Fookes Software NoteTab Pro 4 A Text Editor That Won't Break the Bank! Alex Housley
As many people know, I am a self-confessed control freak. That's why I steer clear of WYSIWIG editors. Like many Web junkies, I taught myself HTML long before the desktop publishing generation took over. With powerful text editors like NoteTab Pro, I don't think Mr. Gates will be converting me in the foreseeable future!
Don't be mislead by the relatively cheap price. NoteTab is a real workhorse, running rings around the more expensive WYSIWYG editors in terms of speed and functionality. You can open multiple files at once and edit documents of virtually any size. Think of it as Microsoft Notepad on steroids!
NoteTab is the wish of an avid webmaster, and it will handle virtually any text editing task with ease. For example, hyperlinks are highlighted and will link straight to your default browser. You can also calculate mathematical expressions, create simple template documents, convert text files to web pages, strip tags from HTML documents, send documents as email, capture text copied to the clipboard, view detailed text statistics, and more! One of the more useful features is the ability to add bookmarks to key points in the text so that you can return with ease. This is especially useful with large files. Unlike NotePad, you can choose to wrap text, and the AutoSave feature will prevent you losing your work in the event of a crash.
Customising the toolbar is easy. You can do so by checking the commands you would like to have shown in the shortcut menu. It is also possible to drag-and-drop to reorder commands. There are more than 80 commands to choose from for the shortcut menus. You can really customize this program to make it work how you want it to.
One of the more useful timesaving features is the Editor Clipbook, that can be found in the left panel. The idea being that if you know you are going to type something a lot (such as an HTML tag) and want to make life easier on yourself. You can simply click on the header you want and the chunk of text will be added to the document at the desired location. NoteTab comes preinstalled with a vast array of clips that will satisfy most webmasters, and it is easy enough to customize the clips or even add your own section of clips. There is a fairly expansive HTML tag library and a convenient list of special characters. Just for fun, there are various acronyms and smilies, including many I have never heard of (if you know what TANSTAAFL means I pity you).
Like many of the new HTML editors around today, NoteTab changes the color of tags and links. This makes life a lot easier when coding. What impressed me was that, with a little knowledge, you can form mathematical expressions to a degree of complexity and implement them on the fly. For example, you could calculate your ideal weight or even your mortgage rate!
If you are editing CGI scripts this is the ideal tool. You can convert between ASCII and ANSI text with ease and can save in DOS, Unix or Mac formats.
This is the perfect editor for the casual webmaster or anyone on a tight budget. If all you are concerned about is editing plain text, this is the program to have! It is a great value for the money and is feature rich. Personally, I would choose this editor over FrontPage every time. I just don't think it could replace HomeSite or HotDog Pro for the professional webmaster just yet, but maybe the next release will change things! Think of it as the Paint Shop Pro of text editors!
