Both for personal sites and at work I largely use Notepad, simply because it is there.

Worst are the "save as html" functions in the various MS Office products. I used to have to drop a spreadsheet onto a web page every couple of months and the acres of redundant code generated were a pain.

Hands down, HomeSite 5.2, hand coder here and never found anything else that toes the line. If you have DW on disk, it will be in the extras directory.

However, as a Windows server developer (and likely to stay that way judging by your other thread) HomeSite may not work for you. I mean, it will, it supports .asp/.net files for developing and error checking them, but it's designed to manage a lot of things you will rarely ever need, and is definately not a WYSIWYG program. You're probably using the best solution for .net coding.

Worst experience . . . haha . . . see first sentence of your O.P. :-)

EditPadPro here - Kompozer for the rare occasions when I feel lazy and decide to go WYSIWYG...only to realize that, no, plain text is *still* the laziest way out for me! ;)

Both for personal sites and at work I largely use Notepad, simply because it is there

Can't beat Notepad for clean and simple. I hand-code everything.

I've got TextPad on hand for validation errors and spell checking. I suppose that I could use it exclusively, but have always coded in Notepad. I do run final product through TextPad for spell checking.

Been doing it long enough that validation is mostly just a double-check. Not many errors to be found. However, if I didn't close a <div> on line 300, TextPad has line number option, so I use it.

My version of TextPad is probably five years old, so probably even better now. There are a lot of good hand-coding editors available with handy 'bells and whistles', but that don't mess with your code as with WYSIWYG. That is, they do what they are told (or allowed) and nothing more - just like a good text editor should.

I used to use NetObjects Fusion, versions 4 thru 9. Version 9 was fairly decent as far as the generated code is concerned but those early versions were pretty ugly. I stopped using it and switched to hand coding in notepad several years ago. I just like having complete control over the code these days.

For those using Notepad, you may want to check out Notepad++. Open source and makes for clean coding. Also gives you line numbers, and when you save as a format(html for example), it gives color mark ups and collapsable code between tags.

I too use NotePad for a lot, but when I do break away from it to use editors like NotePad, PSPad, UltraEdit, etc...I find that page tabs, color differentiation, and being able to go back more than one step are incredibly useful.

Editpad - simple enough for day to day use but has a huge wealth of features if required.

If I am doing some real quick editing then I sometimes use Notepad, but not very often.

Any plain text editor - as long as (in descending order);

it is free (as in lunch)

has 'user options' for syntax highlighting on all the popular languages and CSS, etc

opens multiple files in tabs

has line numbering

supports folding

PSPad is my editor of choice. If I need to handle large data files then I use Vim.

dc

kwrite in adjunct with KompoZer

Jonesy

UltraEdit by IDM is my favorite. It's text-based, like Notepad - but Notepad on steroids.

Lets you create macros, templates, custom taglists, & much more. It also comes with a free version of UltraCompare that lets you compare files when you can't find the one line that's making the second version mess up. Very affordable, under $50 and for me worth every dime.

The company also makes UEStudio, which has additional features for building applications, but I haven't tried that one.