

handful of rudimentary tools for standard elements such as table and image integration.

Spinning the Web

Figure 3: Erwin provides few options, but it is very frugal with system resources.

Just like August, Erwin uses icons or menu items to add formating instructions. Pressing [Ctrl-P] closes the

current tag, but without actually checking to see if this is actually necessary. Erwin also lacks a validation

routine for the HTML document, but at least it has an integrated preview.

(X)HTML Format

The editor that answers to the unwieldy name of (X)HTML-Format [4] is based on the multi-platform Java

programming language and thus requires a working Java environment. The program is free, but the author has

not disclosed the source code.

The features available through (X)HTML-Format are comparable to the features provided by Bluefish. The

tool can replace text strings across multiple files and automatically convert non-standard characters to HTML

code; (X)HTML-Format also has project management and an internal preview - although it does not render

even the most simple of pages correctly. On the upside, you can opt for an external browser as your preview

tool.

The Tools menu has a collection of useful programs and links, including search engine registration. Most

menu items and many other program functions simply link to the developer website. The Edit | Format option

is a useful exception to this rule, taking unformatted code and returning readable results.

(X)HTML-Format stores recurring constructions as Code Snippets . (X)HTML-Format also has wizards in the

form of simple dialog boxes for common elements. The Quick Document feature creates the structure for a

new document, giving you meta-tags, but lacking the DOCTYPE definition that the HTML standard

stipulates. On the upside, (X)HTML-Format has a CSS editor with useful settings.

When you click on the paragraph icon, (X)HTML-Format inserts an opening <p> tag. Users have to close the

tag manually or select a redundant menu item titled Edit | <p>|</p> .

The online help is useful, and it will take you to the Internet-based SelfHTML intro at the click of a button.

Quanta+

KDE's counterpart to Bluefish is known as Quanta+ [5] (Figure 4). Quanta+ is based on the free version of the

commercial Quanta Gold editor, although development is no longer related to the commercial product and

continues under a free license. In its KDEWebdev guise, Quanta now forms the core element of the KDE web

development module.

Spinning the Web

Figure 4: Quanta+ is the KDE counterpart to Bluefish.

The version number is oriented on the accompanying KDE version. As all major distributions provide

Quanta+; you should use your distribution's package manager for the installation.

Quanta+ has more options than its Gnome Bluefish counterpart. Unfortunately, the feature overdose does

make Quanta+ hard to work with and difficult to learn. The interface often displays multiple windows within

the main window. For example, you always have the document structure, the online reference, and

explanations for all HTML, PHP and JavaScript commands on view. The manual is less helpful and mainly

describes the installation.

The program provides all the functionality you could wish for. For example, Quanta+ will upload your

homepages directly to a server. Besides syntax validation, provided by the external Tidy tool, Quanta+ also

has a link checker that checks the validity of any links in the document. Quanta+ also integrates the

KImageMapEditor for image map editing. Additionally, Quanta+ provides a CVS version management tool

based on Cervisia, making it a good choice for group projects.

Quanta+ supports visual modifications in the so-called VPL editor. To do this, users can point and click to put

required elements together, although text input is not supported in this mode. As this view is still under

development, you might like to restrict any experimenting to copies of your original documents.

Wizards help you set up common elements. For example, the quickstart wizard can handle various meta-tags

and Document Type Definitions (DTDs). The CSS editor is easy to use, allowing users to put together a style

sheet from a palette of options using a simple point and click approach.

Quanta provides automatic routines to ensure compliance with HTML conventions, such as modifying the

opening tag when an author changes a closing tag. This feature allows authors to change bold text to italics

just by modifying a single tag. Programmers used to working with integrated developer environments will

expect to find auto-completion during command input, and Quanta+ will not disappoint you.

Quanta+ still has not completely removed one major issue known to affect previous versions. In the past, the

program was known to crash regularly; this no longer happens as often as it did, but it still happens. So make

sure you back up your work regularly.

All of the tools we have looked at thus far assume HTML skills on the part of the user. If you prefer to avoid

manhandling source code, you might prefer one of the following WYSIWYG solutions.

Firefox with cuneAform

Firefox was basically designed as a lean browser, and it therefore comes without an integrated HTML editor.

cuneAform [6] is a plug-in that adds this functionality to Firefox. To install cuneAform in Firefox, select

Tools | Extensions | Get more extensions . This opens a homepage where searching for cuneAform will take

you to a link for the plug-in. You can then click Install now to take care of the details.

Spinning the Web

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