TextSpinner is kit consisting of an AppleScript and ready-made templates that enables you to create a small site from text files in specific folder.
The result from running the script is a complete collection of HTML pages with:
- a frame with table of contents linking to all pages inside another frame,
- pages containing a column with the table of contents or
- classic HTML pages with links to the next and the previous page.
To use this kit you are required to know some basics on how to use AppleScript and the Script editor.
You can find out more about how to modify and use AppleScripts in the documentation inside the "AppleScript_Documentation" folder located in PageSpinner's Documentation folder.
Please make a backup copy of this folder, and use this copy before you start modifying the contents.
It is always great to have a backup copy around if something goes wrong...
If you are using WorldScript with double-byte character input you should edit the template files and use the menu File : Set Filing Options... to set each file to be saved in the format Mac TEXT.
If you are not using a double-byte character set such as Japanese, you are recommended to set the Default filing option in PageSpinner's preferences to save new files in the format ISO Latin-1 to get most of the ASCII characters with codes > 127 to be converted correctly.
The TextSpinner AppleScript is relatively large, so to use the script you are recommended to enhance the memory setting for Script Editor to at least 1000-1200K, by selecting the Script Editor application in Finder and use Finder's Get Info command to show a dialog where you can specify the memory settings for an application.
To use TextSpinner:
Before using the TextSpinner script you should look at the sample pages included - these contains additional information. Drop the file "view_me.html" onto your browser to see the files located in the folder named "Sample Web Files". These files have been created by the TextSpinner Script from the text files in the folder named "Sample Text Files".
To modify the contents with your own files:
- launch PageSpinner
- open the AppleScript "TextSpinner Script" with Script Editor
- edit the line preference section to contain the path to the TextSpinner folder and select which formats you want to create the pages in, the script is by default set to create all three formats available
- run the script
- the script will ask you to select the folder where the source text files are located, select "Sample Text Files"
- the the script will ask you to select the folder where to save the generated pages, select "Sample Web Files"
- open the file named "view_me.html" to see the different types of pages generated.
When you later modify the source files, you can place these in new folders and create and use other folders where the generated files should be placed in.
The TextSpinner example is provide "AS-IS" as a more advanced example on how AppleScript can be used with PageSpinner. Pleas note that Optima System doesn't have resources to give any help or support with AppleScript, but we are of course interested in bug reports and suggestions for improvements or new scripts.
