IE7 - View Source in External Editor

[piskie]

I run Firefox as Deafult Browser and only use IE as a design Validation tool. I just upgraded to IE 7 and installed 'Multi IE' to enable validation against IE 6.

I always use EditPlus as an external source viewer in all Browsers that allow. Since I reconfigured my IEs as above, my IE code views are presented in Notepad even though in:
Internet Options >> Programs >> HTML editor
EditPlus is shown as the selected program.

Firefox still displays source in EditPlus OK.

Any thoughts please.

[penders]

Hi piskie, were you able to View Source in EditPlus when you had just IE6 ...? How do you make this work in FF?

I did not think the setting "Internet Options >> Programs >> HTML editor" has any effect on what the browser uses to view source...? But instead, I thought, referred to which editor is used when you right-mouse on an HTML file and select "Edit" - which seems to be the case?

I have an HTML Editor specified within Internet Options (HTML-Kit), but this is not used by any browser on my machine (FF1.5, Opera8 or IE6) when I 'View Source'. FF uses it's own built in viewer (which I see no way of changing, without installing an extension?), Opera uses WordPad and IE uses Notepad.

Am I missing something?

[piskie]

Hello penders

Before upgrading to IE7, my IE6 used EditPlus for code view whether Right Click, View menu or the little Icon Button next to my Print Preview Button.

IE6 still works like this on my Laptop which has not been upgraded to IE7.

As for External Editor in Firefox, I achieve this by installing an extension of which there are many. The one I use is "ViewSourceWith" which actualy allows you to choose which Editor is used. There are others.

The reason I use EditPlus is that with a couple of keystrokes, it strips off ALL the HTML Tags leaving near enough what a Robot/Spider retrieves.

I really miss the formatted and coloured code view with this Stripping facility.

[penders]

I too can edit the current page in IE6 using the edit button on the toolbar... and this opens (by default) the editor specified in Internet Options. But 'View Source' still opens Notepad.

It would certainly be handy if I could get another (lightweight) editor to open instead on 'View Source' - to at least colour code the HTML.

So, I've had a bit of dig, found Notepad2 (nice lightweight Notepad alternative that colour codes the HTML), and also found on the FAQ page... "How to set <your fav editor> as the IE source viewer?". It seems it's a registry setting:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Internet Explorer\ View Source Editor\ Editor Name

Create this key if it doesn't already exist, and set the "(default)" value to the full path of your fav editor.

This certainly works with IE6 - I didn't even have to restart the browser. But does it work with IE7?! (I've not tested this) Maybe IE7 cleared out this registry setting when it installed? Worth a look. Maybe there is an alternative?

[piskie]

Thanks penders, you hit the nail on the head.

I had forgotten the little tweak I had done to the registry.
Installing IE7 negated this.
I re-tweaked (slightly different with ie7) and normal service is resumed.

[tedster]

slightly different with ie7

What is different? Enquiring minds would like to know.

[piskie]

The actual registry Key is different (one extra level down if I remember correctly), but the value is the same as in "C:\..........EDITPLUS.EXE

[penders]

The actual registry Key is different (one extra level down...

So did you come by that in moment of divine inspiration :) or was the key already present in your registry, but with a different/wrong value?

That key wasn't present on my machine (IE6 XP SP2) - I had to create the last two elements.

[piskie]

The Reg Key was already there and I changed the value. Not me being clever, I pasted a value from a Google search result. Can't remember exactly where though, it was early/late hours stuff.

Mind you when I installed and used Multi IE, strange things happened to both IE7 and Windows Explorer and I don't think that was exactly free of inteference to the Registry because some Folder Views are still astray.

I don't know whether the External HTML Editor function reverted to Notepad on IE7 going in or Multi IE.

IE7 now works fine I have no complaints, but my Windows Explorer has the odd quirk which was not there when I was running IE6 with a standalone IE7.