I don't care for WYSIWYG editors (aka Vechicle for the lazy). Real men code their websites by hand.

I'm not thrilled about the for-pay features that aren't labeled, but the program will allow me to paste in odd HTML elements easily and seamlessly, unlike every other WYSIWYG editor I've tested. And the included SVG Edit program is great.

@abc - Do real men use spellcheckers for tricky words like vehicle too? :-) (Sorry, couldn't resist!)

@raggedy

LOL

Hello there. I am the author of BlueGriffon. This is just false that you need to pay to edit stylesheets in BlueGriffon 1.4. It is at least very partial information. There are three ways of acting on styles in 1.4:

1. use the builtin Style Properties panel, offering a GUI for all of CSS 3 ; this panel does not let you manipulate selectors but whatever is the document you manipulating and the context of the element you're manipulating, it *will* always apply the styles you wish.

2. the builtin Stylesheets panel offers a source editor for all stylesheets embedded into the document or local to the filesystem.

3. the CSS Pro Editor, an for-pay add-on, extends the Style Properties panel giving you full control on all style rules and selectors. With power goes easyness and the user is sole responsible for the correct result of the styles he/she wants to apply.

Daniel Glazman

Daniel, suppose I'm working on index.php, and I want to use an external style sheet, say "mystyles.css". How could I create and edit "mystyles.css" in BlueGriffon without using the CSS Pro Editor?

Daniel, I think you missed the point I raised.

It has only to do with creating and working with external style sheets, and it remains valid with the latest free version.

If one wants to edit mystyles.css, first one must create an empty file with that name outside of BlueGriffon.

Then one can click on the "Panels" option and pick "Stylesheets" as you say. "mystyles.css" should appear there.

But double clicking brings up an empty file in what appears to be a plain vanilla text editor, with no CSS-specific features or help.

The point of a solution like BlueGriffon that it should short-cut the creation process.

That is not happening with external style sheets in the free version.

Ian

The included HTML editor is excellent; automatically and instantly checks code for possible discrepancies and errors, highlighting their location on the horrizontal/vertical axis along the sides of the screen. Very helpful.

I find this discussion somewhat confused. I had expected it to be about the ‘Portable’ version of BlueGriffon, instead some of the comments seem to be about the basic product and I am not sure what refers to what.
Referring to Ian’s last post. As he says, basic BlueGriffon can create styles in a linked sheet if there is one already. What he misses is that you can easily create one by clicking the Plus icon at the bottom of the Stylesheets panel. Once you have the stylesheet in place the built in (free) CSS editor with all it’s CSS3 capability is fully available for use.
The ‘Plain vanilla’ editing that Ian refers to will be considered a boon by many but you don’t have to used it just use the style properties panel to do the heavy lifting.
These comments apply to the standard product I haven’t tested the portable version but assume it can do the same.
The limitation is that, if there are several stylesheets, the basic product, i.e. without the CSS Pro Editor, always creates new styles in the last listed stylesheet though it can still edit styles if the corresponding selector exists in another stylesheet. Not bad at all?

Chacoo, thanks for pointing out that creating new external style sheets is possible with the Plus icon. I missed that.
I don't understand what it is you're referring to about the CSS editor when you mention "all its CSS3 capability". Unlessi I'm missing another icon there is NO CSS capability in the editor.
By that I mean that the CSS editor I see in the portable version is a plain vanilla editor, with absolutely none of the CSS-specific code completion, point-and-shoot and syntax checking that a CSS editor has.
Sure, I can write CSS3 by hand with this editor ... but the whole point of this sort of tool is to not have to write code by hand, is it not?

A workaround in case BlueGriffon 1.5 fails to start due to a XML parsing error.
Open the file data\prefs.js with any text editor (Notepad is fine).
Search for the text "general.useragent.locale".
If you find that string, replace the line with

user_pref("general.useragent.locale", "en_US");

Otherwise insert that line anywhere in the file.
That change forces the application to the English language, regardless of your system locale.

The workaround mentioned by SYSTEM also applies when you get the the same error in Firefox.