WEBPLUG
By: Esteve BoixWebPlug by Esteve Boix is an HTML editor. Now before you start saying things like.. " I like to code by hand," or " A text editor was good enough for my Grandfather" etc., just hear me out. What WebPlug does, and does very well, is to take a lot of the drudgery and typing out of creating web pages.
WebPlug, unlike some of the competition around at the moment, does not try to be WYSIWYG. It doesn't try to write the code for you in the way that <SPIT>Frontpage</SPIT> does. It's no good for the absolute novice, a certain amount of HTML knowledge is required. At its simplest, it is like a text editor with multitudes of clipboards containing all your most used HTML tags. If that was all WebPlug did then it would be good, but not that good. Where WebPlug really scores is in its ability to add "Custom Tags." Picture the scenario: you're sitting on the beach with a cool glass in your hand while a dusky maiden fans... Oops, sorry, wrong scenario.
You're sitting at your computer developing the most 'kickarse' web page ever. You want the stunned readers to be able to tell you how impressed they were by your coding prowess so you include a Mailto linkA slip of the finger and the @ is replaced by #. Now, instead of a net god, you look a pillock. With WebPlug, you can set up your most common links or pieces of code so that, at the click of a button, they are inserted correctly every time.
The tags are displayed in windows and are put into related groups. Any number of the group windows can be displayed at once, but you'll probably open them as they are required or just keep the most common tag windows open.
Taking the toolbar from left to right..
Execute
This function will change the highlighted text so that any HTML characters
contained in the text will be displayed correctly. So our MAILTO link would
become <A HREF="mailto:myaddress#isp.net>Praise me!</A>
Info
This GUI will insert the HTML header information for the document.
Including the Meta Author, Description and Keywords
Styles
This set the style attributes e.g. bold, italic etc.
Format
Use this to set the format <H3> , <B>, <CENTRE> etc.
Images
Insert an image. You can set the alternate text, alignment, size, spacing
and border.
Forms
Guess! To be honest, this is not one of WebPlug's strong points.
List
All the list tags are here
Background
Here you can specify all the tags concerning the background of the page.
You can pick your background image, colour as well as the text and link
colours.
Tables
This supports the automatic generation or the manual insertion of table
tags
Links
Here you can select the links to different pages in your site as well as
the target frame if required.
Custom tags
Here is the real power behind WebPlug. You can load your own most frequently
used tags of text and insert them at the touch of a button.
Frames
Pretty weak; this one with only the basic tags available
Plugins
There are three available at the time of writing, File dropper, Element
finder and Insert colour; I haven't yet found much use for any as yet.
All the usual editing commands are here... cut, copy, paste, undo and redo, along with block marking and search and replace. You can also run your favourite browser and send the current document to the browser.
VERDICT
WebPlug isn't perfect. It lacks the colour change for tags that GoldEd has.
It would be nice if Tidy, the HTML checker could be incorporated into it.
Having said all that. WebPlug is still a fine program that can save a lot
of time and also help to avoid simple typographical errors marring your
creations. I would definitely recommend anyone to use (and register!)
WebPlug
Give it a try.
SCOREby Phil Ellis