And The Winner Is ….. – November 28, 2011

SeaMonkey !!!

Hi Roger,

I seem to remember that you frequently propose that I never listen to your recommendations. Well, wrong again!

I ran some comparisons between several HTML editors including KompoZer, SeaMonkey, and Komodo Edit.

KompoZer and SeaMonkey looked the most useful for this particular application.

KompoZer looks a little more professional to me than SeaMonkey. However, SeaMonkey looks like it has much better support including a more recent update and several Newsgroups. And those Newsgroups give it the edge in my opinion.

I was surprised to see that both have spell checkers. The SeaMonkey checker is automatic, something like Word for Windows. From what I can see, with KompoZer you have to tell it when you want it to check the spelling.

So, unless anyone has a better suggestion I am planning to go with your recommended HTML editor, SeaMonkey.

See! I am not too old to change directions when they look reasonable.

There is one HTML editor feature that neither KompoZer or SeaMonkey has that I consider important. Or perhaps I simply could not find the right control setting for that.

There is no screen ZOOM feature from what I can tell. That is an important feature as there might be something like a chart that is larger than the normal display screen. And when creating or altering the Web page it can be desirable to see what the complete Web page looks like instead of having to scroll to the right or left, and up and down.

Perhaps a suggestion to their Newsgroup might help with that.

For the moment, the easiest way to deal with that might be to run another browser like Internet Explorer in the background. When a change is made to the Web page being developed it can be saved. And the browser can be told to reload the file.

Internet Explorer lets you change the Web page size as desired. And I have a Perl language routine that when you press the F4 key will save the page being developed, switch to the browser window, and then reload the Web page. Pressing F4 again takes the user back to the Web page developer.

Finally,

Another suggestion for the Newsgroup might be for them to create an alternate name for the program that people can use in references. SeaMonkey doesn’t sound very professional to me. And I almost skipped looking at the program simply because of its name.

On the other hand, it has to be remembered that independent programming groups will often choose a "fun" name for a program rather than a professional sounding one. And I wonder what the history of that particular name might be.

These are personal opinions.