Using Pick Lists to Select Local Anchor Targets

When you are working on an HREF anchor in the Anchors dialogue box, you can obtain some types of HREF string by using pick lists and browsers.

If the required anchor is a relative reference to a local file, it may be selected from a directory listing by clicking on the Files button. You will then see a standard Windows file browsing dialogue box, from which you may select the required file. You may select any file, but it should be one that can be handled by the HTML browser or its helper applications. You can also select files with either the .DOC extension or the .HTM extension. In both cases, HTML Author will replace the filename extension with .HTML in the anchor name. If the file selected is on the same drive as the current file, HTML Author will insert it as a relative pathname from the directory containing the current file. Otherwise, it wil use the absolute pathname.

If you click on the Names button HTML Author will attempt to produce a pick list of the NAME anchors available in the target file indicated in the URL field. This is only possible if the URL field contains the pathname of a local (DOC or HTM) file, not a full URL. If the URL field is blank, the list of NAME anchors will be created from the current file. (Note. If the .DOC version of the file is available, the NAME list will be generated from this file in preference to the .HTM version.) When the anchor is inserted into the document HTML Author will prefix the name with the # character as required by HTML.

If the required anchor is a reference to another section of the current document (in multi-file documents), you may select this by clicking on the Sections button.

When working with relative pathnames in the source file, HTML Author uses DOS pathname conventions, i.e. a backslash character (\) separates directory names. However, when the HTML is generated, all backslash characters in anchor names are replaced with forward slashes (/).

NOTE: If you use this facility to create relative references to files in other directories, it is important that the local directory structure you are working with is identical to the local structure on the World Wide Web server in which you intend to place you HTML files. This ensures that relative pathnames will still be velid when you transfer your dcuments to the server.

Selecting Anchor Targets from a Bookmarks File

The BookMks button, available in the Anchors dialogue box when you are editing an HREF anchor, allows you to select a URL from a pick list generated from an HTML "bookmarks" file. This has been designed to work with Netscape's bookmarks file, providing access to all your Netscape bookmarks, but any HTML file containing HREF anchors may be specified as the bookmarks file.

You may specify the location of the bookmarks file using the Options screen, which is available in the HTML Author menu. If you wish to use the Netscape bookmarks file, simply click on the Netscape button in the Options screen. HTML Author will attempt to locate the file path using Netscape's .INI file. (You must have netscape installed to use this option.)

Copying Anchors from Netscape

Anchors to remote pages may be extracted directly from Netscape. To do this, go to Netscape by clicking on the Browse button at the botton of the Anchors dialogue box (or switch to it using Alt & Tab), go to the page you wish to reference, switch back to HTML Author using Alt & Tab, then press the Copy URL button. This will copy the current URL from Netscape and, if the TEXT field is empty, will copy the Document (HTML) Title as well. It is important that you have Netscape installed and are connected to the Internet when you use this option. Before you can use these options, you will need to specify where HTML Author can find the Netscape browser software. This is achieved from the PathOptions command in the HTML Author menu.