3. Changes and Additions


   Cosmo Create encompasses the functionality of the previously
   released WebMagic application. This chapter lists the major
   changes and additions available in Cosmo Create that were
   not in the last release of WebMagic.

3.1 Major New Features


      o Port to 6.2 - You must have installed at least Irix 6.2
        to install Cosmo Create.

      o Cosmo Create no longer requires a license to run.

      o Tables - Tables are now shown WYSIWYG.  Tables will be
        displayed very similarly to how they look in Netscape
        Navigator, you can create tables, edit their contents,
        change their attributes, etc. See Chapter 5 for
        limitations.

      o Cosmo Create supports the creation and editing of
        frames.

      o Cosmo Create now allows the viewing and editing of the
        raw HTML source.  Edits can be fed back into the main
        document and previewed directly in a web browser.

      o Helper Applications - You can launch Photoshop, Cosmo
        Worlds, Image Works, xv or enhance on the appropriate
        element (an image or a VRML plug-in, for example) from
        the Editors palette if you have these applications
        installed on your system.  If the currently selected
        inline is editable by the helper app, it will ungrey
        and be active.  When the out of place edits of the
        inline data are finished, the inline area in page will
        update to reflect the changes.  For applications with
        the appropriate conversion rules, you can launch the
        out of place editor on the original content, and when
        the edit completes, the data will be auto converted
        back into the web-compatible format inlined into the
        page. The conversion rules are specified in the
        Converting panel of the Preferences panel.  Also, if
        the appropriate prototype file is installed on the
        system for a particular editor and converter, you can
        launch it on an empty inline area to create content for
        the inline area.

      o Showcase - Showcase is now available as a helper
        application. A Showcase file can be drag-and-dropped
        onto a page, and it will be converted into a gif and

        displayed as an inline image. If the image is
        highlighted on the page, then Showcase will be
        available in the Editors palette as a helper
        application. Launching Showcase on the inlined file
        will allow you to edit the original Showcase document.
        When the Showcase document is saved, the inline gif
        will be updated to represent the new state of the
        Showcase file.

        Note: The Showcase-to-gif converter requires that
        either Ghostscript and eoe.sw.imagetools, or
        Impressario psrip be installed on the machine.
        Impressario is preferred because it produces higher
        quality output.

      o Button creation tool - Button Magic lets you create
        nicely rendered, antialiased images of buttons with 2D
        or 3D text labels for use as buttons, bullets, or
        titles.  An alpha channel is used so that the buttons
        blend correctly with the background. You can choose
        among various shapes and fonts, and you can alter the
        appearance of any button in endless combinations by
        choosing lighting effects, colors, and textures.

      o Run Once - Cosmo Create uses so called "run-once with
        multiple documents" behavior. If Cosmo Create is
        already running on the system, attempts to run
        additional copies of the program will simply open a new
        editing window in the original program.  If you
        explicitly need to have multiple copies of Cosmo Create
        running, you can specify "-runmany" as a command-line
        argument.  See the cosmocreate(1) man page for details.

      o 24-bit Imaging - Cosmo Create now defaults to using a
        24-bit visual for high quality color and image display.
        If a 24-bit visual is not available on the system, the
        default system visual is used.

      o A Perl CGI script can be generated from the FORM
        dialog. This script contains the basic boilerplate for
        a CGI script and lists the form variables and values.

      o Sweeping out and interactively resizing inlines - You
        can drag out image, applet, plug-in, and whitespace
        regions.  After dragging out, the inline will be
        selected and the editor dialog will pop up.  At any
        point, you can interactively resize any of these inline
        objects.  Holding down the Shift key will constrain
        their aspect ratios.

      o Improved inline attributes editor - The user can enter
        an original, rich representation for an inline (such as
        an rgb file), and have a web-compatible stand-in (such
        as a gif) generated automatically for it.  The stand-in
        type can be selected from the popup menu displaying all
        the known conversions.  To disable the writing out of
        width and height tags, there is a new unit type called
        Unset that effectively unconstrains that dimension and
        suppresses the tag on output.  This unset unit type can
        also be used to reset the image to its default size, or
        the Default button can be used.

      o Live plug-ins - Plug-ins display live just as they
        would in Netscape, including full page plug-ins (for
        Netscape 2.x).  However, full plug-in functionality is
        not yet available, and so certain plug-ins may behave
        poorly in Cosmo Create if the plug-ins are not written
        carefully.  Live Applets are not viewable.  See Chapter
        5 for more information.

      o Spell checking - Cosmo Create now offers you the
        ability to spell check your documents, in a number of
        languages.

      o Floating Tools - Tools can now be left floating on the
        desktop after use and will continue to track the
        insertion point and current selection.

      o File type rules - The FTR database is now used rather
        than globbing to determine the type of files
        imported/drag-n-dropped into Cosmo Create.  Also, a new
        panel on the attributes dialog allows you to specify
        what to do with each filetype, i.e. whether it should
        be linked or inlined as an image, applet, or plug-in.

      o Link generation commands - The URL for a link can now
        be generated by an external UNIX command.

3.2 HTML tags and WYSIWYG-ness


      o Cosmo Create now supports the HTML tags FONT COLOR and
        NBSP (non-breaking space).  Also supported are the
        EMBED and APPLET tags.

      o Named HTML colors are now supported in addition to RGB
        colors.

      o The TARGET link attribute is now supported.

      o Plain FORM Button - INPUT TYPE="BUTTON" is now
        supported by the Form Tool.

      o Textarea Wrapping - The TEXTAREA WRAP attribute is now
        supported by the Form Tool.

      o Improved Alignment - LEFT and RIGHT aligned images are
        now shown WYSIWYG.  Inlines can now be aligned TEXTTOP,
        ABSMIDDLE and ABSBOTTOM in addition to the normal
        alignment parameters.

      o Alternate HTML - Certain tags such as the APPLET tag
        allow the author to specify alternate HTML, which is
        now viewable through a mode switch in the View menu.

      o Scrolling Backgrounds - Background images now scroll
        when you scroll the page.  Also, the background image
        field has been split into two fields:  one for the
        local file and one for the published URL.

      o JPEG and PNG - Cosmo Create now supports WYSIWYG
        inlining of progressive JPEG and PNG images.

3.3 Hot Content: Fetch Pages from the Web


      o This feature enables you to enter a URL into Cosmo
        Create and fetch the page from the web, provided the
        preferences are filled out appropriately (see "Setting
        up Hot Content", below).  There are three ways to get a
        URL into Cosmo Create:

          1.  Type a URL into the File->Open dialog (See
              "Browse Feature" below)

          2.  Drag a WebJumper into the File->Open dialog

          3.  Enter a URL as a command line argument

        Any of the above actions will cause Cosmo Create to
        attempt to fetch the page from the web.  Press "Cancel"
        in the "Progress:" dialog to stop the download.

      o Setting up Hot Content - Cosmo Create will attempt to
        acquire the network preferences from Netscape.  If your
        netscape is correctly set up to get outside the
        firewall, Cosmo Create should be able to do the same.
        In the event that Netscape is not properly configured,
        you must go to File->Preferences Proxy tab panel and
        fill in the SOCKS and PROXY information accordingly.
        Check with your system administrator if you are not

        certain about the value of these fields.

      o Browse Feature - The File->Open dialog, as well as the
        dialogs popped up from any of the "Browse" buttons, is
        a mini web browser.  Entering a URL into this dialog
        will cause the "Filter" button to change to say
        "Follow".  Pressing the "Follow" button will cause
        Cosmo Create to commence fetching the URL currently in
        the text field and will display the links, and inline
        objects in the file list.  To traverse another link,
        select one from the list, and again, press "Follow".
        Pressing OK will cause the value from the text field to
        be returned to the dialog from which the browser was
        popped up.  Pressing Apply in that dialog will cause
        the inline image, background image, or other web
        reference to be fetched into the document.

      o Saving inline images along with the HTML - Cosmo Create
        allows the saving of inline images in the same
        directory as the HTML for web fetched pages. To use
        this feature, open the URL via any of the above
        methods, modify the resultant page in some way.  When
        the warning dialog pops up, make sure the checkbox for
        saving inline content along with the page is checked,
        then click Save to save the page.  The images will get
        written into the same directory as the HTML.

3.4 Changes and Additions in Cosmo Create 1.0.2


      o A "WYSIWYG Tables" item has been added to the View
        menu. When this is turned off, tables are displayed
        using graphical icons to represent the individual HTML
        table tags, and the table itself is not drawn.  This
        isn't as pretty, but it is sometimes desirable for
        speed.

      o Cosmo Create 1.0.2 now provides Chinese language
        support.

      o Pressing Save in the Preferences dialog now applies the
        preferences to the current editing session in addition
        to saving them.

      o Whether palettes raise with the document window is now
        a user settable preference.

3.5 Changes and Additions in Cosmo Create 1.0.3


      o To specify an empty VALUE attribute in a form OPTION or
        INPUT tag, enter "" in the value field of the form
        dialog.

      o The Delete and Backspace keys can now be used when
        editing frames to delete the selected frame(s).

      o Cosmo Create now uses an explicit keyboard focus policy
        instead of a pointer focus policy. This means that you
        must explicitly click in a text field or editing area
        to set the keyboard focus for data entry.  This change
        brings Cosmo Create into compliance with the SGI IRIX
        Interactive Style Guide and will make editing within
        text fields more convenient.

      o Selection of form components is now much easier. A text
        field or text area can be selected by simply clicking
        on the component. Similarly, a toggle, option or push
        button is selected by pressing on it and a list
        component is selected by pressing on one of the list
        entries.

      o The Cosmo Create editing window's position on the
        screen and its size are now preserved between runs of
        the program.

      o The View Menu settings are now automatically preserved
        between runs of the program. Previously, these settings
        were only saved when the program preferences were
        saved.

      o Empty lines that are ignored by browsers are now
        indicated by both changing the end-of-paragraph symbol
        (the paragraph symbol enclosed in square brackets), and
        by displaying a message in the editing window status
        bar.

      o A set of HTML tag reference pages has been added to the
        help documentation.  These pages provide detailed
        information about which browsers support which HTML
        elements, attributes and values.

      o Detailed HTML tag reference information can be obtained
        for any tag in the Source editing window by positioning
        the cursor over the tag and either selecting the Lookup
        HTML Tag item on the Edit or right-mouse popup menues
        or by pressing Ctrl+F1.

      o Instead of using proprietary HTML comments, Cosmo
        Create now uses the more conventional META tag with the
        NAME="Generator" attribute to identify itself in HTML
        output.

      o Cosmo Create now provides user tips on startup.