An HTML editor is the first thing you'll need to start creating web pages using HTML and CSS. There are many free HTML editors out there, and choosing one can be a daunting task.
HTML is quite simple and so you can start working with your web pages using a simple text editor, such as Notepad, WordPad or any other. You can also go further and use one of the more feature-rich editors, such as Coffecup, Notepad++, Brackets, Notetab or BlueGriffon. The advantage of using more advanced and functional editors is that you get more tools that can significantly speed up the process of marking up and creating content.
Whether you're looking to create blogs and articles that are well-formatted for browsers to read, or you're planning to build a fully functional website using HTML and CSS, choosing the right editor will greatly improve your productivity. Professional web developers spend a significant amount of time choosing the editor and tools that best suit their needs and enhance their productivity.
Which free HTML editor is right for you?
The answer to this question depends entirely on your requirements, on the product you intend to create with using HTML, from your current level of knowledge of this markup language, if you intend to just learn. Since most of these editors are free, you can narrow the list down to 2-3, try out their basic functionality, and then decide which one you like best.
In addition, almost every editor listed in this article is supported on several operating systems oh, including Windows, Linux and Mac, so you don't have to worry too much about compatibility.
Note that most of your editing needs can easily be met by Notepad++ for Windows, Brackets for Mac (this editor is also supported for Linux and Windows), or Coffecup and Notetab. However, if you plan to create a complex website, you should opt for a full-featured development environment such as Eclipse.
On the other hand, if you just want to play around with HTML and CSS, there are numerous online editors where you can write HTML code and see the results right away.
Let's look at the ten best HTML editors that are easy to use, rich in functionality, and popular among web developers.
1. Notepad++ (best free HTML editor for Windows)
notepad-plus-plus.org
This editor is only available Windows users, so if you have a Mac or Linux, then scroll on. Notepad++ is the best free HTML editor that you can install on your Windows computer. At first glance it is very basic, but it is one of the most complex and at the same time easy to use editors.
Much of Notepad++'s enormous power comes from third-party plugins, including PreviewHTML, HTML tag plugin for tag highlighting, Tidy2 for indentation, and many others.
Key features of Notepad++ are a tabular interface for working with multiple files simultaneously, very easy collapsing and syntax highlighting, customizable GUI (with a minimalist option), tables with a close button, vertical tables, multilingual (that is, you can configure the interface in English, French, Spanish and Chinese, as well as 80 other languages).
Notepad++ was developed by Dong Ho and released in 2003. It is free for both personal and commercial use and is licensed under the GNU General Public License.
For Mac users an excellent alternative Notepad++ is Brackets, which we'll cover next.
2. Brackets (free for Mac, Windows and Linux)
Brackets is another popular and reliable tool for web development and HTML code editing. Unlike Notepad++, this editor is supported for Mac, Ubuntu, Debian and Windows. And it is also free for personal and commercial use(MIT license).
Brackets is easy to use and has many extensions that improve its functionality. Popular extensions:
- Emmet – speeds up writing CSS and HTML code;
- Beutify – formats HTML files, CSS and JavaScript;
- W3C validation – checks your HTML code for validity.
Brackets is a beautiful editor with a modern, minimalist design. Changes made in the code are immediately displayed in the browser. You can make edits to CSS or HTML code and see how they change the look of your site in real time.
Read about Brackets here – Editor for HTML: Brackets
3. Coffecup (there is both a free and paid version)
Coffeecup is it possible best HTML editor, which has both free and commercial versions. The free one lacks some features, but it is complex enough to be on our list.
TO key functions free version can be attributed:
- customizable toolbars,
- code completion for elements, attributes and selectors,
- ready-to-use themes and templates,
- support for markdown format for HTML,
- FTP/SFTP support,
- drag and place function for images,
- preview option,
- syntax highlighting,
- a thesaurus to find alternatives for a word and much more.
The paid version is not too expensive. It includes several additional features such as HTML and CSS code validation, tag library, code cleaner, dynamic spell checker.
Coffecup also offers several advanced modules to work in a mobile friendly style, without the need to write any code, just using drag and drop functions. These modules include Foundation framer, Bootstrap builder and Responsive site designer.
Coffecup has been on the market since 1996 and is used by freelancers, startups, small businesses, as well as web developers from large companies. This is a great tool for creating websites, web pages, newsletters, notes formatted in HTML, and content for social media.
4. NoteTab (two versions, paid and free)
NoteTab is another HTML and CSS editor that offers features for fast development. This is a product of Fookes software, which has been working on tools to speed up the development process for the last 20 years.
The popularity of NoteTab is confirmed by the fact that it is used by NASA, FBU, VISA, CIA Hewlett Packard, MIT.
NoteTab has three versions, Light, Standard and Pro. The Light version is distributed free of charge for individual use. It does not have all the features of the Pro version, but it supports HTML5 and CSS3 libraries, bootstrap, HTML autocomplete, merging files into projects, HTML Tidy support, HTML to text, and also has many themes.
NoteTab can be launched directly from a flash drive and does not require installation on your machine. For bloggers and people involved in website content, this editor supports word count and SEO statistics.
You can get to know NoteTab better on the official website.
5. Eclipse (free HTML editor)
Eclipse is heavyweight and perhaps overkill for HTML and CSS development, but it can be used to great advantage if you don't mind installing and configuring the beast. This great tool, if you plan to create complex sites with databases combined with other data sources, etc. Setup may take some time and require the installation of additional plugins.
Eclipse is the most popular open source integrated development environment source code. This editor is often used for Java, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, Android and many other programming languages.
You can find out more here –
6. HTML-Online
When it comes to editing HTML code online, in your browser, nothing beats HTML-online.com. You can start the coding process right away, without downloading or installing any software, and it's free.
One of the advantages of this editor is the conversion of Word to HTML, so you can copy your content from files Microsoft Word and automatically apply HTML markup to it. There is also support Google docs, PDF, Excel, PowerPoint and many other types of documents.
This is a reliable visual editor that will help you create your web page and at the same time monitor code changes in the adjacent window. Other features worth mentioning include HTML code cleaning, casting table elements to divs, and a search and replace option.
7. BlueGriffon (free, basic and EPUB license)
BlueGriffon comes from the house of “Disruptive Innovations SAS”. It is built on Gecko, Mozilla's web rendering engine. BlueGriffon is a powerful editor that inherits most of its features from Netscape, Composer, Nvu and Mozilla.
BlueGriffon has three variations, the first of which is free, the second is distributed under a basic license, and the most powerful is under an EPUB license.
Demon paid version can also do a lot of things. It has black and light themes, support for audio, video and HTML5 forms, CSS3 editing features include transitions, 3D and 2D transformations, SVG creation, WYSIWYG technology, google fonts manager, font squirrel font manager, markdown format support, user interface in more than 20 languages.
You can download and install BlueGriffon on Windows. Linux Ubuntu and OS X on your Mac. You can find out more on the website -
8. Emacs with plugins
www.gnu.org
Emacs is one of the most beloved editors of all time. It is free to use (GNU license). Emacs is a code editor general purpose, which you can customize to suit your needs. Connecting freely distributed plugins turns it into a powerful code editor with rich functionality.
When it comes to HTML editing, Emacs offers an HTML mode that makes editing code very easy. Read more here – Emacs
9. Atom
atom.io
Atom is a configurable text editor from GitHub developers. Its popularity is growing very quickly. This editor is free for both personal and commercial use (MIT license). The developer community is constantly looking to enrich the editor with new features.
How to turn Atom into a free HTML editor?
Atom comes with all the basic features you need to edit your code, but to make it a fully functional HTML editor you'll need to install additional packages. These include Emmet, atom-html-preview, Autocomplete-plus, Atom-color-highlight, Autocomplete-CSS, linter, minimap, haml and jade.
Atom is supported for Windows, Ubuntu ( Debian Linux), Fedora (from version 22), Mac and Red Hat Linux. It is more suitable for web development than content writing as it is more code oriented and requires little customization.
10. Visual Studio Community
Visual Studio Community is a fully functional development environment from Microsoft, and it is free for everyone. Visual studio offers pre-configured HTML and CSS editing features that can be further enhanced with extensions.
Popular extensions worth mentioning are HTML Snippets, HTMLHint, HTML CSS support, Intellisense for CSS class name.
Like Eclipse, Visual Studio community is an excellent choice for complex, highly scalable sites that require many technologies.
Conclusion
HTML markup language is used everywhere. There are many HTML editors that were created a long time ago, but nevertheless keep up with the times and are quite suitable for web development. But there are others that no longer lack functionality and productivity. New editors are emerging, such as Brackets and Atom, that provide efficient code editing.
Most of the editors listed in this article have their own characteristics, but serve one purpose - creating web pages. They increase the speed of development and help organize code, while taking into account the possibility of scaling it.
Take a look at the options mentioned in this article, write down your key needs, narrow the list down to a couple of editors, try each and see which one you like best. You'll probably find at least one good HTML editor for Linux, Mac, and Windows.
HTML editor
One of the principles of HTML5 is the official recognition as part of the standard of non-standard features that are already widely used by web developers. One of best examples Following this principle is the inclusion of two unusual attributes in the standard - contentEditable And designMode, which allow you to turn an ordinary browser into a simple HTML editor.
These two attributes are not new. Moreover, their support was added in Internet Explorer 5 at the dawn of the Internet. At that time, most developers abandoned their use, viewing them as mere Windows extensions for the Internet.
But over the years, more browsers have begun to copy IE's practical but quirky approach to advanced HTML editing. Currently all browsers for desktop computers support these attributes, although they were never part of the official standard.
Editing elements using the contentEditable attribute
Let's look at the first tool for HTML editing - the contentEditable attribute. Adding this attribute to any element allows you to edit the content of that element as it is displayed in the browser window:
Most likely, you will not notice any peculiarity in the display of this text in the browser. But clicking anywhere in the text displayed by the browser places the edit cursor in it:
In the example above, the editable area
Some browsers support built-in formatting commands. For example, in Internet Explorer, you can make text bold, italic, and underline using keyboard shortcuts
Before you start using advanced HTML editing, it's worth knowing what it's actually used for. Despite its immediate impact, HTML editing is a specialized feature that won't appeal to everyone. It makes sense to use it to provide users quick way modify HTML content, such as adding blog posts, submitting reviews, posting advertisements, or composing messages to other users.
But even if you decide that you need such capabilities, the contentEditable and designMode attributes may not be best choice for their implementation. They do not provide the developer with all the conveniences of a true web design tool, such as commands for editing markup, the ability to view and edit HTML source code, spell checkers, etc.
Typically the contentEditable attribute is not included in the markup. Instead, it is enabled via JavaScript code and disabled when editing is complete:
Function startEdit() ( // Enable element editing. var element = document.getElementById("editableDiv"); element.contentEditable = true; ) function stopEdit() ( // Disable element editing. var element = document.getElementById("editableDiv "); element.contentEditable = false; // Display the edited text in the message box alert("Your edited text: \n" + element.innerHTML); )
Editing a page using the designMode attribute
The designMode attribute is similar to the contentEditabie attribute, except that it allows you to edit the entire web page. This may seem a little problematic because element events are disabled when editing the page. Then how can we press buttons to control the editing process? The solution to this problem is simple - the document being edited is placed inside the element
Editable page
Marking
Function startEdit() ( // Enable editing in the element
For comfortable work with HTML pages, making changes and edits to them, HTML editors are used. Today there is a wide variety of such editors, each of which has its own strengths and weak sides, and can also be used for various tasks.
Program Adobe Dreamweaver is one of the oldest HTML editors, the first version of which was released back in December 97. Since then, the package has undergone a lot of changes and eventually became a real professional HTML editor, which is used to work with complex web projects. Here you will find all the latest tools for a web developer.
IN new version The HTML 5 standard is supported, and the code editor and developer window have been improved. Support for the CSS preprocessor has been implemented, as well as displaying all changes in the browser window in real time. Close integration with Flash Player. Exterior design has been completely updated.
The disadvantages of Adobe Dreamweaver are its “heavyness” and hardware requirements. You must have several free gigabytes on your hard drive to install the package. The program has a large number of different tabs and settings, which requires additional time to become familiar with it. Additionally, Adobe Dreamweaver is proprietary software, for which you have to pay money to use.
Despite this, the program has a free trial period, during which you can evaluate all the benefits and advantages of this package. Typically this period lasts for a month from the date of installation of the program.
The multi-platform editor Sublime Text is gradually gaining popularity among professionals. This is due to its maximum simplicity, lack of frills and at the same time the presence of all necessary tools, which the developer needs. However, if you suddenly need something, and it won’t be in the standard functionality of Sublime Text, then you can always find it as a plugin, or you can write it yourself on Python language. All work is done using hot keys, so the program window itself contains a minimum of interface elements. The work area can be divided into several independent windows, arranged horizontally, vertically, or in a grid.
Despite all the advantages, the Sublime Text editor remains a rather difficult tool for beginners. Even the standard configuration of the editor here occurs not using the menu, but using config.json files, working with which requires the user basic training. However, for professional programmers it will not be difficult to customize this tool, given that it comes with complete documentation.
The Sublime Text editor is proprietary software, but you don't have to pay to use it. Each time you launch it, a window will appear reminding you that you can officially purchase this program, but this is done on a donation basis rather than a mandatory purchase.
You can download the program on the official website: https://www.sublimetext.com.
Notepad++ is not technically an HTML editor, but it can be used for these purposes. It has built-in syntax highlighting for HTML and XML markup languages, most popular programming languages, some of which are used in web development, such as PHP, Ruby, Perl, Python and many others.
There are a number of tools that help you edit code, such as markers, code block folding, autocompletion, a project manager, multi-line editing and highlighting, support for various encodings, and much more. There are also a large number of plugins for Notepad++ from a variety of developers, which significantly expands the functionality of the program, making it a serious competitor for professional HTML editors.
The advantages of the Notepad++ text editor include its speed and small amount of disk space. In addition, the program has a very simple interface, which does not require additional training time to work with. In addition, updates are constantly being released for Notepad++, about which the program itself notifies users, offering to install them. The most important advantage of the editor is that it is distributed under the GNU GPL 2 license, which implies free software.
You can download this editor right now from the official website https://notepad-plus-plus.org without any restrictions.
This is a simple editor with a nice interface that is visually vaguely reminiscent of Sublime Text. Written in CoffeeScript. Atom is a fairly young text editor, the first release of which occurred on February 26, 2014. Has support for plugins written in Node.js. Suitable for beginners to work not only with HTML, but also with a number of other tasks.
Atom is free and can be installed on most popular operating systems. In addition, it is quite easy to install and use, works quickly and requires a small amount of free space on your hard drive.
To get started with this editor, just click “Open a Project” from the welcome window that opens by default. Next, a directory for work is selected, after which a file is created in it and its extension is indicated. The syntax for the file is determined automatically based on the specified extension.
Vim is a professional free text editor that originates from the family of the oldest Unix editors. Vim was first released on November 2, 91. It is known as a tool for professional programmers, which provides enormous opportunities for automating work. The standard visual interface of Vim is a console one, but there is a modification of Gvim that works through a windowed graphical interface.
When working with Vim, there are several modes, switching between which changes the hotkeys and their functionality. Initially, Vim starts in what is called “normal” or “command” mode. It has all the usual hotkeys, such as “copy”, “delete”, “paste”. In other modes, you enter text, work with the console, or call the visual mode. It would seem, why such difficulties? The fact is that Vim was developed as a tool in which any action is considered not from the standpoint of classical “convenience”, but as something that requires maximum optimization.
Vim is very fast and uses almost no system resources. As for the difficulty of learning, this is definitely not a tool for beginners. Over a hundred commands have been developed for the move operation alone. Of course, you don't need to memorize them all. Everyone chooses their own programming style and, based on it, learns what they need. Just to master this editor at the proper level will require a lot of patience and time. However, as a reward, diligent users will receive the most powerful code editor currently available. Vim is a free and multi-platform tool that runs on Linux, Mac, Windows and several other operating systems.
Unlike other programs, IntelliJ IDEA is a professional integrated development environment (IDE). In addition to the fact that it can easily work with HTML/XHTML/HAML markup languages and description languages appearance CSS/SASS/LESS pages, the ability to work closely with Java, JavaScript, Python and Coffee Script is implemented. IntelliJ IDEA is developed by JetBrains.
Why should you start using this particular program? Firstly, it has a really thoughtful interface. You can start working with it immediately after installation, even if you have never encountered it before. In addition, it is possible to work with such popular tools as CVS, Apache Ant, Maven, JUnit and Subversion, which, by the way, are completely free.
Unfortunately, IntelliJ IDEA itself is not completely free program. Full version is available only for a 30-day trial period of use, and its reduced functionality version lacks quite a few useful functions and can really be useful for developing applications on Android or when working with a Java machine.
If you want to develop websites, you need to get an HTML editor. Of course, you can use a regular notepad, but it is unlikely to be convenient. It is important to note that HTML editors must perform two important tasks: code highlighting and autocompletion. Naturally, additional functions are also welcome, various design themes, for example. There are many such additional functions. Well now let's take a look at a few free editors HTML, which do an excellent job with the tasks listed above.
Free code editor - Programmer's Notepad
This editor offers modern interface, which comes in two types, light and dark. In addition, the syntax highlighting is very good, and the color scheme is well chosen. I think that this editor will meet all your requirements.
HTML editor - SynWrite
SynWrite is a cool editor with a wide range of features. The idea of this editor was to combine all the advantages of other HTML editors in one high-quality product. Its functionality can be significantly expanded with the help of additional plugins written in Python. Besides standard features, SynWrite allows you to immediately edit multiple pieces of code at once:
This feature will save you a lot of time.
Free HTML editor - PlainEdit.NET
This editor can open several files at once, and plugins can be added that will significantly expand the functions of the editor, including design themes. In addition, you can add and change text using regular expressions, even in documents that are not currently open. It is worth noting that PlainEdit can also work from a USB drive.
Notepad++
This editor is a classic. It is very popular all over the world. Notepad++ has everything a text editor should have. The interface can be customized according to your wishes, and free plugins I’ll help expand the functionality of the editor.
Free editor - jEdit
With this editor you can open and edit almost any file. It greatly simplifies the task of opening several files at the same time. Any missing features can be supplemented using a variety of plugins.
Out of the box, jEdit comes with built-in necessary functions, for example, code folding, marking tags and elements, file manager, as well as many other functions.
Sublime Text 2
This is the most popular editor among programmers and web developers. No similar editor has had such a triumph as Sublime Text 2. It is praised by many programmers. The editor is highly customizable through different resolutions and JSON files.
To that to a popular editor you can find extensive libraries of documentation, both official and non-official. Sublime Text 2 tutorials can be found everywhere.
Sublime Text 2 is partially free, the license costs $70.
New editor - Brackets
Brackets is a modern open source editor with some interesting features. It works with Adobe Creative Cloud to bring colors, fonts, and more from PSD file. It can also extract layers as images. Very comfortably
Unfortunately, Adobe Creative Cloud is a paid service.
This editor has all the necessary functions for a modern code editor. There are many different extensions that are released every 2 - 3 weeks.
Aptana Studio 3
Largest strengths The editor is its customizability, Git integration and built-in terminal. Aptana Studio 3 supports newest web standards such as HTML5 and CSS3.
Conclusion
There are a lot of HTML editors out there, but only a few of them are actually usable. For non-daily use there is Notepad++, but for daily use it would clearly not be enough. For this there is best options, such as Sublime Text 2, which can be customized as per the requirement of the user. Curious to know which editors you choose?
HTML5 is a great technology that allows users to create cleaner, more functional code, and debug code without having to dig through messy code.
Today I want to tell you about 10 very handy tools that will help you when working with HTML5. They will allow you to increase efficiency while saving time and effort. IN this list There is no specific sequence, since all the instruments are quite similar.
This tool offers you website editing functions using the interface. CreateM would best be called an HTML5 content management system. It allows you to create an HTML5 development environment right in the browser, and then edit the content. You can create completely modern websites, similar to those that can be implemented today using a CMS. You can modify this software and apply it according to the requirements of your project.
This is a free HTML5 widget that you can integrate into your web pages. This means you have the ability to let users draw directly on the page. It should also be noted that there is an excellent set of tools that can be seen in any standard graphic editor: It is possible to cancel an action or repeat it, delete an element, increase it, and so on.
This tool allows you to create wireframes for your tools, user interfaces, and online widgets and applications. It is very easy to use thanks to its intuitive interface. The tool will allow you to easily start developing a project, or test ready-made projects. It is great for working with HTML5 and offers you a very creative platform to manage the code of your web pages.
HTML5/CSS3 Browser Compatibility Chart. It is interactive and offers functions to check which browsers support a particular element and which do not. You can filter specific results and check what support you can expect from devices. If you are at least a little familiar with HTML5, but want to study the technology in more detail and put it into practice, this tool can be very useful to you.
This is web page development software that is somewhat similar to the functionality of a CMS, because what you see is what you get. The tool allows you to quickly sketch out CSS tables, create classes, ids, and much more. And all this is realized with just one sprite image. This uses background positioning to position certain areas of the sprite, and creates block elements for the page. It is worth noting that the tool is free, and at the same time allows you to quickly and easily cope with the creation of HTML5 pages.
This tool allows you to create HTML5 code using the cross-browser audio element. The tool is very convenient as it has been prepared in advance to perform various tasks, and at the same time it offers you a variety of colors and templates from which you can choose something that suits you. If you take a look at the website, you will see what this tool can do. It's worth noting that some elements will be unfamiliar to you if you're just starting out in development.
It's an HTML5 video player that allows you to embed code so that people can click on it. It also allows the use of Javsacript library and you have the ability to develop custom CSS/HTML templates for your videos. In addition, you will be able to play the video on any device, even if they do not support it, since this player is based on HTML5 technology. This is a very great tool that will help you benefit from video publishing using HTML5 technology.
This is a feature-rich editor developed using HTML5. This provides a progressive change implementation approach and may be exactly what you need in your development process. It provides good semantic HTML5 markup and uses class names to make the workflow easier. if you have Google Chrome, then you can take advantage of text input using speech, although the technology is still difficult to call complete.
This tool is a sprite generator for HTML5. It allows you to drag files onto the plane, and then, with the click of a button, create sprites and style sheets. It is still under development and refinement, and this moment Only works in Firefox and Chrome, but you should definitely check it out. It is very easy to use and will save you a lot of time developing your own HTML5 websites.
This tool allows you to collect votes for a video and display the results as a popularity bar. It also allows visitors to use this line to write reviews and comments. If your site receives enough traffic, then you would probably like to know what visitors think about your video files, and this tool will help you implement the necessary platform.