HTML Editor Reviews | Reviews and Discussion of (X)HTML Coding Tools

Review: Nvu

I’ve had quite a few requests to review Nvu, the free, Mozilla Composer-based WYSIWYG HTML editor from Linspire. And I’ve actually had Nvu on my computer for a long time in order to review it, but have never gotten around to it. In fact, I’ve been avoiding this review. Why? Because I’m not a fan of Nvu. A lot of people seem to really like it and often recommend it in different forums, but I have trouble seeing why. Sure, it’s free, but so is a lot of software I find infinitely more useful. In the end, though, I guess it comes down to what you need out of an HTML editor — and for me, Nvu doesn’t have it.

What I Like

• Nvu’s rendering engine is based on Gecko, which means it renders CSS-based designs quite well.
• It’s cross-platform.
• It works quite well for formatting a lot of text or maintaining legacy websites.
• It’s free.

Gripes

• It won’t open PHP or CSS files — HTML only. In theory, this makes Notepad a more useful program to me than Nvu because at least I can open all types of text files with Notepad.
• Nvu is still only at version 1.0, which was released in June 2005. However, according to the website FAQ, the project is still alive. There is also an unofficial bug-fix release called Kompozer.
• The source editing functionality is lack-luster to say the least (no code hinting, code completion, etc.). Mind you, Nvu tends to reformat your code anyway, so using the source view at all may not even be worth it. This is essentially why Nvu gets such a low score: My rubrick for evaluating editors puts most of the weight on source editing functionality.

Wishlist

Nvu is what it is: a WYSIWYG HTML editor — nothing more, nothing less. What would make it more useful to someone like me, however, is hybridity. Dreamweaver and MS Expression Web are hybrids — you can edit in design view or code view, and each view has a robust set of features. At the same time, Nvu is free and Dreamweaver and Expression Web certainly are not. In the end, I think one could hope for a bit more flexibility from Nvu — even just the ability to open different types of text files.

Overall

As I’ve mentioned before, I review and rate software for this site based on my requirements for an HTML editor. While it’s not a perfect system, it is consistent (usually). What does this have to do with anything? Simple: Nvu is not for me. As a website creator, Nvu is inflexible and out of date. I don’t use WYSIWYG to create web pages, nor do I work solely with HTML files — I use CSS and PHP. As such, Nvu just doesn’t cut it. As a niche tool, however, Nvu has some promise. For example, if you have to maintain legacy web pages that were originally built with a WYSIWYG editor and searching through tag soup doesn’t appeal to you, Nvu may be the answer. Or, if you’re a content writer who has to format a lot of text for the web or a blog, Nvu may be your ticket (see Guy Kawasaki’s post on Nvu).

10 Comments

1. That’s lame. Oh well. It’s not like I was ever going to use it myself, but in the realm of free/open-source WYSIWYG editors, there isn’t really all that much to choose from.

   Comment by m13b — October 17, 2006 @ 10:54 am

2. Yeah, I was actually pretty disappointed. But, I guess they say on their site it’s “ideal for non-technical computer users who want to create an attractive, professional-looking web site without needing to know HTML or web coding.” Bah.

   Comment by Eric — October 17, 2006 @ 11:11 am

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