Rating: 
Summary: Terrible product
Review: I downloaded the 30 free trial and I'm glad I did because it showed me why I should NOT buy this product! I doesn't recognize comment text like <!- this is a comment -> It showed my comments at text in WYSIWYG views. I won't accept <style> without a type="text/css" attribute but if you use "insert" to insert a style tag it doesn't use it. It creates pages it says are bad! It did all sorts of other strange things. SKIP THIS PROGRAM!
Rating: 
Summary: Great product, would recommend to anyone!
Review: I have a limited background with HTML, but this is as easy as it gets when it comes to web design. When saving your .html file a validator checks your coding to warn of any errors in the coding. Software comes with a 300 page manual and online assistance. I just got the program 2 hours ago and I already have my first page near completion. It's well worth the money!
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Product - Minor Problems
Review: I have had HotMetal Pro loaded for several hours now, and in general am delighted with the product! I have numerous hours of internet surfing and am very comfortable on the computer, but have never done any programming or web design. It appears that the program is going to be exactly what I need: fairly easy to get up and running, but nothing I'm going to outgrow in six months. After a few hours of work, I have already designed a practice page that looks pretty darn good. The choice of working in WYSIWYG, Tags On, or Source view is really nice. However, the one problem I have found is that the users manual and tutorials are either poorly written or haven't been updated recently or both. I have flown right through numerous steps, but other directions have left me pulling my hair out! Often, what the book says you should see on the screen isn't exactly what shows up and you just have to play around until you get what they are asking for - very frustrating. Overall, the program seems excellent and I am extremely pleased! The User's Guide could definitely use a little work, but is useable with a little patience and common sense. I would recommend this for web design newbies, with some practical computer knowledge. Probably not the best choice for those whithout some experience in general computer usage, due to the shortcomings of the manual.
Rating:
Summary: The program is awsome, but the tutorial...
Review: I just felt I had to come back and post my opinion about the tutorial for HoTMetaL after I found myself stuck again in the tutorial. All I can say is... it seems as if the tutorial was just slapped together in a hurry and many of the directions are not clearly expressed. (don't get me wrong, the tutorial is good, but there are parts that are vague)I have lost alot of time just trying to figure out what the author is trying to get me to do in the vauge parts. However, I feel once I get through the tutorial, I will have unlimited potential with this well made program.
Rating:
Summary: Great easy web page program
Review: I've spent many hundreds of dollars looking for a good, easy web page design program. This is the best one I have seen. You can use templates and just fill in your info or make your own entire web page. You have total control! If you are looking for the best program for web design, this is it!
Rating:
Summary: It's sort of a no-brainer
Review: I've used HoTMetaL Pro for over 5 years. We built our first web pages using this app. At that time I didn't know anything about HTML, etc and still managed to build a (primarily text based) site that worked. It is fairly easy to learn and use. New versions over the years have added smart features. There are similar apps on the market, but this one seems less buggy than most.
Rating:
Summary: HMP Rocks!
Review: I've used the last 2 versions and I thought they were great. I'm giving it a 4 because 1)I haven't tried out 6.0 yet, & 2) SoftQuad seems to have been acquired by Corel, therefore discontinuing the product. If you're a beginner, don't spend money on software that you think will help you create web pages through osmosis. Then you rate a product badly because of your own "user idiot error". You're better off using any of those free built-in web page editors you get with your AOL web page or Yahoo one. I was "forced" into updating web pages for my company because the "web person" was too busy to update pages for my department. The only web editor I used before was Microsoft Front Page. I used the WYSIWYG function of HMP to get my web pages updated and in the process learned how to code in HTML. Pretty cool. I then started transitioning my personal web site from MS Front Page to HMP. What I realized was that some of the pages I had lots of problems with (that were created in MS FrontPage) were due to problems with the MS product. Once I reviewed the source code I realized how much added code MS adds to the page which is nothing short of garbage, which explains why the pages were problematic to begin with. After looking at all the source code, I realized that HMP is definitely a keeper. Because once you learn it, you'll never need another program again. You can just open up Notepad and start coding your html right there, if you wanted to.
Rating: 
Summary: Very, very steep learning curve.
Review: Our company decided to update our web page. The new web page designer insisted that we buy Hotmetal Pro for the staff members who would be updating their own web pages because Word and FrontPage caused the designer problems. So, we bought a bunch. Talk about hard to use. After popping [money] for the programs, we were told that it would cost [money] to run the six staff members through three days of training. Counting lost productivity, we estimate another [money] in possible losses if we try to go for the training. I used to use Hotmetal 1.0 back when it was shareware in 1997. It was considerably easier to use then. We will probably end up shelving the programs and finding something easier to use. The tutorial packaged with the program is little more than an index to the help table of contents. When we tried to import our existing pages, the program crashed. So, I can't really recommend this product unless you have previous experience with a recent version, have the patience and money to learn how to use it, or do this for a living.
Rating:
Summary: Best mixture of WYSIWYG and tag view
Review: Some HTML editors only show you a WYSIWYG view, which is pretty worthless if you ever want to do anything sophisticated at all (such as updating text that contains boldface, italics, code). The problem with WYSIWYG is that you can't tell if the cursor is just outside or just inside a bold, italic or code tag. Frontpage is probably the worst offender--it does all this junk behind your back and never gives you any control. Some editors show you two views, one WYSIWYG and one HTML. That's better, but it still isn't as intuitive as it should be. HoTMetaL is the only editor that has a combo view, showing you both WYSIWYG and tags in the same view. You are in control, but you don't have to look at raw HTML. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Not for me
Review: The biggest problem that I have with HoTMetaL Pro is that the product is not really suited for use on a site that already exists! HoTMetaL Pro comes with a built in HTML validator which is uses to check that what you are writing makes sense as HTML. This is normally a great idea because it will pick up on typos and other mistakes which can be quite tricky to track down when you make a mistake on your page. However, if you load existing code into the program, HoTMetaL Pro will want to carry out the same validation operation on that page. Now, that might occasionally be useful. Suppose that there is a fault on the page which you didn't spot because the browser that you use to view the site didn't object to the code. (Most browsers make their best guess as to the page author's intent if they spot an error in the HTML syntax.) However, it is much more likely that something that is odd on an existing page is actually intended to be that way for good reason. For example, webrings, advertising banner servers and statistics trackers require that you insert their code, without changes into your html. They use robots to scan your site and check that you are compliant. The HoTMetaL Pro validator will almost certainly want to change that code which will render it invisible to those robots who will then assume that your site is broken. Because of this, I simply could not even consider using the product on my site. The software does have the ability to turn off validation and so it will leave your existing code unmolested. Unfortunately, if you select this option, the product can only be used in HTML source view. No wysiwyg view is available. In that case, there is little advantage of using this product over a programmer's text editor (such as emacs) which is set up for HTML. So, for those reasons, I do not use this product apart from the very rare occasions when I want to work on a new page with no stats or webring functions. While it is not bad to use, I must say that if you already have a site, or if you think that, one day your site may expand to use things that will upset HoTMetaL Pro, you should avoid this product.
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