Hi Murray

Good luck with unlocking the mysteries of HTML and other assorted mysteries (file tag extensions, file associations and the like).

I use the freebie version of Notetab to edit HTML: http://www.notetab.com/

If I can ask you a back-to-basics question, when you look at the file in Windows Explorer - do you actually SEE the three letter file tag extensions? filename.txt or filename.htm or filename.html or whatever? File tag extensions are not displayed routinely by Windows, the default setting is OFF, for doing your kinda stuff, it is handy to switch them ON: http://www.helpdesk.umd.edu/documents/0/670/

Once you can see them, it makes it easier to edit them, and you might want to edit a filetag from .txt to .htm or vice versa sometimes.

Try this for an experiment. Right click the file and select rename. Change the three letter file tag extension backwards and forwards from .txt to .htm and back again, pressing enter each time you have finished and see what happens?

In the most common set-up, when you have typed .txt and pressed enter, the file will look like a little Notepad page and when you double-click the file it will open ready for editing in Nopepad; similarly, when you have changed the file tag to .htm and pressed enter, it will look like the blue E (assuming your default browser is Interent Explorer) and when double-clicked will open in IE.

Windows associates the three letter file tags with particular programs, so *.txt is associated with Notepad; *.htm with your browser and so on. Sometimes associations can go awry, double-clicking a file can get an unexpected or undesirable result, but maybe I'll save that part of the story for another time.

What I find easiest when I'm editing HTML is to have the document saved or named as an *.htm file, and open in a text editor (Notetab/notepad/metapad) so that you can edit, and at the same time have the same file open in a browser, so that you can quickly view your work.

This is the eternal wheel of the web-master;
edit content in text editor
save your changes
refresh to view in browser

edit, save, refresh, edit, save refresh, edit, save, refresh, edit, save refresh, edit, save, refresh, edit, save refresh, edit, save, refresh, edit, save refresh, Are we there yet? No, keep going. edit, save, refresh, edit, save refresh, edit, save, refresh, edit, save refresh, edit, save, refresh, edit, save refresh, and on it goes...

Have fun, and thanks for looking after the youtube permathread.

Cheers all

aussiebloke