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I'm looking for a free HTML editor for Windows that support combined syntax highlighting.

Basically it means that if I have a HTML document open with both JavaScript and CSS, it would add HTML syntax highlighting to the HTML part, JavaScript syntax to the JavaScript part, and CSS syntax to the CSS part.

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migrated from stackoverflow.com Jan 4 '10 at 0:46

15 Answers

up vote 18 down vote

Notepad++.

enter image description here

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How did you get that to work with Notepad++? I use Notepad++ every day, but I have never found out how to get more than one syntax highlighting at the time. – Sindre Sorhus Nov 1 '09 at 12:50
Notepad is ql, but I like Crimson Editor more... – Trick Nov 1 '09 at 13:06
@mofle - the screenshot is from Notepad++'s website. I haven't used Notepad++ in a long time and I don't have Windows now to test. Are you using the latest version? – Ayman Nov 1 '09 at 13:09
3  
Are you using HTML/PHP files? You will need to use a file with the .php extension to get the HTML/etc highlighting. Similarly, Javascript works on .php and .html (and .js, obviously). – DisgruntledGoat Nov 1 '09 at 16:34
3  
@mofle Set the language to either HTML or PHP and make sure that your script is enclosed in a <script> tag. – ntownsend Jan 3 '10 at 21:40
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up vote 11 down vote

Visual Studio Express is free and should do all that you require. It sounds like you would be most interested in the Web Developer edition.

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3  
talk about VS's start up time! – thephpdeveloper Nov 1 '09 at 12:33
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Because you need those 20 seconds? Most IDEs are slower than the ones that are a slight step over wordpad. – epascarello Nov 1 '09 at 12:41
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VS start time can always be improved by simply turning off the Start Page. On my laptop with Windows 7, VS 2008 is up and running in about fifteen seconds. VS 2010 is up in about ten seconds. Considering the featureset, that is more than reasonable on any semi-modern piece of hardware. – joseph.ferris Nov 1 '09 at 12:43
1  
It does take quite a bit of time to start up if I have left lots of files open, but then any editor that can open dozens of files at the same time would have the same problem. Since I typically have it open all day (at least), this isn't really a problem for me. – tvanfosson Nov 1 '09 at 12:52
Get a decent PC if you think VS is slow? – TFD Jan 3 '10 at 5:20
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up vote 5 down vote

Add some more to the list:

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+1 for Kompozer – Molly7244 Jan 4 '10 at 0:47
up vote 5 down vote

i suggest GVim ..

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1  
GVim + tabs + desert color scheme = my current editor of choice – espais Nov 2 '09 at 13:07
@espais in fact, vim works better under linux/unix – EthanZ6174 Nov 3 '09 at 4:33
:wq . . . . darn, 15 non-space characters required to post a comment – Milan Babuškov Jan 3 '10 at 21:43
up vote 3 down vote

Some more suggestions for the list:

Both are »cross platform« (well, Windows and Linux or Java resp.).

Personally, I use Vim…

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I'm very fond of jEdit, simply because it's reliably the same on any platform – user2630 Nov 1 '09 at 16:13
The only thing I don't like about jEdit is that it uses Java, so it takes ages to start. Not very nice when you just need a quick edit in a single file. It's not bad if you're going to keep it open all day long, but maybe you should use Eclipse or Aptana in that case. – Milan Babuškov Jan 3 '10 at 21:41
you should + 1 for the post of gvim :) – Vdt Oct 9 '10 at 0:28
up vote 2 down vote

For quick HTML (or text) file editing I always install PSpad (http://www.pspad.com/en/).

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PSPad has serious memory leaks. After working with it for a few hours it hogs the system so much I have to kill it. At least, that was the case last time I tried it. – Milan Babuškov Jan 3 '10 at 21:39
up vote 1 down vote

Programmer's Notepad.

  • Syntax Highlighting for lots of languages, configured with schemes
  • Multi-language user interface
  • Unlimited number of schemes supported, powerful syntax highlighting supporting both user-defined and built-in schemes
  • Text Clips provide smart templates for text insertion
  • Code Folding/Outlining
  • Docking windows for: File Browser, Open Files, Text Clips, Tool Output, Find in Files results
  • Regular expression search and replace (full perl syntax)
  • Excellent external tool support with user-configurable output matching – click on errors and warnings to jump right to the place in the file where they were generated
  • Split Views
  • Bookmarks (both numbered and plain)
  • Export to HTML (using CSS) and RTF
  • Code definition browsing and navigation (using Ctags)
  • Non fixed-width font support
  • Projects and Project Groups with multi-level folders and file system mirroring
  • Scripting with Python
  • Extensions support for developing add-ons with C++
  • Support for UTF8, 16 and various file encodings
  • Support for windows, unix and macintosh line endings
  • Tabbed MDI interface, with multi-level split views
  • Word-wrapping

enter image description here

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up vote 0 down vote

I've used Far with the Colorer plugin.

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up vote 0 down vote

I use Winsyntax 2.0 it's as simple as it gets nothing additional, I'd consider it only for HTML/CSS gurus, there isn't HTML tags help, indentation, or even tag competition. I just used to it maybe that' why I like.

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up vote 0 down vote

I use (and would recommend) Emacs + nxhtml-mode. There are windows downloads at the site.

It's not tinker free and might be a little hard to setup but once you're done, you get simple things like multiple language highlighting and a host of other niceties like being able to communicate with your firefox via moz-repl, preview in your browser etc.

The HTML editing part uses AFAIK nxml-mode by James Clark which itself is really awesome.

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up vote 0 down vote

HTML-Kit? http://www.chami.com/html-kit/

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up vote 0 down vote

Did not see it, but sublime-text is, more or less, a textmate style clone for windows. It is written in C# and uses python (mainly) for it's plugin system. I find it's interface minimalistic, yet still very intuitive and beginner friendly. I does have a popup every 20 saves until you buy, but I don't find it that annoying.

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up vote 0 down vote

I find it strange that both SciTE and Notepad++ are on the list, while Geany which uses the same editor component (scintilla) but is far superior when it comes to highlighting and autocomplete for web stuff is not. So, here it is:

www.geany.org

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up vote 0 down vote

Netbeans : http://netbeans.org/

Netbeans 8 is the best as per me. It properly gives background color to blocks of CSS and Javascript and leaves the HTML part in white background.

Download the PHP version it should be sufficient with all the auto-completes for HTML, CSS and Javascript. Will even give errors in case of wrong tags closing, live output etc. Check the link.

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up vote 0 down vote

Why don't you try W3C web browser/editor Amaya, this is not so fast, but nothing that a powered computer can't execute:

Amaya started as an HTML + CSS style sheets editor. Since that time it was extended to support
XML and an increasing number of XML applications such as the XHTML family, MathML, and SVG. 
It allows all those vocabularies to be edited simultaneously in compound documents
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