When I first came to Canada I worked at SoftQuad. SoftQuad was one of the first SGML companies, well known (in some circles, anyway) for its President, Yuri Rubinsky. And well known in many other circles for its HTML editor, HoTMetaL. The Surrey office did most of the development work on HoTMetaL and it was my main focus for quite some time. So it was with a certain amount of nostalgia that I saw HoTMetaL listed on eWeek’s Jim Rapoza Picks the Top Web Technologies of All Time — gone but not forgotten, as they say. Thanks to Kim for sending me the link.
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Nothing like nostalgia. Did you keep any copies of the software (and maybe computer to run it) for old-time’s sake?
Oh yes, I’ve got copies of most of the versions I worked on. I also have the small bottle of Canadian Champagne we all were given when HoTMetaL PRO 2.0 won PC Magazine Editors’ Choice award in 1995 — I figured it probably wasn’t worth drinking, but it was worth keeping.
I still use HoTMetaL 6 for my sites. Damn good program (albeit a few bugs). Tried dreamweaver and a couple other editors but after getting good with HotMetaL, everything else just sucks. I’ve seen a few other users with similar comments in forums here and there.
Just wish someone had picked it up and continued development, or that they had released it to a gnu development community or something. Seems such a waste for it to just fall off a cliff. The tags on view and rules checking just haven’t been duplicated anywhere else that I have found.
Dear Lauren,
first, let me congratulate you to the best WYSIWYG web editor I’ve seen until today. Most of all I love is the tag view. We still use this software for multiple of our websites.
It’s a pity, that HoTMetaL will not be developed further. I agree with Chis’ wish that it became a gnu development.
I’ve tried to teach HoTMetaL current W3C DTDs like xhtml strict/transitional, but without success (it uses — as XMetaL — binary DTD-equivs (rls) I think).
Nevertheless — a superb “hot” software!
Dear Lauren,
I never found a Wysiwyg editor that is so convenient and at the same time produces so clean html. What a pity that it is not developed further. A GNU development would be great! Cannot the NVU or Kompozer people use it?
What is the latest version of HoTMetal?
http://www.powerstream.com/hotmetal-pro-patches.htm
provides the updates to version 6.0.3.164. Apparently it does understand HTML 4.01.
Is there any way to teach HoTMetaL XHTML?
Shall we form a mailinglist?
Hi Daniel,
as we discussed in email, version 6.0 is the latest and final version, and I don’t even know precisely who owns the rights to it. Maybe Corel still does?
There is unfortunately no way to teach HoTMetaL how to understand XHTML as there are too many things that would need to be changed. For example, HoTMetaL automatically uppercases all the tag names, and it doesn’t understand the common empty tag syntax. The program itself would have to be changed to do this. It would be possible, but I guess the people who currently own the rights don’t think it’s worth doing.
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