Regarding SD4 then I did trial Site Designer and yes it is a lovely product and I'd be willing to pay for it BUT in my current site status I was hoping that SD could import what I have, make the most of a bad/primitive existing site and then easily enable me to get up and running quickly. Maybe an error on my part but I could not do this.

Alas I found no import/similar function (even Front Page/Namo Web could do this) that would take my site "asis" and whilst I could use SD to create a brand new site to manually migrate the existing content is not a simple/quick task.

This is why I bought HTML Editor (and is if a great product) as it helps bridge the gap between Notepad++ and Kompozer. I did actually try and purchase Bluegriffon as this was the closest migration path but sadly I received no license key and have been refunded by PayPal.

If I had the time then I would use my extensive REXX and XEDIT skills to do exactly what I want with regards to source file formatting but that could all be undone by HTML Editor / Kompozer / Other programs.

Would just finally add that I'm old school. Code from scratch. When you get back to bare metal / similar programming then the last programmer you want on your team is a "drag and drop" kid. That said for web sites/pages I'm happy to go to drag and drop but I have to get from "today" to "tomorrow" with minimal effort and disruption to my other far more important activities.

Nick, I didn't want to hurt your feelings, that is why I wrote what I did. It can be a very touchy thing to tell someone that they should be doing something radical with their sites.
You said, among other things:

Unless you have a dedicated crowd of followers, it is hard to tempt people with a full' written, wall to wall, text based page. People are picky. They are used to appealing sites, illustrations of what is being offered, and people of today don't like long lines of text, it can be hard to read on small screens. Also, people don't like having to scroll sideways, or pinch and widen the page enough to be able to click on the link they want, without interfering with the neighbouring links as well. Not to mention having to squint their eyes to be able to read tiny text.

In order to reach you charity ambitions, you probably want to be found 'out there'. Google et al penalize outdated coding and design by letting such sites appear far down on their ranking lists. Using tables for layout and html coding instead of css are both outdated.

Regarding Coffeecup's new responsive Site Designer, although you can drag and drop some elements, I don't recommend doing that. It is possible to have full control, but it takes a bit of getting familiar with it. Being 'Old school' myself (started in 1996 with just Notepad) I have done a lot of hand coding, and it certainly took me some time getting used to Site Designer.
With the HTML Editor you can do a lot of changes/moderinzing your site. You can import your existing pages and edit them. You can in fact do nearly everything that can be done in Site Designer, but it takes a bit more time since there is no built-in automatisation in the Editor.
I have reported this issue you mentioned with the code cleaner, as I know there is an ongoing revision of the progamme at the time being.

Thanks Steve

I accept your apology.

This is getting off topic but I'm really struggling to understand why the look of my (dated) or any other website is raising the hairs on your neck? There is no scripting or Java. Just a couple/few PHP functions to count file downloads if people allow scripting/php (never blocked) to get to the download functions.

For Me I would far more trust a simple .txt website than a fancy site created by some software, incorporating scripting, Java and external functions. They may look great and professional but would/do I trust them?

I may be off the mark here but when the WWW was created it was a purely scientific document sharing mechanism. In IBM preceding WWW we had VNet. A company specific network/set-up where communication, forums, etc. existed back in the 1980's + era.

I only say this because because I come form a background of genuine information sharing and not commercial exploitation with fancy web sites.

It seems to me that simple website with just a simple text "Hello" is now considered to be a potential problem but a web site in fancy/graphic/eye catching presentation that also just says "Hello" is better, more secure, .....

I wont say/add more because I want to get back to how/if HTML Editor can format/parse raw and unformatted source into a better and more <tag> aligned code construct..

Thanks for your reply and constructive feedback on my full page, wall to wall site. Yes not so cool Yes it is that and it is certainly not mobile friendly. Fortunately my site is primarily associated with/for people who are using specific communications equipment and want to use my software on their PCs to control and manage their kit. So yes it a specific audience who don't really mind how it looks.

You will be pleased to know that I have used HTML Editor to reprocess all my source files and the code diagnostic tool caught loads of empty <span>s, <ul>s and other stuff that had been put/left there by Kompozer and Bluegriffon(YUK). In the process of doing this work I have also found a potential bug with the Find command which I have reported along with a sample file and the steps used to hopefully recreate the bug.

So I'm making progress.

One other thing I've noticed with HTML editor is that if you set the editors default setting to Strict HTML 4.01 then it will still warn about some tags not being HTML5 valid. Now from a future migration point of view then this is not so bad but unless an existing old HTML4 code/tag has been completely removed from current HTML4 standards then warnings about HTML5 compatibility can be a little annoying. Would be nice to have an option or options to set what warnings are given based on your HTML4 or HTML5 working scope.

The following are just a few thoughts regarding the first post in this thread.

I frequently use links within paragraphs etc., and therefore would not want the Code Cleaner to show each '<a href...>...</a>' on a new line in the code. It would also, of course, be inappropriate for '<b>...</b>', '<i>...</i>' and '<strong>...</strong>' to start new lines, and that would also apply to '<span>...</span>' when used for formatting text within a line.

The Code Cleaner apparently therefore regards the consecutive '<a href...>...</a>' items as one line, as is seen if one
(a) has the line numbers showing (they can be toggled on and off in the View menu), and/or
(b) sets to 0 the first layout option in Code Cleaner (in order to prevent wrapping by reference to the number of character in a line).

As far as I can see, if one sets the first layout option in Code Cleaner to 0, it does treat all tags in the way hoped for in the final sentence of the first post.

I was tempted to suggest that there be an option not to break within an opening tag, but I suspect that would render the first layout option in Code Cleaner unworkable: the insertion of long URLs in hrefs, series of style attributes etc., could easily exceed the character number set for the wrap limit. Is there perhaps an easy option that could be created to do what is wanted?

Frank

Hi Frank
Your thoughts are welcome and yes forcing <a ... /a> and likewise similar "in-line" is not really desirable in most cases.

As has been fairly pointed out my website design a rather antiquated and there are now far better ways (use of CSS) to do a lot or all of the content formatting which my set-up currently does "in line".

Clearly I'm an odd ball "customer" which I'm fine with.

Site Designer has been mentioned and I pleased to announce I've just purchased Site Designer to add to HTML Editor.

What I want to do now is somehow recreate the HTML Editor Theme "Dark Two Column Nav - Top" in Site Designer. Reading the forums it seems that Themes from HTML Editor are not importable/transferable to Site Designer and currently most of the HMTL Editor Themes are not available as Site Designer Themes (as far as I can see).

Well, welcome to the 21st century!

I had a look at that layout you are interested in, and in the footer of it it says it has been recreated with RSD. (RSD is a previous version of SD, Site designer). These layouts were originally made before we went over to responsive design, but it has obviously been 'responsified' at some stage. Just now I'm trying to find out if the actual .rsd file is still in existence. If it is, then you may be able to open it in SD.

As an excercise, I recommend that you try following this tutorial: https://www.coffeecup.com/help/articles … -designer/ It will show you some necessary SD basics.

Well thank you for your interest / follow-up Inger.

I appreciate this and would just say for the benefit of all we have to be mindful of the web landscape. In this respect I'm an old fart with an 80s/90s "simple" site that is no longer "current". It does not flow or format for mobile / responsive or the latest and greatest "if you don't use this then you are dead" camps.

What is becoming slowly and clearly to me is that the web landscape wants everything but is not tolerant of old school. OK I accept this which is why I've now purchased Site Designer.

What follows next is personal view /observation that is not directed or associated with your kind response. So please do not take it as such.

What is often missed by people is that the simple ASCII text file is not flash, has no fancy attributes, is dull and boring but does contain important information that as an ASCII text file can surpass and outlive all the other formats out there.

I add this a just food for thought in that Site Designer, Front Page, programs .... can create fancy, blitz y sites but, for example at Wordpress or Site Designer setups could be history in x years time if either were to become defunct.

In this respect HTML Editor will surpass any such demise in the likes of Wordpress. And if no HTML Editor and it's inbuilt coding aids then we fall back to basic HTML <h1>I told you so</h1. Or in simple text "I told you so".

So yes I'm old school and old school does not map to current day technologies BUT those simple ASCII text files or hand written notes will long outlast today's current fads.

I'm just waiting for the day that, as we see every day people walking across road junctions glued to their phones and having been run over by a car then claiming that the website they were looking at did not format correctly and they got unduly distracted.

The written word will long outlive any modern computer representations

By then we will have departed this mortal coil anyway so why worry. If things and or people didn't develop evolve then we would still be suffering from ricketts diphtheria driving model A fords and never have been to the moon. Thank goodness some embrace advancement and use it for the good and benefit of others

I have been following this conversation with interest. I understand that in every conversation there is always more than one voice. I also understand that people will always go with their preference, area of knowledge and expertise that they are most comfortable in. Each to their own. However, in this case, I am with Wayan 100%.

I have learnt much from this forum that I have been able to translate into my own websites. I thank those that take the time to, freely, provide us with their knowledge, and for their patience and understanding.