[techtalk] Any good HTML editors for Linux?

[Telsa Gwynne]

On Tue, Apr 03, 2001 at 12:13:35PM -0700 or thereabouts, jennyw wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Rebecca J. Walter" <rjp at mail.tele.dk>
> 
> > EMACS!!!
> > it is very NONwysiwyg.  but it color codes tags and has an option you
> > can activate to have it autoload in the browser every time you save.
> > i find it easy to work with.  smart people like my husband configure it
> > to complete file names and that sort of cool stuff.  telsa probably
> > knows how to do that.  that is too complicated for me.
> > but emacs for html and sgml is the BEST!
>
> Wow, it looks like Bluefish and Emacs look like the most popular ones out
> there. I must admit that I've been doing my best to avoid Emacs ever since
> my first horrible encounter with it eight years ago.  I guess I should get
> over my fear of meta keys and counter-intuitive default key-mappings (of
> course, things may have changed in eight years -- the syntax highlighting is
> new).  I'll also check out Bluefish and maybe even Quanta.

Whilst flattered by Bex's opinions, I should confess I have absolutely 
no idea how to configure emacs. I never even finished the tutorial :) 
I use my favourite text editor (joe :)) for HTML and DocBook (both of 
which involve similar ideas: lots of tags to mark up). I cheat by 
having a bunch of tiny 'template' files. One has a list of DTDs I 
use commonly. One has a collection of pieces of different ways to 
mark up lists. One has standard stuff that tends to go at the bottom
of most of my HTML pages. One has the <artheader> and <bookinfo> 
for the top of DocBook docs. I use X for this, and just cut and 
paste liberally between windows and fill in the gaps :) I would
rather like joe to spot I am closing a tag and fill the stuff in,
but I can't be bothered to find out whether it's possible. 

Having said that, when I started messing with DocBook, I tried
Emacs and the PSGML mode, and it -rocked-. Suddenly I could see
why Emacs advocates were so vocal. 

Alas, joe uses the control and escape keys a lot, and whilst ^A,
^E and so on are the same, the commands for marking sections, moving
them, and erasing them are just different enough to make editing
without thought dangerous. Too much "Damn, I am using which editor?
That was the "delete that section" key combo, then? Oops..." for me. 

I have seen Bluefish recommended, but -- don't laugh -- I can't
figure out how to use it. I've never used word processors or
WYSIWYG applications. Not through some moral objection. It was
simply that I never met them. I learned HTML and DocBook whilst
using text editors. I am completely baffled when it comes to 
any WYSIWYG app as a result! I can't even use the composers in
Netscape or Mozilla. If this is how people used to such apps feel 
when faced with a HTML, XML or anything else file and a text editor, 
I have great sympathy for them. It's just a different way of thinking. 

Telsa

P.S. Bex: it's nothing to do with "smart". 90% of it is two things: 
knowing where to find answers, and having the confidence to try it.