It's been quite some time now since HTML was 'standardized' as being a common format on the internet. But even after all this time has passed, nothing good has come along for MAKING the damn things. Sure, there are tons of them. But are they any good? No. I generally end up using a regular text editor... Actually the one I'm using now to write this. All the editors I've come across, suffer from the same things. They're overly complex for the user, they're buggy, and quite often counter-productive.

1) Relative directory location.

Designate a folder on your hard drive where the web documents reside, that will either BE the directory used, or a mirror of the directory you'll use on the server. That way folders will be folders, and none of those weird extra path things pop in the way they do most of the time with mac stuff. Sub-folders will be named within UNIX naming restrictions, as will the files.

2) Real, tagless view of what the document is.

It's okay to have a second window showing the source, but I'd like to work in the real view most of the time..as in with other document programs..like PageMaker, Quark and others. When I make a change, I like to see it. I don't like to switch programs, I don't like to re-load. I want to see exactly what I'd see if I was in Mosaic, MacWeb, or Netscape (though, I'd opt for just netscape if I could only choose one).
Also support for more than one document (and/or relative directory location) open and editable at the same time would be very useful.

3) Program stability, speed, and adherence to the Mac interface.

I hate it when these slow, fat, stupid HTML programs crash on me. It's pitiful. I want it made out of real code, accelerated for PowerMacs if possible, and without a ton of excess crap around the program. I like windows to be compact, and useful. And when dialog window comes up to change things, I want the ability to background it, so that if I need to use another program/window to get whatever I need to put into the dialog...I won't have to cancel and redo everything. I like support for new and useful tools of the operating system (drag and drop, open-doc when it's out, plaintalk, etc.). It makes things a lot easier.

4) Drag & Drop and/or Cut & Paste placement of graphics, sounds, and other web elements.

I'd like to have the ability to just drag the inline images, sounds, and other types of links (that includes dragged out URLs from use of the Clipping extension) directly into my web document.

For instance, say you wanted to set a picture in your document as a link to somewhere...

Step one: Drag the picture into your page. The location and size are automatically filled in.
Step two: Option-click on the picture to bring up the info dialog

or Select the picture and any text you want also to be a link

Step three: Drag the link (clipping or other file from desktop, or selection from anywhere) into the link field in the info window, or onto the selection of text and graphics.
Step four: Close the window, or deselect the selection.

If I want to change some attribute afterwards, I'd like to be able to just open a control window (by maybe, option-clicking on the thing) to change aspects, interactively.
And for basic formatting (etc.), I'd like floater windows up and customizable. That way like in page layout programs, you just select stuff, and click on the format tag. And different floaters would pop up for the work window, and the source window to make it efficient.

6) Open and save directly with HTML.

No other weird formats...unless some kind of self-contained HTML format could be devised. One that could be readable by any platform, and have all the inline elements included in the single file. But if that happened, it would be another standard.

7) Real-view editing of tables.

Tables have some spiffo capabilities as far as putting things where you want them to go on web pages. Having the ability to edit them directly (like, in FrameMaker is a good example) would be a very very VERY good feature.

8) Batch commands for multiple files/links

When putting many files (or actually, the links there to) up on a page, it's always a very tedious process. I'd like the ability to select a bunch of files or a folder of files to be floinked right into a page in either a list or a table...and with the option of showing the name, an alternate naming scheme, and the file size.
Actually, now that I think about it, it would be really nice to have the ability to import a bunch of files, and have them plop into a new table or list, complete with the icon preview as an inline picture. So that the table, would basically look like in the Finder. You'd have the preview, the name, and the size all arranged nicely. That would be shhmokin...

So you could do something like:

Select the batch import command
Add all your files (locations would be input automatically)
Select Table or List
Select Preview for Icon or Thumbnail (and gif or jpeg)
Set directory for Preview inline files (created either from the resource fork or from the file)
and then....hit the Make button.

Like a real color-picker for coloring the background, text, and link colors. Palette for changing justification, and how things are set in relation to other things.

10) Other programs as good as this one.

For making CGIs and other things I haven't learned about yet.

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