Change View Source Code editor in IE

Posted on March 13, 2009 at 5:30 am

There’s a lot you can learn by viewing the source code of a website, i.e. what kind of analytics they are using, what CSS styles are being applied, and lots more! I routinely view the source code on many websites to learn how to do stuff.

However, one thing that was always annoying for me was that I didn’t like the default source code viewer for Internet Explorer, which I think was just notepad. It’s nice for normal text, but it’s not a great code viewer.

If you ever work with code, you’ve probably used tools such as Dreamweaver, Notepad++, or PSPad. These are real code editors and allow you to analyze the code in a much more efficient manner.

You can change the IE7 view source editor pretty easily to any of these tools by hacking up the registry. Make sure to backup your Windows registry first.

Step 1: Open the registry editor by clicking on Start, then Run and typing in regedit.

Step 2: Now you want to navigate to the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE –> Software –> Microsoft –> Internet Explorer –> View Source Code Editor –> Editor Name

Step 3: Now double-click on the Default key in the right hand pane. Change the value to the full path of the EXE file for your favorite editor. For example, mine is Dreamweaver, so I entered the following:

Make sure to uses quotes for the path name. And that’s it! Now click OK and exit the registry. You may have to restart the computer, but I believe it changes immediately, so you should be able to right-click on a webpage in IE, choose View page source, and it should open using the specified program. Enjoy!

» Filed Under Internet Explorer Tips

Comments

9 Responses to “Change View Source Code editor in IE”

Krishnaveni Krishnarajah said on : March 13th, 2009 at 4:51 pm

Good stuff..Really liked this one.

thanks for your post

Krishnaveni Krishnarajah

Vinay said on : April 16th, 2009 at 2:33 am

I couldn’t find View Source Code Editor in the registry when I expanded down to the following path:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE –> Software –> Microsoft –> Internet Explorer –> View Source Code Editor –> Editor Name

Zen said on : April 23rd, 2009 at 2:50 pm

Vinay:
For IE7 in Windows XP you have to create two new Registry keys “View Source Code Editor” and “Editor Name” (without quotes):
1. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE –> Software –> Microsoft –> Internet Explorer
2. Right-click on “Internet Explorer” and add new key “View Source Code Editor” (without quotes)
3. Right-click on “View Source Code Editor” and add new key “Editor Name” (without quotes)
2. Double click on Default of “Editor Name” and write path of your source code editor, for example: “C:\Program Files\Tools\Notepad\notepad++.exe” (with quotes)

Marj Wyatt said on : April 30th, 2009 at 9:12 pm

I’ve implemented this solution on both my Vista laptop and my old XP computer. A client of mine said they could not do it, however, so I used Crossloop to see if I could.

This failed on their system, even though I knew enough to add the registry keys. I’m a little baffled. Got a clue?

Roger McKeon said on : May 6th, 2009 at 9:03 am

Hi Computer Guy,

A simpler and safer way of doing this, for those who would rather not risk fiddling with their registry consists in using Iconico.com’s View Source Editor, a free, very user friendly, little tool offered here:

http://www.iconico.com/viewSourceEditor/

Freelance SEO said on : May 27th, 2009 at 10:39 am

Will this pull out the external css files for you?

Marj Wyatt said on : June 4th, 2009 at 5:04 pm

You have to be a little more resourceful to locate and view CSS files. This will permit you to read the HTML which may give you clues you need to find the style sheet, assuming it isn’t locked down in some way.

matt said on : July 23rd, 2009 at 4:20 am

Hello there. Iam trying to change the source code to a document of mine so instead of re doing the entire thing I can just change the date and name and some numbers. I right click on the page and view the source, then I change what I want. How do I view this new page though?

rrvball said on : November 9th, 2009 at 1:55 pm

I tried this and it didn’t work. After, using the second result from google, I discovered the reason why. The key should be “View Source Editor” instead of “View Source Code Editor”