A good, free HTML editor?

[Epsilon 5]

When I'm making my own webpages, I've always been using Netscape composer which comes with my Netscape communicator 4.79... but it's rather cheap I must think... is there a good but free HTML editor out there?

...and that excludes notepad or any plain-text editor. I'm talking about a mostly WYSIWYG editor with the possibility of adding HTML tags manually. Something like Composer, but better

[Epsilon 5]

WHOOHOO! I passed my 2500th post, and I'm now Strategic commander! Whoohoo!

[Cmdr Nova]

A shame, I don't know many WYSIWYG editors. In Microsoft Office, Frontpage does a pretty good job. Also, MS Word can export to HTML, if you need it.

1st Page is a text-based editor, but in "beginner mode" (or so I think that's what it's called), you can click the tags you need in a menu.

Evrsoft 1st Page 2000 - I use this a LOT.

Sorry if this doesn't help much.

[Jerrai]

yeah, i personally use 1st Page 2000, its the best iv found.

IMHO, anyone who uses a WYSIWYG has no webpage skillz. those type of editors add extra uneeded code, and it isnt optimized at all. i used DW in my HTML class, and had to use notepad to fix all the code DW had mangled

but that i know of there are no "free" WYSIWYG editors, cause they arent easy to make

[Guest]

just use FLASH

[Menchise]

Flash is expensive.

I used to write with Netscape Composer too. It's good for novices (more so than Frontpage Express), but little else.

Personally, I recommend hand coding HTML. One of the problems with WYSIWYG, as Enigma stated, is its messy coding. Even the high-priced ones (e.g. Dreamweaver) generate code that is not only sloppy, but can confuse the browser to the extent of bad rendering, which is why it now includes the HTML Source window as an optional frame: so that power users can fix the parts that DW screws up.

HTML is also easy to learn, even for idiot programmers like me.