Web Authoring Tools

Web or HTML authoring tools aren't exactly software development tools per se; however, since most software developers will have to develop at least a few web pages in their career, a few words on the topic are appropriate. Web authoring tools used to be their own special class of tools. Today, nearly every popular word processor provides some capability to at least export data as HTML. Even Microsoft, king of proprietary formats, has announced plans to switch to HTML as the default file format in its upcoming Office 2000 release. For simple web authoring, however, we tend to stick with one of two tools. Netscape includes an excellent web authoring tool, dubbed "Composer", with the "gold" or "professional" versions of its web browser. When working on Macintosh platforms, however, we often start up Adobe's Page Mill tool (also available on Windows). Page Mill offers better support for authoring media-rich web pages, including drag and drop capability for images, audio and video clips, animations, and other ( especially other Adobe) tools. PageMill also includes a whole suite of web site management tools for checking links and otherwise keeping your web site up to date. If you must use a Microsoft product, their FrontPage web authoring tool is also an excellent product.

Table15-5. Web Authoring Tools

Tool Name	Languages Supported	Platforms	Comments
Netscape Composer	HTML, JavaScript	Unix, Windows, Mac	Best cross-platform support
Adobe Page Mill	HTML, Javascript	Mac, Windows	Great Mac support and integration with other graphical tools
Microsoft FrontPage	HTML, Javascript	Windows, Mac	Great Windows support