HTML Editor Review for CyberNexus Corp.

Contents

Executive Summary
Introduction
Task Overview
Evaluation Criteria
Test Procedures
Results
Summary
Top Picks

Introduction

This document has been prepared by Chris Marta and Corinne Eckel for CyberNexus Corp. It has been prepared to address the possibility of increasing World Wide Web page design efficiency within the company. It was also the intent to find the most useful editors to recommend to clients with HTML production needs. We review four stand-alone HTML editors: Dozens of other HTML editors are also available, but these four were chosen because they have all consistently achieved high ratings in other independent evaluations. Packages that have been designed for use with Microsoft Word or other word processing packages have not been considered due to reports by third parties of sluggish performance, and of the desire to find an independent editor to recommend to clients.

Evaluation versions of all packages are available from the developer's home sites. Each of the packages tested were Windows 3.x versions, although versions for other platforms may be available from the developers. Some non-essential features have typically been disabled in the evaluation copies used.

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Task Overview

Since CyberNexus is a computer consulting company, its needs in HTML editors are twofold:
  1. Employees within the company often need to create Web pages for clients. Document design and coding is currently done in raw HTML without the aid of HTML editing tools. Specifications for the pages vary from client to client. Documents may require full development or mere conversion from other document formats. A minority of clients require documents to conform to the current standard (HTML 2.0), while the majority are more concerned with aesthetics and reaching the largest portion of the market effectively. In the latter case, Web pages are developed using a combination of HTML 2.0, Netscape HTML Enhancements, and some HTML 3.0 proposed elements. Microsoft's Internet Explorer Enhancements have not been utilized in the company to date, but may be required in the near future. A versatile tool is needed, and the learning curve is expected to be irrelevant. Performance improvements over current methods are the primary goal.


  2. When clients wish a recommendation for an HTML editor, the situation varies greatly. It may be the case that the client is already developing HTML documents without a specialized editor, or it may be that the client has no experience in HTML development. It may be for a small task or an ongoing need. The learning curve of the product may or may not be more important than the long term performance levels. The price may or may not be a significant factor. Because of these variations in client needs, a solid all-around product is sought. If none can be found, knowledge of the available products will assist in tailoring recommendations to the clients' needs.
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Evaluation Criteria

Ideally, a package was sought that was easy to learn for both new and experienced HTML developers. A good editor should support all HTML standards and extensions currently in use. It should be usable without a perfect knowledge of the language structure. Simple formatting elements such as text modifications (boldface, italics, etc.), list creation and horizontal lines should be quick and easy to use. Complex elements such as forms and tables should be made easier through construction menus and/or WYSIWYG interface. File anchoring should be simple, preferably supporting drag and drop from the desktop, but it should not be restrictive of extended capabilities (borders around pictures, linking graphics to URLs). The help system should make it easy to find help on system usage, and should also provide reference to HTML structure and standards. File conversions, especially from DOS text files, should also be supported.

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Test Procedures

The tests were implemented in two phases:

First, an attempt to recreate two homepages was used to test the learning curve and general usability. The pages used were expected to typify common design layouts and items. Second, any obvious extra features were tested on the fly. It was also expected that any tutorials would be examined at this stage. The tutorials were not examined upon startup in order to gain a better feel for the intuitive design factors in the interface, and also to complement the usage pattern we expected from typical users.

The subject test pages which were attempted to be duplicated are available, along with a brief explanation of the items being tested by each page layout:


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Results

Interfaces / Getting Started

HotDog has a good idea in displaying a cute introductory screen which asks the user if they want an HTML tutorial, HTML reference, or want to get right into the program. (This intro screen can be turned off so that it doesn't get annoying to experienced users). A central area on the screen is used for the document (displayed in raw HTML, complete with tags). On startup, a template containing the basic head, title, body, and html tags is loaded. Rather than having a cascading set of windows for open documents, the bottom of the screen has a "file drawer" displaying the file folders in use, which are preferable to the cluttered multiple-window look of the other editors. The top of the screen is devoted to a menu bar and rows of buttons. The buttons are used to insert the most common insertion elements, while the menus contain the lesser used tags and tools. The most impressive thing about the interface is that it can be customized. Buttons can be changed and custom elements can be added to the tag menu. Another impressive feature is that files can be dragged off the desktop file manager for insertion into the document. (Alternately, Hotdog's internal file manager can be used for the same purpose.)

Since a WYSIWYG editing window isn't used, any browser can be linked to a "preview" button, or alternately, a "real-time viewer" is available. This is essentially a WYSIWYG window that can be run together with the editing window--it updates as the editing window is updated. Unfortunately, using it makes the system very sluggish, and problems arise in positioning it. It covers a portion of the editor, so unless the user has a very large screen, it must be constantly repositioned to make the text or buttons beneath it accessible.

Hotmetal's interface looks similar to HotDog's. The first thing noticed was the huge number of buttons across the top of the screen. Some of the buttons, however, are actually menus in disguise, which drop down when you press them. Graphical tags are displayed in the primary area on the screen along with the text of the document. The graphical tags make it easier to read the text in the document, but difficult to read the settings within the tags. This default mode can be turned off, however, to give text-only tags. To preview the document, a browser can be linked.

InContext Spider's interface is the most unique. It is a WYSIWYG display alongside a graphically displayed hierarchical list of document elements. Clicking on the element in the list selects that item in the document. Although this display looked good to start with, the interaction became frustrating quickly. Strict error checking made it difficult to use, and the error messages are not very helpful. The generic message seems to be, "This element cannot be inserted here." Why not? The error checking can be turned off while editing, but it pops back up when the document is saved with a message informing the user of any errors, but not showing where there are. Another annoying thing about the interface is that block highlighting is done in blue--the same color as the default anchor descriptions. This means that if the user has a link displayed and wants to highlight it, they'll be unable to read it when the highlighting bar is on top of it. On the plus side, there are a large number of templates available to start documents with.

WebEdit's interface was the easiest to use. A "wizard" can be used to start users off with a template. It creates the template by asking questions about which popular elements should be included. It would be useful for a first-time homepage creator. Documents are listed on the left side of the document window in raw HTML, while the right side of the window can be used for previewing the documents. Clicking on the previewer update is required to refresh it. This makes it much quicker than the update-as-you- type windows that some of the others editors use. It won't display everything, however. Forms, for instance, can't be viewed from the preview window, so a browser would be required for full-featured viewing. There are fewer buttons to use--most of the tags are selected from menus. Some might find that this feature slows them down, but the menus are well thought out and make it easier to learn than a large number of button icons.


Editing The Document

All four of the editors have good facilities to allow for links to other pages and to allow images to be inserted. Simple text formatting such as bold, italics, addresses, and ordered lists are also straightforward. Usually it's simply a matter of pressing the correct button or menu item to insert any of the simple start/end tag sets. There is a big difference, however, in complex items such as tables and forms:

HotDog's tables are adequate. It allows direct editing in it's creation window, but it's not quite as smooth as HotMetal's point-and-click column/row changes and doesn't have as much flexibility as WebEdit's. The form creation, however, is the best of the four. It still only inserts one element at a time, but the options to create the individual elements are simple enough that it's not necessary to know how the tag syntax works. A WYSIWYG form editor would be nice, but none of the developers have come up with one yet.

HotMetal's table editing is one of the best. If only simple tables are required, it's very smooth. After specifying the number of rows and columns, the text of the table can be edited on screen, within the document. If the table structure needs alterations, the "table edit" function allows the rows and columns to be stretched to use the COLSPAN and ROWSPAN tags. Rows and columns can be added in this edit as well. Unfortunately, the form creation is very poor. The form location tags must be inserted, and then individual form element tags can be added, but these tags are only inserted as templates, which can then be edited. The user has to have a strong knowledge of the relatively complex form tags to be able to use it.

InContext Spider's table functionality is very poor. The individual tags can be selected from a sub-menu, but the user has to know exactly how to format them, and there are so many row and column tags in a table that the menu selections are probably slower than typing the tags in. The form creation is above average, but still needs work. The form and input tags have to be inserted and then edited afterwards. A window of options is listed when editing, but it's not as easy to use as HotDog's.

WebEdit's tables are the best I've seen, although they aren't quite perfect. They can be built up from tags, or they can be created with the "Table Builder." This table builder is a very simple to use window that allows manipulation of colors, captions, borders, padding, rows and columns, and the text. It lacks one thing--facilities to use the spanning tags (to allow an element to span multiple rows or columns). The form functions are typically weak. Like most of the other packages, all it allows for is the insertion of individual tags. The user needs intimate knowledge of them to proceed.


Help System & The Learning Curve

HotDog's help system has a very good reference section on HTML tags, with some excellent examples that are viewable in raw or graphical form. What it lacks, however, is help on command selection. There is practically no help devoted to the actual command sequences. Nevertheless, the interface isn't difficult to figure out with a little persistence. Most of the functions are fairly obvious, but the user has to have a firm grasp on HTML tags to build a document.

HotMetal's help system is the best of the four. It has good references to both it's commands and to the HTML language (and extensions). The interface is easy to figure out as well.

InContext Spider's help is difficult to understand in some sections. The dialogue is too technical for inexperienced users. This is especially unfortunate since this program will probably require the most frequent reference to the help section. As mentioned earlier, the menus are not intuitive, thus results a high frustration level for new users.

WebEdit was the easiest system to learn. The menus are uncluttered and obvious, and the homepage "wizard" makes getting started a little quicker. The help menus are not as detailed as some of the others in reference to the HTML elements, but it is adequate since the simple interface makes reference to the help section infrequent.


Document Validation

All of the editors allow the user to insert tags where they don't belong, except for InContext Spider. InContext Spider has the most thorough post document checking as well, in case the real- time checking is turned off (it gets annoying). It caught several errors in the documents which, although the browsers will look over them, are incorrect formatting. HotDog and HotMetal caught fewer of the errors, and WebEdit has no error checking at all. The biggest problem with InContext Spider's superior error checking is that the errors aren't located for the user during verification. It explains what the error is, but not where it is. HotMetal has a nice feature in it's verification--it explains which formats (HTML 2.0, 3.0, Netscape, Explorer) the document conforms to, and details which tags are being used in each class.

A spell checker is also included in all the packages except WebEdit. HotDog was the only one that didn't disable it for their evaluation version, however. (In fact, kudos to sausage software for not crippling the software at all--only a 30 day time limit is in place). The spell checker works as expected, but it should probably have a few extra words added to it. It stops on "Email", "Internet", and "HTML". Webster might not recognize these words yet, but in this context they should be included.


Extra Features and Unmentioned Deficiencies

HotDog has a few minor bugs. The real time viewer doesn't handle all elements correctly. In particular the tables and image alignments didn't show up correctly. At least one of the menu items didn't work (preformatted text), and the help system needs a proofread. In one section it reads, "You can create your own groups by", and then cuts off in mid-sentence. The program needs a good shakedown. Also, some of the floating tag menus look clunky, and should be changed to drop down menus. On the plus side, the customizable interface and automatic upload of files to a UNIX host are nice bonuses.

HotMetal includes a thesaurus and document conversion from DOS text files, Word, WordPerfect, and other wordprocessors. It also supports image maps. These features, however, are disabled in the evaluation version. A very nice mapping feature that maps local files to server files makes transferring the documents easy.

InContext Spider comes with it's large number of templates, plus a selection of clip art. The full version comes with its own Mosaic browser so that items and links can be pulled directly off the web for use in new documents.

WebEdit has the best support for the aesthetic page improvement elements such as backgrounds, borders, sounds, and colors. Their "color selector" is especially useful, which puts the most common colors on screen, and converts to the hexadecimal rgb codes automatically.

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Summary

With any of the editors listed, the user still needs to have a general understanding of the HTML format. Although some of them claim to have "tutorials", they are simply reference sections. Better tutorials are available online from independent websites. Also, the form support, even HotDog's, needs improvement. Its support for these sort of complex elements that will make HTML editors easier to use than raw HTML.

Support of simple tag elements, images, and links to other documents is generally the same for all editors tested. HotDog needs a shakedown for minor bugs, and it could use some tweaking with its tables. It also needs better error checking. It has a nice (customizable) interface and is better than average in most areas.

HotMetal has nice error checking and a quick editor for simple tables, but its support for forms is woefully deficient.

InContext Spider needs major revisions to its menus, help system, and editor. The graphical display makes it too difficult to pick insertion points, and the procedure to modify new elements is not obvious. Elements should be created in a usable form, rather than forcing an edit by the user after insertion. Support for complex items (tables, forms, etc.) is inadequate.

WebEdit has a very simple interface, good support for aesthetic improvements to documents, and an almost-perfect table builder, but doesn't have as many features as the other packages. Support for forms is very poor.

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Top Picks

For professional applications, HotDog has the best all-around functionality. There is no particular area where it is obviously deficient, although many functions are marginally superior in other packages. It is also the only package with a customizable interface.

For amateurs and new users that want to create personal pages, WebEdit is the obvious choice. It is the easiest to use and has the best functionality in the aesthetics department.

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Executive Summary



Mail to:
Chris Marta or Corinne Eckel