DeScribe Copyright DeScribe, Inc., 1988, 1989 Letter (8.5 x 11 inches) IBM4070I IBM4070I IBM42XX IBM 4070 IJ IBM 4070 IJ IBM4070I Letter (8*5 x 11 inches) Letter (8*5 x 11 inches) Info 1 Info 2 Info 3 Info 4 Helvetica Welcome to a DeScribe WYSIWYG Stylesheet You are looking a file prepared by this stylesheet The appearance is close to what you will see on the WWW The purpose of this stylesheet and macro is to let you develop text pages. With little or no experience you can build a WWW page and also learn about HTML coding.. This is a vision test! This file is both documentation and a learning tool. Dave Palmer, January, 1997 dpalmer@wln.com Please, Please resist the temptation to alter this file. The point size is set up to simulate the view you would see on the WWW. If you see an extra line, please leave it in, as it is needed and will be explained later. Throughout this documentation I assume you have this file and, later, the macro stored on your disk and that you remember where you stored them and what names you gave them! This DeScribe style has been tested only under the OS/2 version. No testing or claims are made for any other version of DeScribe or any other operating system. Users have my permission to freely distribute this in anyway they see fit. Please include all of the documentation and macro in any further distributions. This package implements most of the common text HTML commands. This version, January 25, 1997, includes the ability to automatically generate hot links to sections in your document. Hot links can be to all heading 1 statements or all heading 2 statements. If your document has one major book title and you used a heading 1 for the book title and heading 2 for chapters you would want to link to heading 2 statements. If your document is like a has only chapter headings and they are all heading 1, then you would want to link to heading 1 statements. s Begin! Font this size and style is a heading 1 or h1. Font this size and style is a heading 2 or h2. Font this size and style is a heading 3 or h3. Font this size and style is a heading 4 or h4. Font this size and style is a heading 5 or h5. Font this size and style is a heading 6 or h6. How to start? (a short demo) If you have not done so, please use your right mouse button to bring up the Style palette option and then select it with the left mouse button. Place your cursor and click your mouse on various lines in this document and see the corresponding style item selected. You will find that every text item corresponds to one of the styles. Next? (to complete the demo) HTMLZDOC is the file you are reading. There is another file, HTMLZALL, which is the macro. (Those who don t like this macro and style combination can simply erase them and go about their business as I won t try and defend my methods or techniques.) irst Save this file on your disk as a DeScribe Tagged ASCII (this is one of the options on the SaveAs menu which DeScribe presents to you). You can of course Export it as a DeScribe Tagged ASCII file. Then Close the file. Then Reopen the file as an ASCII file. Use the Utility, Macro, Play sequence to Play the macro htmlzall against this file. If you want hot links (hyper links) generated for heading 1 or heading 2 statements or not at all, respond to the questions in the way which meets your needs. This macro will translate the DeScribe Tagged ASCII to html. You must save the output on your disk, be sure to give it a file extension of HTML. When this is done, exit DeScribe and use your Web Browser software to see the results. You will need to know how to point your browser to files on your disk. NOTE: The macro verifies two things: DeScribe Tagged ASCII format and a Style Palette name of HTML. If either are incorrect the macro will terminate. NOTE: The previous 6 steps are the only ones which require the macro. All the rest of the tasks can be done using this document. The macro is not needed to enter or display data using DeScribe. Some Very Basic html abbreviations You have already been introduced to the various heading levels. The other unexplained abbreviations used in the style are as follows: p is the abbreviation for paragraph. This is the normal for regular typing or keyboarding text. center is used to center word on a lin by themselves b is the abbreviation for bold and is used as shown. u is the abbreviation for underline and is used as shown. li is the abbreviation for list item. List items appear as bullets or numbered. ol is the abbreviation for the term which starts an ordered list. ul is the abbreviation for the term which starts an unordered list (bullets) (Note: the above list of definitions is typed as separate paragraphs instead of a list. Why? Right now the macro does not support the use of underline or bold in a list item.) Some of you will notice that I did not include the greater than or less than symbols around those abbreviations. That s because the macro devours them! Some very basic keyboard and style information. Entering new data with this style You will find it easiest to enter data if you remember to do a few things: Before you type a heading or a paragraph, select the appropriate style from the style menu When typing always let DeScribe word wrap your lines. At the end of a paragraph, heading or list item then depress the enter key When you are typing and want to bold or underline, select your choice, type the words, then re-select the paragraph style choice, with your mouse, to return to normal typing. When creating lists: Select the list item style element choice (ol li or ul li) and type your items. Remember no underline or bold words in a list! Remember to switch to a new style palette element when you are done with the list items. Underline and bold in a sentence or at the end of the paragraph! If your line of information has in it or terminates with a bold or underline word(s), it must be followed by Paragraph style selection then Space bar and then, at end of paragraph, an Enter key depression When you are done creating data and lists: When you are done save your file. Then you must SaveAs a DeScribe Tagged ASCII or export it as DeScribe Tagged ASCII. Next open this file again, this time as an ASCII file and then run the macro against it. Save the resulting file as this is the HTML file you really want! Editing an existing data file with this style If your existing data file was created with this style, read this, otherwise go to the next section. An existing data file, created with this style, can be edited in the traditional DeScribe manner. Keep in mind, though, you are not able to use the rich DeScribe functions. Use only those functions that this style sheet provides! If you use other techniques from the Tools or the Menus the results are unpredictable and you are off in never-never land all by yourself. Simply type your corrections where ever they are needed. If you are changing something from bold or underlined to something else, select the data to be changed and select the new style element from your style list. When you are done editing save your file. Then you must SaveAs a DeScribe Tagged ASCII or export it as DeScribe Tagged ASCII. Next open this file again, this time as an ASCII file and then run the macro against it. Save the resulting file as this is the HTML file you really want! If your existing data file was created with another style, read this. In this case you must open up a file or document w ith this style. Some people use DeScribe layouts. Others simply pick up an existing and compatible file and delete the old data. Once you have a blank document w ith the correct style sheet, IMPORT or Paste your data file. Once it is imported, then use the traditional DeScribe methods to select text and identify the appropriate style. Briefly this is done by selecting (with mouse or keyboard combinations) the data (which is then highlighted) - then use the mouse to change the data to whatever html style you want. Again, should you choose to use DeScribe s full set of features, this software will disavow all knowledge of what you have done and the results will be chaotic at best! So the moral of this story is you must stick to the style elements available on the Style Palette. Okay, what are the gotchas When you use this style and the macro, please forget about all the many DeScribe features. There is no way you can use the other features DeScribe provides. You must stick to the choices that the Style Palette provides. If you choose to change the fonts or point size or create normal lists or use any of the standard DeScribe features you will cook your own goose! The only exception that will work is spell check. The rest of the DeScribe features are untested and I ve no intention of implementing any of the many other fine DeScribe features. This tool simply emulates what you see on the WWW and generates the code to accomplish that. HTML is not as rich in features as DeScribe, so, again, please do not use other features while running this package! There are a few HTML goodies that are not implemented here: List items currently cannot use bold or center or underline Paragraphs, as an entity, cannot be underline, bold or center Headings cannot be bold or center or underline Images are not supported. HTML fonts, colors, graphics and images are not implemented. Tables are not implemented (I have a macro to convert DeScribe tables to HTML) Italic is not implemented yet Each of those restrictions can be overcome. When you are done with DeScribe and the macro, then simply edit the output and insert your changes. Dealing with lists will be the single biggest issue. Simply be careful. Failure to do so will make you mad at me. Another gotcha deals with using the mouse to select text. Make certain you select all the text you want to change, including the end-of aragraph symbol. If you leave the symbol out it will retain the characteristic which it previously had (for example an h2 is changed to h1, but the end-of aragraph symbol was not selected and remains an h2 style). Simply take your time and be careful. Okay, now what do I do with style files, DeScribe data files and html files? You need a Style File in order to create new documents like this. One way to create a style file is to select all the data in this document, delete all the data and save the result as a DeScribe layout. Then the next time you want to create a WWW page, choose the File, New, Layout sequence and select this layout (using the name you assigned to it). Or, if you want, send a note to dpalmer@wln.com and in the subject enter only: DeScribe style The DeScribe data file you work with is valuable. Maybe you should keep it. The HTML file is the one you need to go out on the WWW with. So you have to keep it too. But, if you want to throw away the DeScribe file and simply deal with the resulting HTML that is a good choice. It all depends upon your skills and the amount of disk storage you want to devote to this type of information. If you are going to add images, links, and other techniques to the HTML page, then there is no need to keep the DeScribe source. The advantage, to me, to using DeScribe is that it presents any easy way to develop text based WWW pages without learning another tool. Why Use This? Two years ago I wrote a bunch of macros. They did all that this one macro now does. They were fun to work with and a great learning tool, but it took a lot of work to create WWW pages. This package creates virtually everything needed in traditional text processing. Hyperlinks or hotlinks to sections within the document is supported. Support is provided to link back to the top of the document from the linked sections. If your home page has the default index.html a link to it is automatically provided. You can change the default link to any value or name you wish. Now I can create text pages in one-fourth the time or less. Plus I can see them as I create them. And if I want to, and if I set the page layout to horizontal, I can print a proof of the page to work with offline. The other benefit is that I don t have to remember all the nuances of HTML. Once the macro is set up, it will do it over and over. Help, comments, and criticisms and more: As a volunteer and an activist I publish many pages on the WWW. I needed a way to do it and still use DeScribe. DeScribe to me is simply great and I ve no desire to learn other editors or techniques for entering text or building WWW pages. You can see some of my pages on either of two sites: http://www.wln.com/~crc or http://www.wln.com/~dpalmer This is a healthy mind project for me. Too many crises in my life and doing this is a form of mental therapy. It helps to build something every now and then. Given that, I welcome your comments, feedback and ideas. Hopefully this is useful. If it is simply another painful learning experience for you I want to know that too. The macro is a brute force approach. Some of you might find easier, faster or more complete ways to do the same thing. I ll be happy to share your ideas with others and I welcome your thoughts. On my 8 meg 386/40 it takes about 2 minutes to convert this to HTML code. ne of the limits in this macro is the lack of tables. As I mentioned I have a DeScribe macro which will take a DeScribe table and convert it to a HTML table (Table, TR, TD, etc.). It has handled all of my tables and can be used to convert your table data to the HTML equivalent. I have not run into any limits. There is one caveat, if you use extra Enter key depressions to balance out the size of table entries (I.e. the Enter key is used to create spaces in a cell), then this macro will not work correctly. You can use this macro on DeScribe table data, save it as an ASCII file (it leaves the DeScribe borders on the screen so it appears to be junk or unconverted) and import it into your HTML file at the spot you want it. Send me a note with DeScribe table as the subject. I also have a macro which, and this doesn t make sense here, will strip all HTML markup from an HTML file. The result is a file with wrapped lines and normal carriage returns and absolutely no formatting or attributes. Perfect for undoing a file which you have grabbed off the WWW. A note with a subject of DeScribe scrub will do. Have fun. Hope this is useful. You feedback is appreciated. If you choose to send this on to others please include this entire document. Thank you and may your dreams become your reality. Dave Palmer 7475 State Route 12 Oakville, WA 98568 360/273-8117 January 25, 1997 dpalmer@wln.com DeScribe Glossary Create date Create time Document name File name Pages Pages (Alphabetic lower case) Pages (Alphabetic upper case) Pages (Roman lower case) Pages (Roman upper case) Print date Print time Revisions Save date Save time January 15, 1997 9:47 P.M. htmlzdoc.doc C:\tcpip\htmlzdoc.doc November 16, 1997 8:45 A.M. November 16, 1997 8:45 A.M.