First time with WIN XP --- what's up with Notepad??

I use notepad to build/edit my pages, and we now have XP (used to have win 2000 pro before the hard drive died). Notepad is infuriating now because when I make and edit and click "save," Notepad reformats the page and puts all characters end to end in one string! It makes a superb mess, of course, and it also changes the font colors and does a few other nutty things.

Is this Microsh*ts way of trying to force people to buy their editor or something?? Have any of you had this problem??

I'm confused - Notedpad (that comes built-in to XP) doesn't support colours or font-sizes etc.. it's just a basic text-editor. Surely you mean another product?

probably 'wordpad' not 'notepad'

Nope, just plain ole Notepad. Been using that program since the beginning because I couldn't afford a good HTML editor, and my OS didn't come with word pad.

On IE browser (in XP) there's a button that when you put your cursor over it says, "Edit with Notepad." Everyone I know who hand-codes uses notepads... not to say others don't use something else. And in fact, the options for editing HTML only gives me the Notepad option.

Oh, I think I see what you mean. Can only suggest going to 'view source' and cut and pasting it into notepad - the formatting stays the same then.

Notepad is ok for editing HTML, but there are some good tools out there that offer assitance to hand-coders and can save some time.

Try NoteTab @ http://www.notetab.com/ - comes highly recommended. I use Dreamweaver in code-only mode myself.

For hand coding I have found that Araneae is the best one yet. You can download it here: http://www.ornj.net/software/ . It is very nice and clutter free.

thanks, guys. Thing is, Notepad (in xp anyway) suddenly, without provocation (silly choice of words, I know) just changes format and strings every character end to end. Drives me nuts.

I'll try those tools. My ex DIL has Dreamweaver MX and says she'll come over and install it on my laptop, so maybe that'll work. Thing is, I found that with most html editors.. they insert things you don't need into table cells, like spaces for example, and they even take html and convert (without your telling it to) html to css. Kind of frustrating. I guess I could get used to it though.

Do you guys prefer editors, or hand coding?

I've been using notepad with windowsXP for a while nowand have never had any on the problems you were mentioning. Sounds like you have a unique problem. Sorry, not much help.

I have absolutely no idea what's happened to screw up notepad like that. I know that there can be a few problems when going between windows/*nix formats, but that shouldn't be a problem in your case.

Like D3mon has mentioned, Dreamweaver is a good editor mainly due to the autocomplete and colour-coding it does, but it's definetly an editor you'll want to use in code-only mode. I usually design a rough idea visually using the GUI and then head into the code and heavily change it.

Sirkent... what do you mean by code only mode? Is there an option to view the page, and doesn't DW sort of take over things a bit? I've heard that, so I had to ask.

In Dreamweaver you have the option to see a preview of the page, on which you can graphically alter the page, or you can choose to see the code, or a mixture of both.

In terms of 'taking over things' Dreamweaver isn't too bad. It won't alter your existing code as a general rule, it simply creates code that's a little more bloated than it should be. Thankfully the code isn't as bloated as you get with Microsoft's HTML-creation tools.

Check the options/preferences menus. You can switch off all the Dreamweaver 'automatic' coding. Then it becomes useful!

LOL gotchya!

turn on word wrap

I use dreamweaver in code view to do all of my coding. I only ever use the design view to preview the pages - even then you sometimes don't get what the page actually looks like. Also, if you're using server-side scripting, you won't see anything in the design view.

There are heaps of free html editors out there, so give notepad the flick. I agree with John - araenea is a very good free html editor. It's what I was using until I picked up a copy of studio mx.

There's a thread about editor at http://www.webforumz.com/viewtopic.php?t=3269

I only hand code and have since I started, but if it's something you regularly do I'd recommend trying the different programs out there. They'll save you a LOT of time in your hand coding. And as always I'll say that Homesite has been my favorite though I haven't tried them all.

Thanks. I actually downloaded that free program (Araneae) and LOVE it for hand-coding! It really makes things a LOT easier, cleaner... whodathunkit? :P