HoTMetaL is an early commercial

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...

-authoring software program, released in 1994 by

SoftQuad Software SoftQuad Software was a Canadian software company best known for HoTMetaL, the first commercial HTML editor. It is also known for Author/Editor, the first specialized SGML editor, and Panorama, the first browser plugin for SGML. Panorama demonstrat ...

of Toronto, Canada. Based on the

SGML The Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML; ISO 8879:1986) is a standard for defining generalized markup languages for documents. ISO 8879 Annex A.1 states that generalized markup is "based on two postulates": * Declarative: Markup should des ...

engine of SoftQuad Author/Editor, HoTMetaL was released with a free version (HoTMetal Free) and a professional version (HoTMetaL Pro). There was also a "light" version. It received

PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and have continued to the present d ...

's Editors' Choice Award in 1995 as well as a variety of other awards. However the port to the Mac platform was regarded as poorly executed. HoTMetaL went through several incarnations from versions 1 though 6. The Macintosh version survived until at least version 3. Eventually, the product line was discontinued as an

HTML editor An HTML editor is a program for editing HTML, the markup of a web page. Although the HTML markup in a web page can be controlled with any text editor, specialized HTML editors can offer convenience and added functionality. For example, many HT ...

, although the user interface lives on in

XMetaL XMetaL, or XMetaL Author, is a software application people use to create and edit documents in XML and SGML. It has some features common to word processors, but is a native XML editor that can be configured to work with various standard and custom ...

, a commercial

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable ...

editor. The editor had several views (including text and

WYSIWYG In computing, WYSIWYG ( ), an acronym for What You See Is What You Get, is a system in which editing software allows content to be edited in a form that resembles its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product, such as a printed d ...

), most-notably though was the "Tags-On" view. This provided a WYSIWYG-like view of the page being edited with overlay icons showing where the code tags started and ended. This view is still used in the XML editing module of

Adobe InDesign Adobe InDesign is a desktop publishing and page layout designing software application produced by Adobe Inc. and first released in 1999. It can be used to create works such as posters, flyers, brochures, magazines, newspapers, presentations, ...

. On 15 March 2002, the

Corel Corporation Cascade Parent Limited, doing business as Alludo (pronounced like "all you do"), is a Canadian software company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, specializing in graphics processing. Formerly called the Corel Corporation ( ; from the abbreviation ...

acquired SoftQuad, although the Corel web site has no reference to HoTMetaL or any other web development tools. During the development of

SGI SGI may refer to: Companies *Saskatchewan Government Insurance *Scientific Games International, a gambling company *Silicon Graphics, Inc., a former manufacturer of high-performance computing products *Silicon Graphics International, formerly Rac ...

's WebForce line, SGI considered having SoftQuad port HoTMetaL Pro to

IRIX IRIX ( ) is a discontinued operating system developed by Silicon Graphics (SGI) to run on the company's proprietary MIPS workstations and servers. It is based on UNIX System V with BSD extensions. In IRIX, SGI originated the XFS file system and ...

for inclusion on the WebForce version of the

Indy Indy may refer to: Computing and technology *Indy (software), used for Internet access to music *Internet Direct, or "Indy", a software library *SGI Indy, a computer workstation Periodicals *''The Indy'', shorthand for newspapers that include " ...

workstation. While pitching the idea of WebForce to SGI executives, SGI employee John McCrea passed around a copy of HoTMetaL Pro in its retail packaging. SGI eventually opted to purchase and port a partially finished HTML editor, then in development for

Solaris Solaris may refer to: Arts and entertainment Literature, television and film * ''Solaris'' (novel), a 1961 science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem ** ''Solaris'' (1968 film), directed by Boris Nirenburg ** ''Solaris'' (1972 film), directed by ...

from

Amdahl Corporation Amdahl Corporation was an information technology company which specialized in IBM mainframe-compatible computer products, some of which were regarded as supercomputers competing with those from Cray Research. Founded in 1970 by Gene Amdahl, a for ...

instead.

The name

The capital letters in HoTMetaL spell HTML. The term comes from

hot metal typesetting In printing and typography, hot metal typesetting (also called mechanical typesetting, hot lead typesetting, hot metal, and hot type) is a technology for typesetting text in letterpress printing. This method injects molten type metal into a mol ...

which involves melting alloys into the shape of letters so they can be used by

Linotype machine The Linotype machine ( ) is a "line casting" machine used in printing; manufactured and sold by the former Mergenthaler Linotype Company and related It was a hot metal typesetting system that cast lines of metal type for individual uses. Lin ...

s to print words on paper.

References

External links

* HTML editors 1994 software {{Web-software-stub