Beerwin PlainHTML is a very powerful, and very free, tool for editing HTML and many other Web-related formats, such as CSS, PERL, and PHP. It is, first and foremost, a text tool--not WYSIWYG. Thus, it requires a strong knowledge of HTML and an ability to visualize what the page will look like based on the raw code--though, of course, you can preview pages during development!

The interface is as clean as it can be given the scope of the program. Beerwin PlainHTML wants to be a "one stop shop" for web development, and includes many tools to make an HTML developer's life easier. Easy table creation, color selection, CSS editing, unusual characters (such as the copyright symbol), and so on, are all available from the well designed toolbar. Even relatively obscure tags, such as MySQL access, can be quickly inserted. (Bear in mind that this editor just provides the skeleton; the developer must still fill in the bulk of the details.)

Beerwin PlainHTML shows the structure of your document in an outline window, allowing quick navigation as well as highlighting missing or improper structure. Beerwin Plain HTML makes the assumption you know what you're doing, and will not prevent you from making "incorrect" edits -- though it does provide you the tools you need to find them and fix them.

In addition to HTML support, Beerwin Plain HTML offers syntax highlighting for PHP, CSS, and JavaScript. It supports the creation of PERL files but doesn't offer any direct formatting help for them. Last, it comes with a suite of useful add-on tools, including a code snippet manager, a multi-document Notepad replacement, and a file backup program.

Beerwin Plain HTML is completely free, with no locked features or limited time trials. If you do any HTML editing and are not 100% committed to your current tool, it is well worth checking out.

Note: This link takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software.

--Ian Harac

PCWorld