An HTML editor is really a text editor with helpful features for Web developers.
There are many out there which are useful and which include at least some of these features:
- syntax highlighting (which makes it easier to understand HTML/CSS by showing tags, attributes, values and content in different colours
- shortcuts to automatically insert common tags for you
- automatic completion of what you are typing (which saves you remembering every detail)
- error spotting and highlighting to spot that pesky missing quotes
Windows users should ave a look at at least:
- Notepad++ is great for beginners and does syntax highlighting with a nice tabbed interface for multiple pages
- Eclipse PDT Eclipse is a monster which can do anything but the complete PDT (for PHP Developers but also comes with everything you need for HTML, CSS and JavaScript) package does syntax checking and auto complete even in closed files!
- Aptana is based on Eclipse and also does all that Notepad++ does plus more advanced feature you might like as you become more accomplished (learn how to use Aptana to create pages here)
Eclipse is probably the best but often personal taste is more important so try them all. Eclipse PDT also works well from a flash drive as it does not require an install.
The added bonus with these editors there is support for JavaScript and PHP if you plan to move on to those later. It means one program to learn which will do everything. However, there is one more possibility to come...
