Project Strategy

Background

HTML.edit is an editor for the HyperText Markup Language, the text-based coding used for documents on World Wide Web (WWW). All HTML-coded documents created by HTML.edit are saved external to the editor as ASCII text files. World Wide Web servers follow HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and deliver on demand HTML documents to remote clients using browser programs like NCSA Mosaic.

HTML.edit incorporates many time-saving features for not only HTML coding but document management as well. It is designed to become a master archive of a server's documents, with the ability to simplify global changes and updates.

HTML.edit attempts to produce documents that conform to the HTML 2.0 DTD (Document Type Definition) levels 0,1 and 2, minus support for tables and forms at this time. This editor does not support non-standard HTML features; I hope you don't either.

Application Structure

HTML.edit consists of five screen types (in this order):

   Index card
   Document Window (1 per stored document)
   Master Headers  (1 per Master Header)
   Master Footers  (1 per Master Footer)
   Preferences card

Document Handling
Due both in part to the philosophy of the editor and its HyperCard roots, this application operates differently from other text editors you may have seen in the way it handles documents.

While most editor and word processor applications open, edit, and save to an on-disk document, HTML.edit acts as an archive or master copy repository for on-disk documents. It is capable of storing an effectively limitless number of HTML documents as master copies, exporting to HTML text files on demand.

All HTML documents are by nature ASCII text files, not binary files (such as word processor documents). No text files are created on your hard disk until exported from HTML.edit. To edit an existing on-disk text file, it is imported into HTML.edit, edited, and exported, overwriting the old version.

Since most folks using this editor are generally creating not just one but a system of HTML documents, I recommend using HTML.edit as the repository of the master copies of the HTML documents used on your server. Since the editor stores the complete pathname of an exported document, you are able to export the entire contents of the editor or any selected group of documents with one command, refreshing your server easily and quickly.

You can then compress and backup one file rather than many, as HTML.edit essentially stores the hierarchical arrangement of files as well. (It does not, however, create folders or delete existing files.)

You can only edit one stored document at a time (ie., you have only one "window" open at a time), but saving your changes within the stored document in HTML.edit occurs as you type. There is no “save” command in HTML.edit with an exact equivalence to other applications. When you quit from other applications, all open documents are closed. When you quit from HTML.edit, all stored documents remain “saved” within the editor. If you have experience with HyperCard, this modus operandi  is not foreign to you.

On to New Features, or return to Contents.