Improved Web Development using HTML-Kit

To be most productive with HTML-Kit you'll need to change the default settings. This is done from the "Preferences" menu option. You'll find "Preferences" by choosing the "Edit" menu option and then going to the very last menu item. Open this item and you'll see a bewildering number of choices. This can be very intimidating especially when you're first starting with HTML-Kit. Don't worry, we'll only be dealing with a limited number of them.

At the outset it is usually a good idea to turn off the auto complete feature. This is a powerful and useful feature but while you are learning to use HTML-Kit it can be rather disconcerting. To turn it off find the "Auto Complete" tab in the preferences window and make sure that the "Enable Auto Complete" box is not checked.

Now choose the "Startup" tab in the preferences window. Have a look at the text area on the right. Those are the default values for your (X)HTML page when you open a new document. If you don't feel comfortable changing anything right now leave it, but in the future you will find this feature invaluable for setting default values for your (X)HTML pages.

If you are behind a proxy server you can easily copy your Windows proxy server settings by choosing the "Proxy" tab from the preferences window and then clicking the button labeled "Configure Windows Proxy Settings".

You might also want to find the "Save" tab and have a look at the "maximum files in the Most Recently Used Files list". I found the default number much too high and adjusted it down to "6".

Those are really the only default settings that may need adjustment right away. One of the major attractions in using this tool is that it is highly configurable. Remember how to get to preferences because once you get comfortable using HTML-Kit you will want to return.