Spider Writer HTML Editor

Spider Writer in a Nutshell

Spider Writer is an extremely feature-rich suite of applications that provide all the tools necessary for a wide range of web development. A vast majority of Spider Writer's features are geared towards code-based web development, however novice web developers can use Spider Writer's What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get development features to help them learn the basics of web development. Project-based design, database integration, and multi-user collaboration is also supported.

Customizable User Interface

Spider Writer uses the latest styles in user-friendly interface designs. All aspects of the Spider Writer application contain the new Windows 2000 look and feel. Along with all the visual perks in Spider Writer's interface, it is also very customizable. All of Spider Writer's toolbars are able to be docked on any side of the main window and can also be undocked to float over the main window. A tabbed drop area also is available on the top of the window to preserve valuable workspace. Spider Writer's sidebars can also be docked on the sides or bottom of the main window or floated above it. Users can even customize menus and toolbars to their liking by modifying the commands available on them.

Spider Writer Workspace Views

The main editor window has four different modes, or workspace views: Document Source, Design, Web View, and Document Summary. Document Source is where all code-based editing of documents is performed. Design is used for WYSIWYG editing of documents. The Web View is a full-scale web browser for previewing documents. Document Summary is used for calculating dependency information and verifying links.

Spider Writer Editing Features

The Document Source view is where most of a Spider Writer user's time is spent. It is a powerful editor specifically geared for web development. The editor has instant syntax highlighting for HTML, ASP, JavaScript, VBScript, CSS, XML, Perl, SQL, and PHP documents. All of these highlighting schemes are customizable. Features such as multiple undo/redo, line numbers, control characters, word wrap, bookmarking, find matching symbol, block indenting, and full-screen mode are available. Special characters can be easily inserted via a small panel.

Document Source view has a split-screen browser that allows users to view documents as they create them. This browser has an IntelliBrowse feature that automatically refreshes the browser at a specified interval. AutoBackup automatically backs up documents at a specified interval so users don't lose their changes in the event of a system crash. Spider Writer also makes available spell checking, spelling suggestions, a thesaurus, and syntax checking.

IntelliPrompt is one feature that differentiates Spider Writer from competitor editors. IntelliPrompt displays popup lists for HTML tags, attributes, CSS properties, ASP objects, JavaScript objects, and the DHTML object model, as you type. It also displays tooltips indicating function parameters!

Spider Writer can open documents directly, from a web site, convert from a text file, or convert from an RTF file. Once a document is open, Spider Writer can quickly convert tags to uppercase or lowercase, beautify or compress HTML code, strip all tags, and convert documents to XHTML format.

Color Chooser

Spider Writer includes a powerful color chooser that allows for many methods of picking colors, whenever color selection is necessary. Browser-safe colors can be displayed in a hex format (see right) or color cube format. Named colors are listed on a second tab. Users can mix up to 64 of their own colors to save on the Custom Colors tab. Custom palettes can also be user-designed and imported into the program.

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