Turnbull China Bikeride/Turnbull China Bikeride - Disc 1.iso/ARGONET/PD/WWW/HTML2.ARC/!HTML²/!Help

Text File | 1996-09-23 | 13KB | 255 lines

Name     : !HTML²
Purpose  : A macro insertion tool to make HTML even easier!
Author   : Richard Goodwin
Status   : Freeware
Version  : 2.01 (August 1996)
Features : User definable macros for all common HTML commands split over four
           windows - Styles, Effects, Characters and Addresses

This application, along with the files contained within, © Richard Goodwin
1996.  This application may be freely distributed by any means AS LONG AS:

* all files remain intact, with the possible except of the macro definition
  and option files but...
* wherever possible the default definition and option files should be the ones
  used in distribution copies
* no unreasonable charge is made.

Quick User Guide:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Load it.  Click on iconbar icon.  Window opens.  Click on icon, stuff appears
in text windows with input focus.  'Nuff said.

Preamble:
~~~~~~~~~
Anyone can create World Wide Web pages on the Acorn range of computers; all you
need is a text editor, such as !Edit, and preferably a web browser to test your
pages.

However, the most annoying thing about doing it this way is the repetition of
having to type in common commands over and over again.  I tried using normal
macro insertion tools, but they just didn't quite work how I wanted - too slow,
couldn't see enough buttons, forever having to define or load definitions etc.
So, I wrote one myself!

In fact I wrote more than one, and users of the original can drop their
original definition files on to a running copy of this latest version and hey
presto - their original definition files can be used (and even saved as the
default!)

Starting Up:
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pretty simple really.  Double-click on the !HTML² icon to load it, and four
small icons appear on the icon bar; these are "S", "E", "Ç" and "A", which
stand for "Styles", "Effects", "Characters" and "Addresses" (and NOT a certain
well-known games console company :).  Clicking with the LEFT mouse button opens
the window for that set of macros; clicking with the RIGHT mouse button will
load the macro definitions for that set of macros into your text editor.  Of
course the MIDDLE mouse button will open a menu, and this is the same whichever
icon you're over at the time.  Note that due to the size of the icons you do
have to be fairly accurate with your mouse pointer; to make the icons any
bigger would take up a large amount of icon bar!

The menu and the choices window are explained later in this file.

Editing Macros:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Looking at the definition files you can see that everything is pretty self
explanitary; altering the text after "HEAD=" will define the macro for
the Header macro; it can be any length up to 255 characters, with
any characters apart from a carriage return (which the program takes to be the
end of the definition) and a backslash - "\".  (The backslash is used to tell
the program to insert a carriage return when typing the macro, so
line1\line2\line2
will come out as
line1
line2
line3
in case you really must have that carriage return!)

Obviously with 255 characters to play with this means that where you define,
say, what <H1> will look like, you can actually have lots of effects added to
it; if you want all headlines to be centered, bright green and have a line
straight through them you can, just by putting these in the H1ON definition!
Just make sure when you define NOH1 to switch them all back off again though...

The only special cases to macro definitions are the colours for the colour
palette; you can ONLY have a set of six characters after the "=" sign, and
these characters are the hexadecimal numbers to define the red, green and blue
parts of the colour in the standard RRGGBB format.  If you don't understand
this way of defining colours... well, I've put quite a nice selection on there,
perhaps you ought to leave them like that... ;-)

As well as defining macros, in some cases you can even change the writing that
appears in the icon for that macro!  For instance, you can change the icon that
says "Address03" to read "My email address".  You control this by altering any
macro definitions that end in "TAG", such as "AdTag03" - defs are for defining
the actual macro, and tag is for defining the icon.  These will be restricted
to a certain length depending on the icon.
Here's an example:
AdTag03=My email address
AdDef03=<a href="mailto:[e-mail]">Richard Goodwin</a>
The icon will say "My email address", and when it's clicked on you'll get the
"<a href...." stuff inserted into your text editor.

Safety First
~~~~~~~~~~~~
If any of the definitions files are accidentally deleted, there's no need to
worry.  Firstly, !HTML² won't crash if it doesn't find the file - it just
defines its own macros and uses them.  These are almost identical to the
example definition files supplied.  Secondly, if you do lose a definition file
you can click on "Save definitions as default" to generate new ones.  Or if
you've /just/ lost a file, look in "!HTML².Backups" - there might be a backup
file (it does this when you click on "Save definitions..." just in case).

A lot of work has gone into making sure you don't crash the program with bad
definitions: definitions /don't/ have to be in the same order, the names
/don't/ have to be in capital or lower case letters, and /don't/ have to be all
there - !HTML² checks the file for any macro or tag definitions, and if it
finds any it converts the variable part at the front to capitals automatically
then matches them up with the correct program variables.  All you have to do is
make sure there's an "=" right after the definition with gaps, 'cos if there
isn't it will be ignored.  Finally the numbers in the definitions (i.e. the
"03" in "AdTag03") don't have to have that leading zero, it's just there so
that everything lines up nicely.  You can even have completely blank lines in
your definition files, they'll just be ignored.

Other safety features: you can click on a second macro button while a macro is
already being typed it won't interupt the first; !HTML² will simply wait until
the first is finished, then start typing the next one.  You can chain together
quite a few commands like this if you're fast enough!  However, if you try too
many (i.e. if adding another macro to the chain would exceed the maximum
permitted length) then !HTML² will just beep at you and do the ones it can.

Special Features
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can also have lots of macro files - if you drop a text file
onto the iconbar icon or any macro window it will be parsed to see if any
macros can be found, so you can have a whole set sitting on your hard drive...
Note that these are cumulative, i.e. loading a new definitions file only
overwrites the macros and icons which are defined in that file and leaves all
the other macros alone, so if you just create a file with "AdDef01" defined and
drop this onto !HTML², every other definition will be unaffected.  If you drop a
set of macros onto the icon and think, "Hmm, wouldn't it be nice to have those
as the default ones," then just click on the "Save definitions.." option in the
Choices window and the program will make it so - or you can get the program to
do this for you every time you quit.

This means that users of !HTMacroL can drop their User file on !HTML² and can
use almost all of their definitions; if you look inside "!HTML².Examples" you'll
find an old User file, plus three files containing just palette information -
ColorsAcrn has the Acorn 16 colour desktop palette, ColorsGrey has 32 shades of
grey, and ColorsNorm has the default full-colour palette.

But the fun doesn't end there - dropping other types of file onto !HTML² also
does groovy stuff!  JPEG and GIF files will cause !HTML² to insert the code
necessary to display that image!  HTML files will add links to that file!
Archives and Sparkives will be linked to!  By combining macro buttons and
this drag-and-drop stuff you hardly need to type at all now...

The Menu:
~~~~~~~~~
 ___________
|__HTML__2__|
|Info      >|  - pretty obvious really
|-----------|
|Styles     |  - opens "Styles" window
|Effects    |  - opens "Effects" window
|Characters |  - opens "Characters" window
|Addresses  |  - opens "Addresses" window
|-----------|
|Choices  > |  - allows the saving of window states etc.
|Reload     |  - if you alter a definition file, click this to use it instantly
|-----------|
|Quit_______|  - Quits the program, removes all four icons; with the right
                 options selected it can also save window states and macro
                 definition files.

The Options:
~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Autosave window states:
  If this is switched on then when you quit !HTML² it will save the position,
  size and scrollbar postion of each window and whether it is open or not.
  Next time you load up the windows will have these attributes, and opened if
  necessary.  Note that if you change to a smaller screen mode I've made sure
  the windows can't go off the side of the screen, so windows will be pushed
  in to the available space.  You can use the "Don't use window states on
  startup" to delete the definition file.
* Autosave macro definitions:
  With this ticked quitting !HTML² will cause the macro definitions to be saved
  as the default ones to use.  This is handy if for instance you're forever
  dropping different colour palettes on to !HTML² - the last one used will be
  loaded next time.

* Save window states as default:
  This saves the position, size and scrollbar postion of each window so that
  next time you load up !HTML² the windows will be in your favourite places.
  See the bit about "Autosave window states:" for more info.
* Reload window states:
  If you've saved your favourite window states then moved the windows around,
  you can instantly set them back to your prefered places with this button.
* Don't use window states on startup:
  Using this option will remove the file storing the window states, and so the
  !HTML² windows will remain closed and when opened will be in the postion I
  defined as defaults.  If you use "Save window states as default" or quit the
  program with "Autosave window states" switched on then obviously the windows
  will again be opened wherever you've told them to.

* Save definitions as default:
  Saves the current macro files to disc, and makes a backup of any files already
  present.  If you've dropped a definition files, such as a new colour palette,
  on to !HTML² then you should use this button if you want to keep these colours
  as your standard ones.
* Reload definitions:
  If you don't like the changes you've made by dropping definitions file onto
  !HTML² then use this to get the default ones back.  Also, if you've made
  changes to the definition files then click on this to use them straight away.
* View scripts:
  This opens the directory with the definition files in it.
* View backups:
  This opens the directory with any backups of definition files in it; backups
  are made when you "Save definitions as default" (or use the "Autosave macro
  definitions" feature).

Have fun!
~~~~~~~~~
I'm sure you'll come up with other uses for !HTML² - as it inserts text into
text editors, word processors, email programs, even some writable icons you can
build up frequently-used phrases, email addresses and so on; there's even a
customised version of this program out there just for inserting IRC commands :-)

Rich, Nov. '95 - Aug. '96.
Email [e-mail]

Versions:
~~~~~~~~~
1.00: first version
1.01: when I actually got round to using it in a real situation, realised I'd
      forgotten to include <center> and </center>.  Oh well...
1.02: added polling after each character insert so that characters didn't get
      lost and line feeds didn't screw up the text underneath.  Slows it down a
      little, but not too much.  Tested in StrongEd, Edit and Zap.
1.03: Clicking on a button while a macro was part-way through insertion stopped
      the first macro and the second took over.  Now they'll form an orderly
      queue, space permitting (otherwise you'll get a beep).  Speed increased
      by only polling every fifth character (or on a linespace or space).
1.04: Added </P> button and changed default centring commands to be compatible
      with Netscapisms/HTML3.  Distributed via ArgoNet WebPack package.
2.00: Seperated into 4 windows (and so 4 icons - easier than I hoped!); finally
      got it to do a colour palette; figured out changing writing on buttons.
      Reload function added, as well as the loading definitions into a text
      editor.  Dropping files on icon/windows to do file-specific macros (or
      load as definitions) added.
(IRC Macro version 1.00ß limited release; RichMacro, the same but with
      different sprites, put to work to add different sign-offs to the end of
      all technical support emails, and insert frequently-used phrases into
      emails too :)
2.01: Window position saving finally added thanks to Jason Tribbeck; this file
      updated and example files added.  Released via ArgoNet WebPack package.
2.02: Added code to check for presence of MicroSpell module.  MicroSpell checks
      all keyboard input for spelling, but couldn't quite handle HTML2's speed.
      Now a check is done for MicroSpell, and if it's there a one character at
      a time mode is used; this is done on the fly, so if the MicroSpell module
      is loaded/killed while information is being processed it'll automatically
      adjust.