I can think of a few things that would make it absoluely perfect. Sorry it's such a long list, I have a lot of ideas. I broke it down into categories to make it a little less daunting, hopefully.
(I'm guessing a lot of these might have already made it into 5.0, but I'm putting everything I can think of just in case.)
GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS
- Display of the active file name in the Windows taskbar (a la Word or other word processing programs). I tend to work on a few dozen files at once, and I often forget which one I'm working on at any given point.
- Customizable toolbar. There are a lot of features I wish I could access immediately, but I'm sure my needs are different from others. (This is why I won't ask specifically for feature x to be included in the toolbar.)
- Intelligent line numbering. I notice that when Word Wrap is enabled, lines do not renumber automatically. This can be confusing when, let's say, I'm trying to debug JavaScript and the console is giving me exact line-column coordinates. Preferably, a line should only receive a new number when a line break character of some sort is actually present. (Maybe this should be a toggleable option for people who prefer the current behavior?)
- An color selection dialog that allows use of hexadecimal input and output. The standard Windows color picker is piss poor for Web stuff, IMHO. (Having the Web-safe palette set as presents would be supremely nifty.)
SLIGHTLY MORE ADVANCED STUFF
- Search and Replace across multiple files, either all open files or all files in a folder. This would definitely cut down on repetitive tasks!
- Ability to toggle between traditional HTML and XHTML syntax (for example, <br> or <br />) on the fly. This would make the Quick Tags option much more handy.
- More Quick Tags (DIV, SPAN, BLOCKQUOTE, STRONG, EM, CODE, CITE, etc.). Also: I like how I can select a block of text and automatically place bold tags around it. It would be nice if I could do the same with the paragraph tag (or for that matter, other container tags).
- Option to use STRONG and EM in place of B and I, respectively.
- Ability to change save format (Windows/Mac/UNIX) on the fly and on a file-to-file basis. I know, this is a weird one. Some of my work winds up on Linux servers and some of my work winds up on Windows NT servers, so being able to adapt to these different environments quickly is a big plus. In case you're wondering, a feature like this is available in BBEdit/BBEdit Lite (a Mac-only product). Save format can be selected from the program's toolbar. (You can see where I'm coming from in regards to the customizable toolbar bit...)
- Multiple document templates. Have one template flagged as default which will always be used if a New Document command is issued, but the option to use other templates as well. On a related note, it would be nice to be able to select external text files as templates. (This way, it's easier to standardize Araneae settings between computers.)
- Autodetection of installed browsers. Pretty self-explanatory.
- Syntax highlighting for META tags. I find it somewhat odd that they're displayed in grey.
PROBABLY WON'T MAKE IT IN JUST YET
or, stuff to consider if you ever make a Pro version
- Open from/save to FTP and Web Folders. This way, there's no need for a separate FTP client to update files on a remote server.
- Built-in code validation for HTML and CSS (a built-in version of Tidy, for example).
- Built-in accessibility validation (to check pages for Section 508 compliance).
- Built-in HTML and CSS reference guides, or at least a provision for it. (Make the guides an optional download or something.)
- An inline tag editor. Select a tag, then edit its attributes from a dialog box tailored to the kind of tag in question. (For example, if a BODY tag is selected, the dialog would present options for background, text color, etc.)
- An inline CSS editor. Same concept as the tag editor, but with stylesheets.
- Multiple-level Undo and Redo.
I think that pretty much covers everything. Thanks again!
P.S. I'm fine with the current menu style, nothing wrong with it. The Office XP look is gimmicky, IMHO.
