Available on all of the popular platforms - Of the four tools we tested, HoTMetaL is the only one that ships for the Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh and UNIX platforms.
Friendly user interface - The interface includes three well-organized toolbars. One toolbar controls file management, searching, and other non-formatting features. The second inserts common HTML elements, and the third inserts less common ones such as forms, comments, and special characters.
Powerful Import Feature - This is one of the best features of HoTMetaL Pro. Its import filter enables users to import and convert files from other popular document creation packages such as MS-Word and WordPerfect.
Supports HTML 3.0 and Netscape - Another advanced feature is the support for many HTML 3.0 and Netscape extensions including backgounds, centering and other formatting capabilities, as well as support for tables.
Automatic Rules Checking - HoTMetaL makes it easy to produce error free documents by continuously automatically checking for valid HTML coding.
Displays HTML tags graphically - Graphically displayed tags make it very easy to distinguish between HTML code and the actual text of the document.
Evaluation
Price
HotMetal is a freeware package but the commercial version (HoTMetaL Pro) is available for $195 US.
Drawbacks
Pricey - Of course, nothing comes for free. The package will set you back nearly $200 US. While HoTMetaL does include some amazing features, there are many comparable products available for the typical web author in a more moderate price range.
Can not create new tags - This is understandably a difficult feature to include in a package that performs rule checking, but there definitely needs to be some mechanism for adding tags.
Needs customizable toolbars - The dialogue to change attributes requires the user to make a selection from the menu since it is not present on any of the toolbars. We wanted to immediately make this addition to the package, but we were unable to do so.
Ease of Use
With HoTMetaL, as with Adobe Pagemill, creating web pages is as easy as using a word processor. We found the product to be very stable and the HTML checking feature made it easy to create error-free documents every time. However, the no-user-customization aspect of the package is a definite disadvantage and this oversight will hopefully be dealt with in teh next release.
Learning Curve
HoTMetaL proved to be quite easy to master. Its similarity to a word processor make it an excellent editor for new web page authors.
Click here to see a HoTMetaL Pro 2.0 screen snapshot
Overall Rating
[ Exec Summ | Introduction | Task | Comparison Matrix | Pagemill | HTMLed | Conclusion]