HTMLEdit98 - Web Page Creation on a Series 5!


In December, Russ Spooner's old Web site carried a beta version of an application to produce HTML pages on the S5. With remarkable creativity and ingenuity he called it "HTMLEdit" (now renamed to HTMLEdit98), which has absolutely no connection with RComp's RISC OS application of the same name (which I'm also now using). It does the same sort of job though (albeit in miniature!), in that it is an HTML editor rather than a graphical Web page designer. I downloaded the first beta, crashed it and locked it up a few times(!), and emailed him with some (polite!) comments.
I got a rapid response to that first message, and downloaded a series of ever-improving betas since then. In the course of that, I discovered that he really likes bug reports more than any other author I've had contact with!
What started off for me as an intellectual curiosity and part of my constant search for interesting software, has led to the creation of this Web site. While visiting my parents over Christmas I started to see how feasible it was to create a series of Web pages totally on my Series 5. The fact that you are reading this now is testimony to the ease of use and robustness of the last version he released under the Labrat name (1·02), as I was able to sit on a crowded train using it to write a review of itself!

HTMLEdit Screen

A Page Being Edited in HTMLEdit

Everything is very neatly organised, with buttons on the Toolbar for tags, organized both as an hierarchical library and as Quick Tags for commonly used features such as images, links, emphases, etc. As Shareware, it is almost fully working, with a "Nag Screen". The only other limitation is that you can't customise the Tag Library with your own personal favourites until you've paid the £15 registration fee.

HTMLEdit Screen

The Same Page Viewed in the S5's Browser.

I'm very impressed with it. It links in well with the S5's Message Suite browser allowing you to view the results of your work as you go along (don't forget to save the page before you hit the "Browse" button and refresh the Web page when it switches to it). Of course, it isn't as convenient as using Guttorm Vik's StrongEd or RComp's HTMLEdit and a browser on my Risc PC, but within the limitations of the S5, it does a brilliant job.

Installation
It's worth mentioning that the current version is now distributed in a standard SIS file format, which hopefully means the end of the horribly platform-dependant PsiSetup application. The SIS file can easily be installed using the Control Panel's Add/Remove option on the EPOC machine. If you don't have that already, then you need to download the INSTEXE.EXE file from the EPOC32 bit of the downloads section of Psion's Web Site, transfer it to the EPOC machine, and double-tap on it to enable that option on the Control Panel.

Conclusions
It isn't perfect in that there are some limitations in page size (and I can still crash it!), but the latest version now supports forward deleting with <Shift><Delete> and can access the global clipboard. It also links to the spell checker, and ignores all the HTML tags in doing so (hence you don't get a UK machine objecting to the spelling of <CENTER>). If you have a Geofox One, it now also works in full-screen mode, making it even more useful.
It really comes down to the fact that if you want to design or edit Web pages on the S5, you either use Word and manually enter tags (I've found an HTML tags database that might help with that), or you use HTMLEdit98! I prefer the latter approach, not out of desperation, but because HTMLEdit98 works very well. In many ways it reminds me of StrongEd's HTML mode, in that you highlight text, select the tag you want, and it is applied to the text. StrongEd doesn't have as many tags set up, so you could say HTMLEdit98 is better in this rôle.

Being able to keep this Web site with me on my S5, and work on it in odd moments, is very handy, and I'd be lost without HTMLEdit98!
Russ has now joined Palmscape, and so you can get a copy of the latest version from the Palmscape Web site.


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