- Quick specs
- Price: Free to try (30-day trial) $99.00 to buy
- Operating system: Windows 98/2000/XP
- Date added: January 07, 2004
- Total Downloads: 911,356
- Downloads last week: 277
- Product Ranking: #17 in Web Site Tools
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- CNET Community
- This product is on 17 member lists. Add to my list Add to my Watch List
- CNET editors' rating: stars
- Average user rating: stars out of 19 votes
See all user reviews
CNET Editor's Note: HomeSite requires a free Adobe membership. The Download Now link will take you to a page to log in or register.
CNET editors' review
Reviewed by: CNET Staff on February 27, 2009
Web builders who code HTML and other scripting languages on the Web have a friend in HomeSite. This highly configurable code-based editor offers an intuitive interface, advanced automation features, and strong file-handling capabilities. The newest edition of HomeSite is the strongest yet and works well with other Macromedia tools such as Dreamweaver and Fireworks.HomeSite's timesaving features include a Secondary File panel that lets you access two directories at once. You'll also find a built-in FTP manager, an auto-backup feature, a project-deployment system, a code validator, and several other powerful tools.
In keeping up with Web trends, HomeSite's color-coding, tag help, validation, and code optimization supports XHTML, DHTML, JavaScript, ASP, CFML, Perl, and VBScript. The editor also has a double-byte mode that supports Unicode and other international character sets. You can even use VTML (Visual Tool Markup Language) to build tag editors for additional tag-based languages that are not currently supported by HomeSite.
As text-based editors go, it's hard to find a more robust, modern product than HomeSite. The steep learning curve required to make use of HomeSite's more advanced features may put it out of reach for many beginners, but if you are a professional who codes by hand, this is your editor of choice.
Publisher's description
From Allaire:HomeSite is an HTML design tool for professional Web developers. It gives Web developers the benefits of increased user productivity, enhanced project management, extended site deployment, and added support for the latest Web technologies. Homesite 5.5 provides a lean, code-only editor for web development. Advanced coding features enable you to instantly create and modify HTML, CFML, JSP, and XHTML tags, while enhanced productivity tools allow you to validate, reuse, navigate, and format code more easily. Configure Macromedia HomeSite to fit your needs by extending its functionality and customizing the interface. Features include collapsible code for improved page readability, autocompletion of user-defined strings, and split window editing.
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User reviews
- All versions: 3.9 starsout of 19 votes
- 5 stars
- 4 stars
- 3 stars
- 2 stars
- 1 stars
- Current version: 3.9 starsout of 19 votes
- 5 stars
- 4 stars
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- 1 stars
- My rating: 0 stars Write review
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1 stars
Version: HomeSite 5.5
"No Update In Three Years"
Pros: It was a very simple a solid Text editor. Very easy to navigate.
Cons: Deploying the site can be a bit frustrating. Worst is Adobe bought and abandoned Homesite support for this is zilch. The trying to push users to their bloated and way to expensive Dreamweaver.
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5 stars
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
Version: HomeSite 5.5
"Best low-level HTML editor"
Pros: - If you have a good basic knowlodge of HTML is the THE editor to use
Cons: - Not recommended for beginners. For beginners I recommend the Coffecup editor instead
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5 stars
Version: HomeSite 5.5
"My fave tools"
Pros: -Easy to use
-Easy Navigation
-Good for web developer with beginner experience
-Faster than other similar html tag generator type
-Convert to XML easily
-Suggest error
Cons: -Not recommended for microsoft frontpage users, it'll slow you down because most tag write manually
-Error suggestions sometimes not accurate
-Price to expensive
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4 stars
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful
Version: HomeSite 5.5
"solid program"
Pros: I tried quite a few text editors before Homesite mostly due to its pretty outrageous price tag, but over time I'm happy I decided to invest in it. It does everything it sets out to do well. I have found myself thinking I wish it.... so many times, and when I look in the manual, sure enough, it does just that and some. That's how programs, especially programs as expensive as this one, should be. There's some excellent free text editors and some very good, very cheap ones too which I've tried which have about 1/2, sometimes 3/4 of what Homesite offers. But when it comes time to work with code, I always open Homesite. I really like how it's not annoying in anyway too, no popups, no commercial jargon, no buy dreamweaver today!
Cons: Support for this program is dwindling rapidly, especially since Adobe bought it. I bought mine as a download from their online store and it didn't even come with any sort of a manual I could find. I called Adobe and was redirected about 5 times before some guy who was on his lunchbreak told me that he really liked homesite so i was in luck because he knew where the manual was. Yikes! for future purchasers! The manual is in help references window, simple enough so I'll leave it at that. Also the ftp manager is convenient and seems solid, but I get this annoying byte discrepancy message everytime. I don't know if this is homesite or the various server's I've tried problem. I have solved it either way by disabled the option altogether.
The validator validates very well, but they don't offer the extent of suggestions that the w3c validators offer, so I usually use those too. It is convenient though to have it built in. To be fair, I never have found any errors that it missed and the w3c validator caught. It does get things wrong though, such as telling me that br / is not valid syntax, but I think this is due to it being a workaround overall.
The manual could use some improvement, though if you do some searches online you can find more detailed manuals from when Macromedia still owned and bothered with Homesite. I'm kind of surpised that Homesite is not more respected, considering it's used within Dreamweaver. That's something worth noting too. If you buy Dreamweaver, you get homesite free. The educational version of Dreamweaver runs about $200 so if you're not using it for commercial purposes it might be more worth it than to buy homesite separate and later decide you want Dreamweaver. I bought just Homesite cause I prefer text editing for just about all purposes (for the other purposes I got myself a much cheaper and still good editor from coffeecup). If you like WYSIWYG editors though, I think Dreamweaver is a more worthwhile investment than Homesite.
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5 stars
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: HomeSite 5.5
"Best HTML Editor I've ever tried out"
Pros: It saves my time so much that I simply can't live without it!!! Even if you do not remember all tags, you can use it - it is like having your own prompter when making new sites...
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5 stars
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: HomeSite 5.5
"That's cool"
Pros: Simple to use
Cons: Too old
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5 stars
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: HomeSite 5.5
"Stable, Friendly and Fast Hand-Coding"
Pros: I use lots of boilerplate, and the Code Snippets feature is superior to that of similar HTML editors. This is well laid-out, the File Management features are great and you can work fast & hassle-free. I agree with the editors' review on this completely.
Cons: When Alliare still owned this, support was great. I suspect the decreased support from MacroMedia for HomeSite is their view of this as a "lighweight" program compared to their flagship product, Dreamweaver. You could not pay me enough to force me to use DreamWeaver or Fireworks again, so the "seamlessness" from HomeSite to these is lost on me. And the built-in CSS editor? You can write the CSS yourself far faster.
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5 stars
Version: HomeSite 5.5
"easy to use"
Pros: easy to use
Cons: hard to download
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5 stars
Version: HomeSite 5.5
"Great for coders with XP"
Summary: I have Studio MX. I tried Dreamweaver but it, as the review says, takes a big bite of resources, and there are too many features. I am a coder, and so Homesite's advanced code tools are just the thing, for DW does a poor job at that stuff. However, on 98SE 96mb RAM, it crashes sometimes and it does not remember files well. It also sometimes will not close. But it works better than DW on there.
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1 stars
Version: HomeSite 5.5
"No longer supported or available"
Summary: Just tried to get copy from web site and Macromedia - no longer available nor even listed on their web site.
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