As PalmOS handhelds get more and more connected to the internet, the idea of using them as mobile HTML editors gets more and more feasible. DragonEdit is the only dedicated HTML editor for Palm OS - let’s see what it can do.
DragonEdit is an editor that seems to be based on a technology similar to tejpWriter’s. DragonEdit let’s you open multiple files simultaneously, you can switch between them with the arrow at the top.
DragonEdit has very powerful search/replace options. Regular expression searching is a feature I never saw before on a Palm OS editor:
The various HTML wizards make entering common tags easier:
You can easily access the most common HTML tags and can eveb create snippets of your own:
JavaScript gets managed in snippet shape too - DragonEdit ships with about 20 general purpose ones preinstalled.
You can look at the files with your handheld’s browser to ‘preview’ them:
DragonEdit can open remote files and can also upload via FTP - the notebook can really stay at home now.
However, DragonEdit does not support syntax highlighting(however, I have been told that this is in the works). Also, the smallest font offered on my Treo 600 was way too big for my taste. On a HiRes/HiRes+ device, you get ample font choices though!
The product makes an excellent plain text editor too - so, editing non-html files is no problem either.
This review looked at version 1.0 of DragonEdit on a Palm Tungsten T3, a WristPDA and a Palm Treo 600. DragonEdit costs 16.95$ and needs about 500k of RAM.
Overall, DragonEdit is a huge step in the right direction - if you want to do HTML on your handheld, you absolutely must try this out. Many of the features found here are similar to the ones of highend desktop editors - The lack of synyax highlighting remains a nuissance though….
How does this compare to the old HTML Torpedo? I used that one for awhile until the support stopped.
I second your huzzahs, for DragonEdit is a wonderful piece of software. For only $17, it offers amazing power, not least its text editing, which means I no longer need SiEd or perhaps even CardTXT. Now I just need to find the time to get serious about editing HTML for my pathetic long-incomplete website.
Oh no, sploggers, Tam. Gaah!
I so far really like DragonEdit. It’s crashing a bit on me and I have yet to get FTP to work for some reason, but as an editor, its code completion and other features are great!
I’ve put in requests for auto-tabbing, an “apply source formatting” like Dreamweaver (which will recursively tab-in an already written document) and of course the aforementioned syntax highlighting.
I’ve also alerted the support address of my errors (menus behaving erratically and the FTP not working, as well as occasional resets) and hope to hear back sometime soon.
Overall, great product and I hope my lil chunk o’ change contributes to the developer’s urge to work further on it!
-thynctank.
In my opnion DragonEdit isn’t best HTML editor. My choice is HTMLPalmEd.