HTML Markup 1.1
©1995, by Scott J. Kleper
Released on 9-13-95
HTML Markup is a drag-and-drop Macintosh text->html converter. There are many
programs that seem to accomplish similar tasks. However, HTML Markup takes a
slightly different approach to the conversion.
Since HTML Markup is a drag-and-drop application, some users have difficulty
getting it to work. This is because the desktop file, the part of the Macintosh
that decides if a file can be dropped on a certain application, sometimes needs
to be rebuilt before using HTML Markup. If dragging a text file onto the HTML
Markup icon does not work, simply restart. When your computer is about to get
to the desktop, hold down the command and option keys. The computer will ask you
if you want to rebuild the desktop file. Click OK and after that, HTML Markup
should work fine. In fact, if you haven't rebuilt your desktop file in a while,
you may also notice a speed increase while working.
When you drag a file or files onto the HTML Markup icon, you are presented with
a "job ticket" that allows you to check off your conversion options. The
options available are:
- Use first line as <TITLE>
This option will take the first line of your text file and make it the
title of the HTML document. If you do not use this option, your HTML file
will have no title. In the final version, there will be additional options
like using the file name for the title. Note that if you use this option,
the first line of your file will still remain in the HTML format and will
also be the title.
- Use first line as <H1>
This option will take the first line of your text file and make it an <H1>
header for the file. The line will not be repeated and this option may
be used with the above option.
- Center <H1>
This option is only used with the above option. It centers the <H1>
described above. If the above option is not used, this option is
ignored.
- Break lines with <BR>
This option will terminate every line with the <BR> flag. Personally,
I would almost never do this. One of the reasons I wrote HTML Markup
was because the converter that I used to use would do this and it
pissed me off. Still, I can see why some people would want to terminate
every line so I made it an option. If you are converting something like
C source code to HTML, it can be useful. Without it, everything would
run together.
- Change lists to <UL>'s (modified in 1.0ß5, modified again in 1.0)
When a line begins with a * (bullet) or - (dash) character, Markup will
make it into an item in an HTML <UL> list. If there are zero or one blank
lines between individual items, they will be in the same list. If there are
two or more blank lines separating them, they will be made into separate
lists. Versions 1.0ß4 and later of HTML Markup contain a new "smart list"
algorithm that attempts to identify lists from dashes and bullets used
in words. Versions 1.0ß5 and later of HTML Markup allow 2-level nested
lists. Lists indented with a tab are made into second-level lists. For
example, if this readme document were converted with this option, each
item (the bulleted features) would be a list item. The following list
would be a 2nd level list:
- item one
- item two
- item three
- Change # lines to <OL>'s (new in 1.0ß5, modified in 1.0)
When a line begins with a # (pound sign), Markup will make it into an item
in a <OL> list. <OL> lists are numbered lists. So if you had several items
listed in a text file, putting a # before each of them would enumerate them
when viewed with an HTML viewer.
- Convert lines to <hr> (new in 1.0ß4)
Markup looks for a series of two or more dashes and changes them into an
<hr> line.
- Convert URLs to href's (new in 1.0ß5, modified in 1.0)
This feature is darn cool. Markup will scan your source file for ftp,
telnet, http, or gopher URLs. With this option selected, they will
automatically be converted into clickable links in the HTML output.
For example, if I included the HTML Markup web support page in this
document: http://htc.rit.edu/klephacks/markup.html and selected this
option, it would automatically be converted into a link to the page
in the HTML output. HTML Markup assumes that the last character in the URL
is followed by a tab, space, > sign, or carriage return. The protocol
portion of the URL (ftp, telnet, http, or gopher) must be lower case
to be understood by HTML Markup.
- Keep inline flags (new in 1.0ß4)
Markup keeps anything contained within < and > characters in the new
file. In this way, you can write text files with embedded HTML and use
HTML Markup to add in the mundane stuff like the <HTML> and <BODY> flags.
- Show final summary
With this option selected, HTML Markup will tell you, before quitting,
precisely what it has done. It will tell you how many files have been
processed, the number of text to HTML conversions made, the number of
<UL> and <OL> lists made, the number of <HR> lines made, the total
number of kilobytes processed (rounded), and a daily lucky number
(actually, it's always sixteen).
- Create index.html (new in 1.0ß5)
With this option selected, HTML Markup will create a file with links
to all the HTML files it creates. In this way, you can have a file
to use to test all your pages. You can modify it to be a real index
(you'd want to spice it up a bit) or use it for archival purposes.
Or you could use it as a replacement for the lousy indexes that usually
show up if there's no index.html file (just about anything is better
than that!) There are a few limitations. The links are only to the
file names, so they must be in the same directory as the index.html
file and there is a ten kilobyte limit to this file. When that size
is reached, Markup will stop writing the index file but will continue
to process documents.
- Output ticket (new in 1.0ß4, modified in 1.0ß5)
A new button and dialog control the output options for the html file.
The following options control how the resulting files are output on your
drive:
- Same name as original file
- Add .html to the end of the file name
- Prompt me for a new file name
- File creator code (modified in 1.0)
- Convert spaces in file names to underscores (new in 1.0ß5)
- Convert file names to lower case (new in 1.0ß5)
- Header/Footer Ticket (new in 1.0ß5, REGISTERED USERS ONLY!)
This button brings up the Header/Footer Ticket which allows you to
select text documents to append to the beginning or end of the <BODY>
portion of your HTML document. This is useful if you have a company
logo or link that you want on every page. You can include HTML
within the header and footer files. They are copied verbatim
into the resulting HTML files.
- Color Ticket (new in 1.0ß5, modified in 1.0, REGISTERED USERS ONLY!)
This button brings up the new color ticket. Popup menus for
background, text, links, and visited links select the colors
for your document. Selecting "default" will set no value, and
the browser will use its default color.
- Comment Ticket (new in 1.0ß5, REGISTERED USERS ONLY!)
This button brings up a dialog box where you can write a
comment line to be put at the beginning of every file. This
line will appear in the source for the document, but will
not be displayed by the browser. This is useful if you wish
to attach a copyright or credit line to all your pages.
The line must be 255 or fewer characters long.
- Shareware line supression (REGISTERED USERS ONLY!)
If you are a registered user of HTML Markup, the shareware
message containing a link to the Markup home page will not
be displayed. If you have not paid for your copy of Markup,
a brief message will let people know that you have used
HTML Markup to convert this document and will give them a
link to find out more about it.
Please send me your comments and ideas! There will be more versions of
HTML Markup in the future and I need your feedback! HTML Markup would
not be the powerful utility that it is without the feedback and help
of beta users. There is an Internet mailing list devoted to HTML Markup.
To subscribe, point your web browser to
<http://htc.rit.edu/klephacks/mlist.html> or send an email message to
sjked@rit.edu with "subscribe markup_news" in the subject line.
Registered versions of HTML Markup really extend the power of the program.
Single user licenses are only $15 and include a disk with the registered version.
Contact me for information on site licenses.
To register your copy, send your check for $15 to:
Scott J. Kleper
134 Caversham Woods
Pittsford, NY 14534
Questions? Comments? Bugs? Ideas? Send email to:
sjked@rit.edu
The WWW support page for HTML Markup is:
http://htc.rit.edu/klephacks/markup.html
The most recent version will always be available from this URL:
ftp://htc.rit.edu/pub/HTML-Markup-current.hqx
Enjoy!
Scott J. Kleper
9/13/95
Converted with HTML Markup 1.1 by Scott J. Kleper
http://htc.rit.edu/klephacks/markup.html
ftp://htc.rit.edu/pub/HTML-Markup-current.hqx