An HTML editor is a text-editing program that allows you to type in "tags" for HTML code and save the file as ".html. Actually, any plain old text editor will do (SimpleText, TeachText, Notepad), but you will have to type in everything by hand.

Outside of plain old text editors you have a choice between two different types of applications:

HTML editors:

Many of these provide "shortcuts" to creating tags, so that you don't have to laboriously type every tag. Many of these apps are available on the Web as shareware.

WYSIWYG editors:

Working with HTML code can be time-consuming and extremely tedious. WYSIWYG editors create the HTML code in the background for you so you don't have to type it all in. You lay out text and images in a Layout view, which closely approximates how it will be viewed in a Browser window.

Regardless of which type you choose, it's helpful to understand some HTML code. Even with a WYSIWYG editor you may have to go in and edit code every now and then.

An excellent list of HTML applications can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTML_editors.

What HTML editors are available in the Psychology Department?

Adobe GoLive and Adobe Dreamweaver are installed on many of the Macs and PCs in the public student computer labs.

Microsoft Word. You can use MS Word to create HTML files but you should strip out some of the excess code. It may cause problems with some browsers, especially if you use it to create html forms pages. There's a program for removing this extra code. It will "clean up" MS Word's html files. It's called HTML TIDY. You should definitely use this program if you plan on using Word for the web.

Questions, Comments?