Arachnophilia 3.9 Build 5181
Bill Stifler, Chattanooga State Technical Community College
Arachnophilia is a customizable HTML and java-script editor. The author, Paul Lutus of Port Hadlock, Washington, offers Arachnophilia as Careware. The user receives the program in exchange for "caring," everything from doing a good deed to refusing to whine--a worthwhile exchange for anyone. For more information, see Lutus' website at http://www.arachnoid.com I have used Arachnophilia as my default editor for several years now. While Front Page and other programs offer WYSWIG HTML generation, I find that I still prefer working at the command line. Maybe it is because of my MSDOS command line roots, or maybe I just prefer the added flexibility that working at the command level gives. In the fall of 1997, I took an online course in web course development through Asynchronous Learning Networks (ALN), where I learned to use Front Page for the first time. While I like many of the features of Front Page 97, especially the support for CGI, I find that I still prefer Arachnophilia to the internal HTML editor provided with Front Page. The Arachnophilia Help file includes a section on using Arachnophilia with Front Page. I also use Arachnophilia to "clean-up" documents that I have fast-formatted with my word-processor (I use WordPerfect 8.0). One of the nicest things about Arachnophilia for me is the ability to create personalized toolbars that can paste in often-used commands or sequences of text. Users can create Arachnophilia toolbars using the toolbar editor available from the Tools option on the menu bar. I have created toolbar buttons for mailto links as well as for pasting complicated chunks of code. Another useful feature for me is the ability to make global changes to all open documents. If I make a major change to my directory structure, I can open all my files, then search for the old directory entry and replace it with the new in all the open files. Other nice features include automatic conversion of RTF documents to HTML format, the ability to configure up to 26 keyboard macros, power undo, tag coloring, and an option to beautify the script. For new users, Arachnophilia includes tutorials for creating that first web page while more experienced users can benefit from tutorials on java-script. If you are looking for a free HTML editor, I highly recommend Arachnophilia. Major features •Open unlimited numbers of documents at once (depending on system resources) and search all of them to make a change. •Drop RTF and Windows documents into Arachnophilia, and it instantly converts them to HTML •Create toolbars and buttons for common, repetitive tasks. •Preview documents using the internal browser and up to six external browsers. •Transfer files to a website using the built-in FTP. •Create file templates. •Review tutorials for HTML and java-script. •Analyze links using the built-in site analyzer. •Automatically copy resources used (such as graphic files) to the same directory where files are stored. Screenshots •Arachnophilia Work Area •Arachnophilia Internal Browser •Arachnophilia Toolbar Editor Additional Uses •Use as a text editor •Create a shortcut in the Send to folder and use in place of Notepad Arachnophilia is available for download at http://www.arachnoid.com/ Reviews and additional download sites •ZDNet - 4 stars •Tucows - 5 cows •C-NET's Dowload.com
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