Comments are back, but the functionality is minimal. I did a complete re-install of Movable Type to try to get comment previewing to work, but the problems persisted. In order to use comments, you need a TypeKey account. Let's see if this works.

My site was down for several hours last night, and I was getting ready to complain to my host. However, my host put up a notice saying that some sites were experiencing downtime because one of UUNet's routers was messed up. Considering that UUNet is an ISP for such a large number of people and businesses, you'd think they would be able to quickly recover from router mess-ups.

Taco Software today updated Taco HTML Edit to version 1.6. Taco HTML Edit is a full-featured HTML editor available as freeware. It is designed exclusively for Mac OS X and has been enhanced to take advantage of many of the core technologies built into Mac OS X.

Taco HTML Edit 1.6 has the following new features:

• Improvements in Syntax Coloring, including support for PHP.
• PHP Support (requires installation of PHP Command Line Interface)
  • Preview and Live Preview of executed PHP code.
  • Check PHP syntax.
  • Check syntax of HTML from executed PHP code.
• Improved interface for syntax checking.
• Format Tags menu in toolbar for commonly used formatting tags.
• Support for transparent backgrounds.
• Shift Left and Shift Right indenting.
• Bug fixes

The control panel for my web site hosting is not working right, so I can't make it available yet. FTP probably still works, but I really don't feel updating things until the control panel is working. I want to add some redirects and stuff.

Well, I don't really have anything to do right now (except sleep), so perhaps it would be fun to take a look at user requests for Taco HTML Edit. Line numbers seems be a popular one. I've taken the easy route and added a "Go to Line Number" menu item in a previous release, but people want to see line numbers along-side the document. There's also spelling. For that to work, I think I'd have to find words myself and then run them through the spellchecker. By default, the spellchecker doesn't play nice with HTML (by ignoring it). It looks like someone would like to see a few more choices in the "Format Tags" menu. You know, when I removed what is now the "Format Tags" menu, and replaced it with what is now the "Quick Insert" menu, I thought that I was doing a great thing. It turns out that many people had become dependent on the "Format Tags" menu and its minimal functionality, so I put it back. I'm still surprised at the amount of feedback I got about that. Let's see ... people also want better CSS support, localization, ftp integration, better XHTML support, and better file handling in projects.

All of the aforementioned requests are pretty reasonable. The most common request for something that ain't happenin' is for Taco to be a WYSIWYG editor. It would take a team of full-time developers to do this. For those who don't know, the current live preview functionality is just borrowed from Safari.

So, what does the future of Taco HTML Edit look like? Well, uncertain at best, although I have said that before. The HTML editor market is a pretty boring one to be in because all HTML editors either do or strive to do the exact same things. As I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm going to be learning about network programming, so we'll see how that goes. The main purpose of the Taco HTML Edit project was for me to learn, and I've accomplished that; its getting to the point where most of the things I do with THE seem more tedious.

Now, I imagine that some of you are wondering, "Why don't you make THE open source?" That is a question I've heard quite a few times over the past couple years (yes, Taco HTML Edit is almost 2 years old). I would consider doing it if I knew that I no longer wanted to develop THE. However, I remain in a constant state of indecision, and the fact of the matter is that if I am going to develop THE, I want to be the exclusive developer and have the ability to charge for the product. Yes, just the ability to charge. Alright, forget the last two sentences: I'm stubborn.

Perhaps, the most interesting thing for me has been the market that Taco HTML Edit has seemingly had the most success. Now, I am aware that some power-users like THE, but THE has been especially popular with beginners with little HTML experience. I initially thought of the THE wizards (in the "Insert" menu) as being a sort-of convenience factor, perhaps revealing a few HTML features to users. Judging by all of the emails I have received from newcomers to HTML, it seems that these wizards and other THE features actually served as an important teaching device for some people.

Hopefully, I will be able to release Taco HTML Edit 1.6.0 within the next 24 hours. Thank you for your time, and a special thank you for everyone who has sent feedback in the beta testing process.

After resetting the templates, I went and did some style sheet customization, so things should be looking more like me, blue ;). The comments worked better, but still not quite right, after resetting the templates, so I'm going to have to look into some of the coding for that. Also, when I posted some test comments, it displayed my email address even though I told it not to in my TypeKey preferences. If the TypeKey prefs say "No", then that email address shouldn't even be available to the blog. That's something that seems to need fixing by the Six Apart people.

I've been trying to get the comment registration working, so I had to reset all of the Movable Type templates. As a result, I am now using the default style sheet and the site looks boring. It will take some time to get the site looking how I want because the old style sheets are not really forward compatible with the new default templates.

I've been wasting a lot of time trying to get the PHP coloring right. The result is a lot of changes that have been made since the last beta, which worries me. Development should be finished by tomorrow, but I don't think Taco HTML Edit will be released until Monday. That way, I can work on some web sites and test Taco at the same time over the weekend. Of course, then, I'll probably find a lot more problems, and then what will I do? I need to get this out. I have other projects to work on. Just let it go.

I have been working on eliminating bugs from Taco HTML Edit. I think that I've eliminated a bug in the beta that involved text redrawing (under certain conditions, "artifacts" would appear). The solution was quite simple. Basically, I just instruct the text box to redraw at the end of any text coloring operations. I also added an option in the preferences that lets the user specify which file types should be treated as PHP files. I realize that some users may have servers configured to pre-process files with various extensions using PHP. I've still got some PHP coloring issues that need resolving, and some pesky issues with text formatting and fonts. The goal remains a Friday release.