Allaire HomeSite 4.5 RC 3
Allaire's HomeSite, one of the leading HTML editors and a winner of the CHIP Best Products 1999 awards (See CHIP December 1999), recently introduced an update-Version 4.5 Release Candidate 3.
That Allaire has learnt a few things from Microsoft Visual Studio is evident in the new release. For example, the code completion feature, first seen in Visual Basic, is now implemented in HomeSite. This feature saves time and reduces chances of misspellings in tags and script commands. Also, in case you need to use the same script again, you can create a keyboard shortcut to the script file.
Editor enhancement
HomeSite has always been an HTML editor for hardcore programmers who spend most of their time in the main editor area. Allaire has made a few improvements here (see screenshot). Users can now divide the current editor document into two separate viewing panes. Showing/hiding the split panes and moving between them can be customised, with keyboard shortcuts. Also, files with XML, XSL, PHP, and PHP3 extensions are now recognised as editable documents, and appear under the Web documents filter.
HomeSite also allows a developer to deploy an HTML page to a server or set of servers simply by activating the deployment wizard script. The new release offers function insight, which displays the functions covered by an expression coded on the page when you click on it. Function insight works much like the Properties box in Windows programming tools, which enlists the characteristics of a programmed object (such as a button or dialog box) when the developer clicks on it.
With Web designing getting more complex by the day, it is becoming increasingly difficult to manage the multiple pages of raw HTML code that is generated. New features in HomeSite allow you to 'collapse' certain sections of code that are not required, and thus keep track of things.
In addition, it can edit Cascading Style Sheets, a World Wide Web Consortium standard that allows predefined forms with complex page information, to serve as the display mechanism for successively downloaded pages.
Overall, improvements in this HTML editor are noteworthy, and loyal users will be happy with the functionality tweaks.