Review: Dutch's HTML Editor V3.0 Professional
December 22, 2000
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When Davor "Dutch" Ilic decided to leave Bosnia in the early
1990s because of the war, it not only made life better for him
but it was also a blessing for a great many people who today use
his HTML editor to create Web sites.
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Dutch's HTML Editor V3.0 Professional is a program that can
easily be used by the inexperienced and veterans alike because it
offers a tremendous amount of options, and its quality is first
rate.
From the time users begin building a Web page with Dutch's
editor, it is evident that the program is not only user-friendly,
but it is also well thought out and one of the more complete such
programs around.
The program has the standard interface that is so familiar to Web
site developers, but under the hood it does offer more options
than many programs that sell for much more than Dutch's $39.95
price tag.
Its startup and Web page wizards enable users to get started
quickly and efficiently without a great deal of thought or HTML
knowledge. Simply fill in the blanks and hit the "OK" buttons and
the user is in business. Those "blanks" include the basic color
scheme of the site and the meta tag information that is so
important to the future success the site may have with the search
engines.
Dutch's offers extensive and detailed help files with topics
ranging from general Web site construction to particular tags and
their options. Users who are not totally familiar with HTML tags
and would rather not learn them as they go may prefer to use the
many "helpers" the program offers that cover a wide range of HTML
elements.
Throughout the program these "helpers" take the form of dialog
boxes to help with various tasks, such as building tables,
inserting images, and implementing frames, lists, and forms. Each
of those dialog boxes gives the user the choices available,
making it unnecessary to memorize all the HTML options possible.
But Dutch's goes well beyond that. For those wishing to have
interactive Web pages, the program provides
Dynamic HTML
elements and more than 140
Java and VB Scripts.
The program divides those elements by those for Internet
Explorer, those for Netscape, and those that will work in both
browsers. Note, however, that the VB Scripts are for IE only.
The program features an extensive
style sheet
editor, which includes dialogs for fonts, colors, alignment,
margins, padding, borders, class, ID, external style sheets, and
preferences.
Those needing client-side
image maps
have all the necessary tools within the program. Hotspots can be
drawn with either a rectangle, circle, or polygon selector, then
linked to a particular URL. All that remains then is to push the
"insert" button, and the coding is placed into the page.
Standard image maps use either JPEG or GIF images and can show
links in a browser's status bar, onMouseOver hotspots, tool-tip
messages, and changing images on mouseovers.
Users can preview their work in either Internet Explorer or
Netscape, or they can use the program's internal viewer that is
accessible from a button on the main toolbar and does not require
saving the file.
The included FTP portion of the program is better than most
because of its straight-forward approach to detail, making it
easy to use. Users can transmit single files or in a batch.
Among the program's other features is an extensive collection of
animations, backgrounds, and sound files that can be previewed
before insertion into the page.
Dutch's does a good job of blending features for people of all
levels of expertise, making it well worth the price.
What is it called again? Dutch's HTML Editor V3.0 Professional.
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Where can I get it? http://www.bee.net/dutch/index.html.
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How much does it cost? $39.95
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How big is the download? 6.8 MB
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Is it worth it? Definitely worth a try — a lot of people will like it.
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