Mozilla Composer is the former
free and open-source HTML editor and web authoring module of the
Mozilla Application Suite
The Mozilla Application Suite (originally known as Mozilla, marketed as the Mozilla Suite) is a discontinued cross-platform integrated Internet suite. Its development was initiated by Netscape Communications Corporation, before their acquisition ...
(the predecessor to
SeaMonkey). It was used to create and to edit
web page
A web page (or webpage) is a World Wide Web, Web document that is accessed in a web browser. A website typically consists of many web pages hyperlink, linked together under a common domain name. The term "web page" is therefore a metaphor of pap ...
s,
e-mail, and text documents, and available for
Windows
Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
,
macOS
macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...
and
Linux
Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
. Composer was a
graphical WYSIWYG HTML editor to view, write and edit
HTML
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...
source code.
[The SeaMonkey® Project](_blank)
Seamonkey-project.org. Retrieved on 2013-07-17.
In September 2008
Daniel Glazman announced a new
WYSIWYG HTML editor,
BlueGriffon, written from
scratch and based on Mozilla
Gecko and
XULRunner.
SeaMonkey, the community-driven successor to Mozilla Suite, includes an HTML editor named Composer that is developed from the Mozilla Composer code contained in the original Mozilla Suite.
Nvu
Nvu (pronounced ''"N-view"'') is a
WYSIWYG HTML editor, based on Mozilla Composer. It is intended to be an
open-source alternative to
proprietary software
Proprietary software is computer software, software that grants its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner a legal monopoly by modern copyright and intellectual property law to exclude the recipient from freely sharing t ...
like
Microsoft Expression Web and
Adobe Dreamweaver. As a WYSIWYG editor, it is designed to be easy for novice users, and does not require any knowledge of
HTML
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...
or
CSS to use. It runs on
Mac OS X,
Windows
Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
and
Linux
Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
and incorporates
Cascading Style Sheets support and other improvements from software company
Disruptive Innovations. Nvu was the brainchild of Kevin Carmony, CEO for
Linspire, who wanted an easy-to-use, WYSIWYG HTML editor for Linux users.
Under Carmony's direction, Linspire started and sponsored Nvu, hiring
Daniel Glazman, former
Netscape Communications Corporation employee, to be the lead developer.
Development
The original plan in June 2005 was to merge back the numerous changes into Mozilla Composer's source code tree. Since then the
Mozilla Suite has been discontinued (then reintroduced as
SeaMonkey), and no one has merged the Nvu code back into Composer.
Standards compliance

Nvu complies with the
W3C's web standards. By default, pages are created in accordance to HTML 4.01 Transitional and use CSS for styling, but the user can change the settings and choose between:
* Strict and transitional
DTD's
*
HTML
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...
4.01 and
XHTML
Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) is part of the family of XML markup languages which mirrors or extends versions of the widely used HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the language in which Web pages are formulated.
While HTML, pr ...
1.0
* CSS styling or the old
<font>
based styling.
The application includes a built-in
HTML validator, which uploads pages to the
W3C's HTML Validator and checks for compliance.
Release history
* 0.1 was released on February 4, 2004
* 0.20 was released on March 25, 2004
* 0.3 was released on June 11, 2004
* 0.4 was released on August 10, 2004
* 0.5 was released on October 6, 2004
* 0.6 (1.0b) was pre-released on November 26, 2004
* 0.7 (1.0b2) was pre-released on January 6, 2005
* 0.8 (1.0b3) was pre-released on February 2, 2005
* 0.81 was pre-released on February 9, 2005
* 0.90RC1 was released on March 4, 2005
* 0.90 was released on March 11, 2005
* 1.0PR was released on April 5, 2005
* 1.0 was released on June 28, 2005
Shift to KompoZer
Daniel Glazman, the lead developer of
Nvu, announced on September 15, 2006, that he had stopped official development on Nvu and that he was developing a successor as a
Mozilla.org project. It is written from scratch and based on Mozilla trunk
Gecko 1.9 and
XULRunner.
PHP and
CSS would be supported. A community-driven fork,
KompoZer, maintains Nvu codebase and fixes bugs until a successor to Nvu is released. Glazman's project is called
BlueGriffon.
KompoZer
KompoZer is a discontinued
open source WYSIWYG HTML editor based on the Nvu.
KompoZer was
forked as a community-driven project with development coordinated through
SourceForge.
KompoZer's WYSIWYG editing capabilities are one of the main attractions of the software. In addition, KompoZer allows direct code editing as well as a split code-graphic view.
The most recent version is KompoZer 0.8 beta 3, released February 2010, using
Gecko 1.8.1. The stable version was 0.7.10, released in August 2007. The only regular developer said in June 2011 that development "is stalled at the moment".
[One Year At INRIA - Kaz'hack](_blank)
Kazhack.org. Retrieved on 2013-07-17.
As a
32-bit application, it is no longer supported on
macOS Catalina
macOS Catalina (version 10.15) is the sixteenth software versioning, major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop operating system for Macintosh computers. It is the successor to macOS Mojave and was announced at WWDC 2019 on June 3, 2019 and ...
and later versions.
Standards compliance
KompoZer complies with the
W3C's web standards. By default, pages are created in accordance to
HTML
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...
4.01 Strict and use
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for styling, but the user can change the settings and choose between:
* Strict and transitional
DTD's
* HTML 4.01 and
XHTML
Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) is part of the family of XML markup languages which mirrors or extends versions of the widely used HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the language in which Web pages are formulated.
While HTML, pr ...
1.0
* CSS styling or the old
<font>
based styling.
The application can call on the W3C
HTML validator, which uploads pages to the
W3C Markup Validation Service and checks for compliance.
See also
*
Comparison of HTML editors
*
ActiveState Komodo
*
BlueGriffon (replaces Nvu)
*
SeaMonkey (includes the Gecko-based HTML editor that KompoZer derived from)
*
List of HTML editors
References
External links
Seamonkey ProjectDaniel Glazman's BlueGriffon replacement for Mozilla Editor/Composer and NVU/KompoZerDaniel Glazman about KompoZer and the new composer
nvu*
Extensions and themes
Archive of official KompoZer website*
Project website on SourceForge*
Alternative project website with downloads and information*
Development and User Forums
*
*
Gin Up A Quick Web Page With Kompozer
{{FLOSS
Mozilla Application Suite
Free HTML editors