Try PSPad, it's free, encourages code editing, has a preview feature, AND you can use it on a Portable Apps usb stick.
So far the best editor ever I found is visual studio.net 2008, but you know it can be used only for .net framework. For your open source things Dreamwiever CS3 is good.
What "rubbish markup" does kompozer add? absolutely none... I personally use notepad++... There is no point in opening 4 different browsers unless you are also going to adjust screen resolution for 10 different monitors, different operating systems and flash players ect. Alot of scripts still use tables, do you really want to work through tables in notepad? I think not. Are you really that unsure about your code? probably not, I usually will maually check in firefox and depending on the site I will force myself to open up IE. When you have your page finished use http://browsershots.org/ save yourself alot of headaches.
Start using the WYSIWYG to apply styling and say that. All WYSIWYG's are a complete and miserable /FAIL/ in terms of the code they output. So you're defending Kompozer why exactly? I use the web developer toolbar in FF to adjust the browser size to test screen resolutions, leverage that FF 2.x doesn't obey the system metric to test small fonts/96dpi on a large font machines, and ALWAYS test across multiple browsers to make sure no oddball quirks show up... Quirks like say.... that FreeBeehosting link in your signature having it's header offset by about 50px to the left in Safari, the 'client login' image not showing up in Opera or IE, and the entire layout being broken in IE6 and IE7 on large font machines despite the majority of the page being an accessability /FAIL/ due to the fixed metric fonts. If you bother to use the tab key and put in carriage returns, where's the problem? Not testing in the actual browsers until AFTER you have the layout finished will usually lead you to throwing hacks at the cross browser issues, resorting to unneccessary nonsense like bloating out the markup with IE conditionals, and often tie you to a layout technique that might not even work in a browser other than the one you tested against. But I suppose it also depends on what type of layouts you want. Fluid or semi fluid you have to test, test, test. 100% min height is test, test and test some more... Crappy little fixed width stripes done with crappy fixed metric fonts are fairly predictable and require little testing even if they are a complete accessability /FAIL/. Again that FreeBeeHosting page - the markup is decent (excepting the two unneccessary tables, nesting of presentational images into paragraphs, and of course presentational classnames) but being a crappy little stripe with absurdly undersized fixed metric fonts (what is that, 10px? /FAIL/ ) it sends large font/120dpi users like myself diving for the zoom control to zoom in 60% or more... Assuming we bother and don't just dismiss the page as amaturish and go somewhere else instead. Especially when there's no reason for that page to need to be fixed width or fixed metric.
May i advise you to use a free coffee cup HTML editor. Its not a WYSISYG Editor but you can just save and preview files.
I will just say before I write this, I am usually a pretty nice person... Kompozer can be an excellent tool for someone who is just starting out. It allows css styling and you can even use a code validator with it. Programs like Kompozer allows the beginner to see more quickly "what happens if I change this code" So I defend using it for beginners. There are also millions of sites around designed with WYSIWYGs that make millions of dollars, I am sure the owners are very upset about the poor code on the way to the bank. Do you honestly think its okay to call someone else's site "a crappy little stripe" because it is fixed width using fixed metric fonts @ 10px? No I didn't design that site, but I have been cleaning it up. As far as large font/120dpi users like yourself diving for the zoom control... I am sure both of you will get over it. The reason the page is fixed width... if it is really a concern of yours, is so we can integrate various other scripts into it that are all fixed width! I read some of your blog posts about crappy code and defending Opera. First of all the problem is Opera, designers should not have to adjust to a browser that maintains less than 1% of the market share... It is Opera that needs to adjust. As far as you whining about bad code and the "overpaid underskilled nimrods" that did Hotmail and The Bank of America sites. Get a grip! there site is there for one reason, to make money! it makes them bucket loads of money, therefore the "overpaid underskilled nimrods" make them bucket loads of money! I have seen your type a hundred times, criticize everything because you are unsuccessful... I am sure you are the greatest designer/coder alive, you must just be underappreciated... grow up! I can't believe what a pompous arrogant @#!% you are!
'tools' like Kompozer only teach bad coding habits to people starting out. Much like Dreamweaver, frontpage, etc, etc. it's a shortcut that sooner or later will bite the developer in the ass - which is why people using those types of applications flood forums like this one with "Why doesnt ____ work in FF" or "But it works in IE?" or worse "But it looks ok in my preview pane" and teaches them to rely on the preview pane when in the REAL browsers it could in fact appear completely different. Whereas I consider programs like it a blight upon the web - Though if you ignore the preview pane and test in REAL browsers it does end up better than DW or FP - but not by much. Overreliance on tools like auto-formatting, auto-completion is nothing more than sleazeball lazyness that causes errors that take more time to fix than said tools could EVER save. ... and usually they can get away with that because they have either been around long enough to be the 500 pound gorilla's, or have CONTENT the end user is so interested in they are willing to suffer through the problems... Banks are an excellent example of the latter... YES, because if that's what it is, you call it that. GOD FORBID you call something what it is. HTML is supposed to be device nuetral, and pages designed in it are SUPPOSED to adjust to the device they are being shown upon. If a designer cannot take the time to actually do that, I'm going to point it out... Some would call this unreasonable - to quote George Bernard Shaw: "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." Oh yes, there are so few of us with 15" laptops on the market the past three years with 1400x1050 displays, 22" LCD's coming out at 1920x1200, and M$ moving the option from being buried under 'advanced' in every version of windows since 3.0 to prominance on the 'personalize' page. Which has what to do with it exactly? 2.3% Actually, with both it and Chrome climbing. NOT that percentages mean jack - since at almost 1.5 BILLION internet users worldwide that 2.3% ends up being 34 million potential users you are 'alienating' there - more than double the population of New England and half that of the UK. Oh, because having better standards compliance than FF or IE isn't adjusting? So who cares if their code alienates users, results in massive pwnage, etc. Or legal action. Nothing like those nice lawsuits against Y! and MSN over accessability in the UK. You cannot speak to my success any more than I can speak to yours. I'm hardly the greatest and recognize my own shortcomings - as I keep saying the day you think there's nothing new to learn is the day the rest of the world leaves you behind - which is part of the problem right now, people seem to think their 1997 skills set is complete enough to code modern websites. What I can speak to is what I see wrong, and I will call it wrong. What I'm seeing wrong floods forums like SitePoint, Digital Point, IWDN and a whole host of other sites with 'help me' posts. People making the same mistakes over and over again because they were not taught any of the lessons I learned some two decades ago. Besides, god forbid anyone ever say anything negative. It's all good, there's nothing wrong anywhere. Let's just all slap on the rose coloured glasses, get in the drum circle to sing kumbaya for a couple hours then bury our heads in the sand as if we all have not a care in the world. Who's the bigger ass, the person who sees something wrong and points it out, or the person who sits there saying there's nothing wrong year after year until everything blows up in their face. There's nothing wrong with that dam, those cracks are normal. Tell that to the people who lived downstream of St. Francis... The Vasa will sail just fine, it doesn't need more ballast as it sinks to the bottom when the first good stiff breeze comes along... There's nothing wrong with the DC-10 Tell that to the dead... There's nothing wrong with the containment vessel in building #4 Tell that to the Stalkers... While certainly web design is not as mission critical, it is filled with engineering pitfalls that can bring sites to the same engineering disasters that could have been avoided in the first place if people would get off their collective asses and TEST, and started out from a more solid foundation instead of relying on sleazeball tools like Dreamweaver to vomit up code for them.