Having used MS Front Page since it was made available to the masses, I have watched it grow more and more feature rich. In fact is so feature rich that it is almost a requirement to use a separate editor to write websites that work with navigator and other browsers like Opera.

After getting upset at the huge amount of wasted time writing pages, having them display perfectly in I.E. and then completely wrong in Navigator I decided that something must be done. So I started on a quest to find a wsywig editor that was useful and easy, and everything the FrontPage could be if it was not written to push MS products.

FrontPage does have a lot of very good qualities I have come to love:
1. Wysiwyg
2. Easily import (include) a page into another one (more on this later)
3. You can edit html code
4. Easy to read the html code
5. Great use of screen real estate
6. Easy to insert java script

Being able to churn out a basic web page in seconds and then later tweaking the html is a great way to go.

The negatives in FrontPage are:
1. Forces you to spend needless hours formatting and reformatting web pages to work in IE and Netscape, and other browsers.
2. It changes the html code you add
3. It only runs on windows
4. It requires server extensions to use all the features like including a page in a page.

I then looked at Netscape Navigator’s Composer. It is a free wysiwyg editor. It is more like a word processor, or email client than a web development application. For example, there is no image mapper, or other features that should be there. The main features I like are:
1. It is Free
2. There are versions for Windows and Linux and I believe MAC
3. It is true wysiwyg
4. It does not require any “Extensions” added to the hosting server to make it work
5. It is fast to save documents
6. You do not need to write separate versions for web pages to work in Navigator and IE
7. It is very fast to write what you want to say, add tables etc., like FrontPage
8. It is very easy to password protect a file/childweb
9. Great use of screen realestate.

The major negatives are:
1. It does not have the “Include a page” feature FrontPage does (that is because of the required extensions)
2. It changes your html code and there is no way around it.
Conclusion: This is a perfect editor to do rapid development BUT you need a different tool to manipulate the html code.

That led me to search very had for an editor that will work with windows and Linux. It needed to be easy to use like FrontPage, NOT change html code, NOT require “Extensions” so web pages created are fully functioning.

I searched epinions.com for wyswig editors and read the reviews, they were very helpful, I then searched Cnet, and zdnet as well as deja (Google). The vast majority of reviews were very positive regarding Coffee Cup. This led me to download the free trial version.

Being used to the navigation structure of FrontPage (Communicator is very similar) I was in for a shock when I opened Coffee Cup. I think they could make the layout much cleaner.

I was anxious to try Coffee Cup so I clicked on File/ New and got a new page wizard..I then started to play around with the editor. It was very easy to ad text. I wanted to see what it looked like so a clicked on the “Preview” tab. I wanted to bold some parts of the text, but unfortunately there is no way to do that while you are viewing the page as it would appear. You have to do it in the html code itself. This is one thing I would change immediately. Then I thought I needed to add the tags myself bold and paragraph for bolding, etc. I looked on the right side panel and found I could do a lot of formatting without being forced to write out the bold tags manually.

I wanted to save the file, which I could do. However, I wanted to save the file in a different file than the “Working” directory the writers of Coffee Cup suggest you start in.

To use Coffee Cup, it is best to write your text in a word processor and cut and paste it then format it. It is not a good editor to write as you think and then go back and edit the text and layout. Get that done before you start to create a web page.

Unlike FrontPage, Coffee Cup does not force you to start a new web. This is both good and bad. It can get confusing using FrontPage where you are going to place your web, and sub webs. However, FrontPage does set up separate folders for “Images” and “Private” so using Coffee Cup you need to set these up yourself.

I really wanted to find out about including pages in pages. For example, I have created separate navigation pages that I like to insert into sections of the web site. These change depending on the section you are in. Also, I like to have a single header and footer for the entire site, so when I make a change, I don’t have to go to every single page in the site and change them. What a hassle.

There is no real instruction manual. I had some questions, and wanted to find out answers, so I clicked on the Help option. I clicked on Editor Help Topics, which gives a very brief overview, but no in depth help. I looked for a tutorial, there was none. Finally I clicked on the “Live Help” option. After appx 1 minute of waiting a live person came on. This is a Really Great Feature. While this person could not answer my question he/she asked a more senior person, and worked on getting information. He did not even ask me if the version I was using was registered or not. This shows a total commitment to superior customer service on the part of Coffee Cup! Verrrrry Impressive!.

Since I could not find out how to do that, I called the ISP hosting one of our sites. They told me that since they were using the Apache server, I could do it but I needed to use Apache commands. This is harder than using the method FrontPage has, but again, to use that it requires special “FrontPage Extensions”

I looked up some articles in WebMonkey on how to include a page and tried it. After a lot of experimentation I was able to do it. FrontPage kept changing the code, Communicator and Coffee Cup left the code alone. The unfortunate thing is that you need to edit, post to the web site, view it, then go back to your file on your computer, make changes, re-post the page, and continue until you have it looking the way you want. As far as I can see, there is no way around this.

Then I wanted to see what happens when I use a disguised email address to hide it from the email syphons searching the internet for email addresses to spam. FrontPage let me do it, Coffee Cup let me do it, Communicator kept switching the encoded email address back to standard addressing a real pain. Coffee Cup came shining thru with this.

Then I wanted to add a picture. That was really simple. I wanted to add a link to the picture. That was really simple with Coffee Cup, it has very handy features when adding a picture. For example when adding the picture you can add alt text (in fact it kind of reminds you gently to do so, by having a place to add it when selecting the picture. At the same time you can add the link to for the picture. Very smooth!

Then I wanted to map the picture, and found out the Coffee Cup does not have this feature, it requires the purchase of a separate program! Front Page includes this but in order fo rit to work properly, you must have the “FrontPage Extensions”

I set up a template and used it to create various web pages. That was easy to do. I added tables to the pages Coffee Cup has a great and easy way to do that as well. Adding links in the html is very easy to do.

There are some very good things in Coffee Cup that FrontPage does not have, like the ability to save snippets of code. This is very handy. The listing of tags for both html and webtv, it is easy to insert special characters like the tm sign and others. There is the image slicer so you can take a big picture and slice it into separate smaller sections making you page load faster. The ability to take a web page and completely strip out the html in it so you can print it easier.

Praise:
1. Very easy to use
2. Does not change code
3. Comes with a lot of java scripts good descriptions of that it does
3. Comes with a lot of cgi scripts good descriptions of that it does
4. Comes with a lot of DHTML scripts good descriptions of that it does
5. Very fast updating of pages
6. Price
7. Real people giving on line support thru on-line chat

Complaints:
1. No way to edit while you are viewing the page as it would appear. You have to do it in the html code itself.
2. Not really easy to add forms
3. No manual
4. No tutorial
5. To use an Image Mapper you need to buy it separately, as well as other softwares they make.

Overall recommendation? I would buy and recommend Coffee Cup to friends. It can only get stronger (like my Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee). If you are advanced beginner or better and want to get away from MS this is the best option.

MS FrontPage - a close second. If you did not have so many problems getting other browsers to properly display FrontPage generated pages, and it was available in Linux and MAC this would be my recommended choice. But since it lacks the flexibility unless you want to do it the MS way, tough.

Communicator - Distant third. If it did not change the html code you write to the way it “Feels” like it should be this would make a great editor and a recommended buy.

Recommended: Yes