I know this has been asked before, but the most recent answer seems to be from 2009, and I haven't found an ideal program while searching through previous questions. posted by Termite at 2:30 AM on November 18, 2011
If you're looking for a text editor (as opposed to a WYSIWYG editor), Bluefish is free and the basic stuff is simple enough. I use it under Linux, and I used it on my new work Mac for a week while I waited for the IT department to get me a BBEdit license. Download the OSX dmg here. It's about as good as it gets for free text editors.
If you're looking for something with a WYSIWYG element, there's always the Mozilla Seamonkey. posted by Mayor Curley at 2:47 AM on November 18, 2011
Personally I love coda, but for free aptana is a good environment. For the basics textwrangler should do the job posted by twistedonion at 2:48 AM on November 18, 2011
Thanks - BlueGriffon looks good! I don't use a Mac, so your recommendations are very helpful. I'm looking for a WYSIWYG editor, not an all-purpose text editor. posted by Termite at 3:11 AM on November 18, 2011
Allow me to shill for Apple--there's a program called iWeb that's part of OS X. I can't endorse it, really, as I've only used it for an evening or so while I was playing about. posted by hoyland at 5:14 AM on November 18, 2011
TextMate is a text editor that does automatic tag highlighting and auto-complete. That's as much help as you really need to learn the basics. posted by empath at 6:36 AM on November 18, 2011 [1 favorite]
Textwrangler is great. It has a very powerful GREP engine and a lot of other useful text-massaging features. It doesn't do autocomplete, it doesn't (internally) preview your code. It's got a wonky old-fashioned interface. Free
Coda is the opposite: beautiful, auto-complete, not so great on batch-mode features or GREPping, good integration with FTP and previewing (and Unix shell). Kind of expensive.
There's also Cloud 9, which is a code editor in your browser (based on what used to be called Bespin). posted by adamrice at 7:28 AM on November 18, 2011
Another vote for TextWrangler. If all goes well with that, you can upgrade to its big brother BBedit, which is fantastic and relatively cheap. posted by slogger at 7:30 AM on November 18, 2011
Another vote for TextWrangler. posted by BurntHombre at 7:31 AM on November 18, 2011
Hmm.. I think I have misunderstood the term WYSIWYG. There's no way to learn HTML unless you learn the basic tags (a href... etc). Thanks for your suggestions! posted by Termite at 8:52 AM on November 18, 2011
Will look into TextWrangler as well. posted by Termite at 8:52 AM on November 18, 2011
TextWrangler is great! posted by Kwine at 9:02 AM on November 18, 2011
If you want full WYSIWYG where it works like a word processor - type and format the text and it will write the HTML for you, then there doesn't seem to be much/any competion for Dreamweaver (30 day free trial). I'm not sure I'd recommend buying it, it's expensive and has a million features you don't need but the trial might be long enough for your training. posted by Lanark at 2:36 PM on November 18, 2011
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posted by Termite at 2:30 AM on November 18, 2011