BeerWin has replied to an earlier blog (Get It Before It Turns Pro) where I expressed my apprehension regarding the free status of BeerWin’s Plain HTML.  He writes:

I state here now, that PlainHTML and Web suite will not be released as commercial software, nor shareware. PlainHTML is intended to be free software and it is not planned to be turned into another annoying commercial software, at least in the previsible future. Since i don’t have much time for answering to any support or software related questions (and i’m making it alone in my spare time), converting it into a commercial stuff is not worth at all this time.

But the main reason of keeping PlainHTML free for everyone: I got so many free things from geeks and non-geeks through the internet, that PlainHTML and all included software is just a small gratitude expressed to them. (Featured Commentary dated July 9, 2008)

What still can I say?  Thank you, Beerwin for making things easier for the rest of us!

By the way, there is an update of the software — now on version 5.6.2. — and you can get it free from Beerwin.Com

And why not!  There are commercial software that are in many ways inferior to BeerWin’s web applications.

Apart from the excellent HTML editor, PlainHTML, (I’ll write more about it later on) the Web Suite comes with MultiNotepad, a replacement for Windows Notepad, and a CodeSnippet database. Just these two applications working with PlainHTML is already enough …

Add to the these Extension Manager and the Automatic Backup and you get a freeware Web Suite that can easily be among the top commercial software in the web today.

What, you don’t think I’m serious? Visit Beerwin now and see for yourself.

Man, a big hand clap for BeerWin.  He has done an excellent job providing us with these tools.

I have just encoded about 100 items of webmaster resources into a database for C-Organizer Pro, CSoftLab’s Personal Information Manager. They accepted it and perhaps will be posting it on their site as a giveaway for their customers. The items in the database I created are weblinks to categories that cover the basic resources for an aspiring web designer and/or webmaster (e.g. web editors, freehosting, fonts, etc.), all of them freeware (with one or two linkware and donationware). It also includes links to some of the better tutorials for HTML, CSS, Javascript available on the web. Needless to say, some of those links point to this website.

I am still in the process of adding more items into the database. It will be available to those who use C-Organizer Pro.

I would have featured Beerwin’s PlainHTML a few months ago but I decided to wait for the one feature which I felt was lacking then: the word wrap. Now that the feature has been included Beerwin’s PlainHTML has become one of the better freeware HTML editors available on the web today. It is true however that it still lacks one feature that I want to see in an excellent HTML editor: an FTP facility. But that can wait. With the present tools and features of PlainHTML, the absence of an integrated FTP application is more than compensated for.

PlainHTML is not only for HTML; it is also equipped to handle other scripting languages for the web. It comes integrated with Tidy for HTML validation and has a scripting toolbar designed to make common codes with the click of the mouse. It has syntax highlighting for tired coders’ eyes, line numbering, line-edit highlighting, special characters’ tool and a code snippets’ window that is packed with ready made snippets necessary for creating webpages that can pass the validation test at the W3C

For the HTML coder, PlainHTML has wizards for forms, tables and frames; for the newbie it also has help reference materials for HTML 4.0, CGI and PHP. It has two color tools: a palette for inserting codes for particular colors, and a color picker.

PlainHTML has its own preview browser and a mini-browser that one can use for surfing the web. One of the features of PlainHTML that caught my attention is its ability to “see” a file in localhost. This is important when one is working with PHP scripts.

PlainHTML may not have an explorer view. But it does have a File Viewer which can “read” text files (*.txt, *.rtf and *.csv) and JPG images (it cannot read GIF nor PNG).

Beerwin’s PlainHTML also comes with a set of templates that one can readily use for a website. In fact, it was a search for free templates that led me to Beerwin’s World of Stuff some time ago bringing me into contact with PlainHTML and MultiNote, (this is Beerwin’s Notepad replacement which is also bundled with PlainHTML). While there are still features that I miss in this editor — I would give it a rating of 4/5 — I think it is safe to recommend it to both newbies and experienced coders. It is feature-packed and is easy to use. And, for newbies especially, it can “teach” one how to code in HTML 4.0.

This program will convert BBCode (Bulletin Board Code) to HTML. It’s useful if you work on forums which support either BBCode or HTML and need to convert your “canned speeches” or if you have written something in bbcode that you would like to put on your website. You could also use it to preview your posts on boards that don’t have that feature built in.

For me, its use to convert my bloggable forum postings into articles for this weblog.