Once upon a time, writing for the Web was easy. You used Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) for text, and Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) for images, and all was right with the World Wide Web. Things change, but not always for the better.
Today, the Web is becoming filled with incompatible text, graphics, audio, and video formats. The good news is that some of
these new formats
enable authors to create documents that are much closer to their original conception than the bland sameness resulting from Web pages using only HTML and GIF. The bad news is that you must have the right browser and the right helper application (a program that can, say, load and display a graphics file) to see these new, improved pages.
H
TML compatibility alone can't guarantee consistency. There are still documents floating about in the very first HTML standard (version 0.9), in version 1.0 (the seminal version that provided rules for linking), and especially in version 2.0 (which adds embedded images and interactive forms). So far, so good: Any modern Web browser can deal with these formats.
Meanwhile, a standards group, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), is working to nail down specifications for the next standard, HTML 3.0, which promises to greatly expand the communications options available in Web documents. Tentatively included in the specification are rules for flowing text around graphics, displaying math formulas and graphics with captions, and improved linking.
Alas, rather than waiting for the IETF to complete the 3.0 standard, Netscape, maker of the leading Web browser and server software, is boldly adding its own additions to HTML, which are incompatible with other browsers. Netscape extensions add a few addi
tional controls, such as the ability to center text and to make it blink on and off.
Since Netscape Navigator is the most popular browser on the market, Netscape-enhanced pages are appearing everywhere -- much to the despair of users of other browsers. Browsers are programmed to ignore unrecognized HTML tags, but they can still incorrectly display a richly designed Web page that uses a lot of nonstandard features. At best, users of, say, Air Mosaic will get 99 percent of a Netscape-enhanced page. At worst, all they'll see is a muddle of indecipherable garbage.
The four HTML editors reviewed here play it fairly safe. All support at least up to HTML 2.0. HotMetal Pro and Spider, with support for HTML 3.0 and Netscape extensions, are pushing the leading edge more than Cyberleaf and HTML Assistant Pro are. This approach provides some insurance that you'll have the right tools to publish in whatever standard takes off, but the final form of any standard -- de facto or de jure -- is likely to differ fro
m what's included in the current versions of HotMetal Pro and Spider.
illustration_link (6 Kbytes)
The HTML family tree, including the "illegitimate" but influential offspring of Netscape. Only some features of each level are listed.
HTML Horrors
