An impartial review from Keith Russell...

The last few days, since I decided to write this review, have been fascinating. Unfortunately, I've barely scratched the surface of this application. I've been around the Internet for a long time. Over and over again, in various mailing lists, newsgroups, and forums, I have seen users ask for recommendations of program editors, HTML editors, or Notepad replacements. In every case, sooner or later, NoteTab Pro (NTP) comes up as one of the recommendations. In addition, it has received awards from anybody who's anybody in the software field, including PC Magazine, PC World, Wugnet, Stroud, Shareware Junkies, and on and on.

NoteTab Pro has been around for a long time. During that time, numerous competitors have arisen. Checking any of the major software sites, such as download.com.com, www.tucows.com, or cws.internet.com, will turn up many dozens, if not hundreds, of competitive products. Many of the newer ones, such as UltraEdit and TextPad, are very popular. NTP often falls somewhere down the list. One of the reasons for this, I truly believe, is that users are always looking for something "better." I'm guilty of this myself. Instead of being happy with the "tried and true," when I hear about a new and interesting product, I just have to download it and try it out. It's interesting to notice that not only is NoteTab pro less expensive than most of its competitors (NTP is $20 US; TextPad is $23; and UltraEdit is $30), but its approval rating is significantly higher (80% for UltraEdit; 81% for TextPad; and 99% for NTP at download.com!).

What's more, Fookes software even provides alternative versions of the product for those who don't need all of NTP's features. NoteTab Std is just $10 US, and NoteTab Light, in the words of the product Web page, is "100% freeware -- no ads and no nags"! Most of its competitors don't give you these alternative choices. For some inexplicable reason, despite all the recommendations I've seen for it, I had never previously tried NoteTab Pro. I did use NoteTab Light a lot at one time, but I never felt that I needed what NTP had to offer. I've now come to realize that I had no idea of all that it does do!

So what kind of product is NTP? It's difficult to define, because it does so much. First of all, of course, it's a Windows Notepad replacement. I hate Notepad so much that at times, when I didn't have NoteTab Light installed, I resorted to using WordPad or even Word for simple text documents. This, of course, was overkill; it took forever for the applications to open and then they inserted formatting codes that I didn't need, which were just stripped when I saved in text format. NoteTab (all 3 versions, in this case), is made for the job; you even have the option of replacing Notepad completely, so that if you double click on a text file, NoteTab will open.

If this were all NTP did, though, it wouldn't be so irresistible. However, it's also an excellent HTML editor--of course, those who appreciate it most will be who want to have complete control over their editing, something they would lose with a WYSIWIG editor like FrontPage. When I created my first Web page, I used a freeware product called HTML Assistant, which did the job, but with difficulty. If I had only known....

NTP can also be used as a program editor. It has nice features like syntax highlighting and integrates well with scripting languages like Perl and Gawk.

I've tested NoteTab Pro under both Windows 2000 and Windows XP, and it appears to work well and be very stable in both environments. I haven't tested it under older Windows versions, but I did use NoteTab Light very successfully for a long time.

NTP's most powerful feature is its "Clipbook" feature, which allows you to use its built-in scripting language to create and organize "clips", which actually allows you to create mini-applications. When you first open NTP, there are 24 of these applications on tabs along the bottom of the window. They do such things as handle Unicode, uuencode/decode, TidyHTML, conversion to and from HTML, e-mail formatting, and inserting smilies in your message; one clip is even an FTP client with spoken feedback! Many others are available; there is even a mailing list devoting to sharing them.

Other features are too many to list, but you can see more on the Fookes Web page. Finally, one feature that overrides many others is good support. Fookes' support is highly rated, and mailing lists and newsgroups are available for user support.

Disadvantages? Well, it doesn't do RTF (supposedly coming). A few others I've seen mentioned: no security, file comparison, hex editing, or macro recording; it doesn't handle .doc files; and it's a better choice for programmers than for writers. I've found some minor issues, such as the frustration of some clip dialogs being cut off at the bottom so I couldn't read the last line. Several times, Tools | View In Browser hung the application when my browser wasn't open; since then, however, it seems to have fixed itself. It may just have been one of those aggravating Windows glitches.

It used to be said that "no one ever got fired for buying IBM"; NoteTab Pro has a similar reputation. You might give up a minor feature here or there, but you won't go wrong with it. To download and try out NTP, or any of Fookes Software's other excellent products, just go to http://www.fookes.com.

--Keith Russell