.net (French) 1996 November/.net Magazine (FR) - Issue 01 - Nov 1996.iso/mac/Edition Web/HTMLedit173-ppc/HTML.edit 1.7.3 (ppc)/HTML.edit 1.7.3 (ppc).rsrc/TEXT_8506_New Features.txt

Text File | 1996-09-16 | 14KB | 117 lines

New Features

Most of the new features are covered under specific topics. Sorry for the length; there have been a lot of changes:

⌥ New Simplified HTML.edit Tools Palette Option
Version 1.7 now includes a checkbox option (on Editor Preferences) to use a simplified version of the HTML.edit Tools palette. The simplified palette doesn't include support for forms, tables, document hilighting or indexing, but it will suffice for many documents (or HTML.edit beginners).

⌥ FORMS Support
Version 1.7 sports new HTML Forms features. Forms support includes all HTML 2.0 form widgets, including conversion of a text selection into radio buttons or popUp menus.

⌥ TABLES Support
Version 1.7 also features HTML Tables, including importing, exporting and translation (text to table, table to text), with a choice of delimiters each direction (eg. comma, tab, etc.).

⌥ New Forms, Tables and HTML Format Tool Palettes
Three new floating palettes to speed document formatting, available as a "Show Palette" command at the bottom of their respective menus.

⌥ New Find & Replace Commands
Version 1.7.3 includes new multi-mode Find (Command-F) and Find Again (Command-G) commands, as well as an improved Replace command (including first occurrence, selection only, current document, and global replacement), all located under the Utility menu.

⌥ Customizable HTML Elements
Version 1.7 simplifies the transition to HTML 3.0 with the addition of two features: the Style menu on the floating tool palette is created from the contents of modifiable HTML style tables located in HTML Preferences, and the Clip Library, a floating window that stores often-used text which can be entered into your document simply by clicking on the desired item. Text can be cut or copied to the Clip Library from the Edit menu.

New in 1.7.1: A third style submenu ("Custom") has been added to the Style menu. Also, any line in the Clip Library containing three items (in the same format as the Style menu's style tables) is treated as a custom HTML tag. See Clip Library Custom HTML Elements for more details.

⌥ Conversion Commands
Table conversion, unwrap text, paragraph conversion, a text preprocessor and other text conversion commands have been added, all under the Utility menu.

⌥ Key Shortcuts
A number of added key shortcuts speed markup of text. As a sample, Shift-Enter selects the current paragraph (in preparation for adding <P> and </P> tags using Option-Return); Command-Shift-E adds <EM> tags, while Control-Shift-E adds <EM> tags but removes any existing surrounding tags; Control-Delete removes the tags surrounding the current text selection. This in addition to the key shortcuts from previous versions.

⌥ Save & Restore Preferences
Beginning with Version 1.7, HTML.edit saves current settings (including the Hotlist, all conversion tables and libraries) to a Preferences file. Settings may be restored at any time from a stored Preferences file. This allows easier transitioning between HTML.edit versions, as well as personalizing the editor for multiple users.

⌥ Document #include Feature
Version 1.7 features a document inclusion feature, similar to the C programming language's #include statement. Check out the new Custom Entity feature found on the Conversion Preferences section. You can assign up to ten custom entities to the contents of any document, master header or footer. On export, the specified contents are inserted into your document in place of the custom entity. This allows for greater modularity and reuse of HTML coding.

These custom entities show up under the hierarchical menu command "Insert Custom Entity" on the Utility menu.

⌥ Paste File Command
Located under the Edit menu, the Paste File command pastes a selected text file at the current insertion point in your document.

⌥ Export Conversion Table
Version 1.7 now features a customizable Export Conversion Table, which allows you to leave translation of special characters or strings until the document is exported, allowing easier reading of your source documents while in HTML.edit. How about all instances of your name turning into either a mailto: or link to your personal page? Or all those European words with their many diacriticals? Check Conversion Preferences for more information.

⌥ Document Preview Menu
Supports both WWW browser Preview as well as browsing of online documents via the BASE address of the current document, a manually-entered URL, or a URL from the Hotlist. This is all implemented using the new Preview menu. You can also set your browser's View Source application to HTML.edit to capture and view online documents.

⌥ HTML Element Indexing and Hilighting
At the bottom of the HyperText, Anchor, Heading and Style palette menus is the Index HTML command, which returns a list of instances of a specific HTML tag within your document. Also available is the Hilight HTML command. This will hilight the chosen tags rather than returning an index list. This is particularly helpful in hilighting (ie., underlining) the hypertext of your document. The choice of font and hilighting style is set under Editor Preferences.

⌥ New, Simplified Anchors
For creating quick named anchors and hypertext links, TouchLinkΓäó simplifies the process enormously. Simply select the destination text, choose the TouchLinkΓäó command (Command-Shift-L), then navigate to the linking document (if different than the destination), select the link text and click one button on the floating palette. Presto! Both link and destination are created, even between separate documents on the same server.

For creating quick links to the previous, next or a selected document, a simple Command-7, 8, or 9 (respectively) creates the link at the current insertion point in your text. Additionally, holding down the Option key while performing this shortcut adds the document TITLE as the hypertext. See Anchor menu for more information.

⌥ Table of Contents Generation
You can now automatically generate a Table of Contents of all documents in the editor, or just those with a selected label. You can also generate a table of contents of the Named Anchors within the current document.

⌥ Character Entity Entry, Conversion and Reconversion
Allows simplified entry and conversion of special character entities to HTML representations (such as ΓÇÿ├╝ΓÇÖ to ΓÇÿüΓÇÖ, ΓÇÿ&ΓÇÖ to ΓÇÿ&ΓÇÖ), as well as reconversion of HTML character representations to their original special characters using three commands in the Entity submenu under the HyperText menu. This should be of help to European WWW users who wish to retranslate downloaded HTML source to readable text. Version 1.7 now includes an Export Conversion option to convert special characters upon export, allowing easier reading of source documents that contain many diacritical marks. See Conversion Preferences for more information.

⌥ Import/Export Hotlist, Clip and Image Libraries
Now you can import Mosaic and Netscape bookmark files, as well as import and export the Hotlist, Clip Library and Image Library as text files. The Hotlist menu is now created from a list of anchors, and allows you to view the title of the URL on the menu, not the URL itself.  See HotList & Image Library Preferences for more information.

⌥ Application Window Size
Note that you can option-drag on the document (not application window) zoom box, which brings up a popup menu to resize the HTML.edit application window. You can drag the resize box (in the lower right corner) to make the window as large as you wish. Note that very large windows will take up more memory. No, I'm not kidding. It's a larger bitmap space, so it needs more memory. If you're confused about the window terminology, check Window Elements for a visual description.

⌥ Keyword Utility
Allows simple collection of keywords by clicking on words in your HTML document. Text in the keyword field can be used for the META element's CONTENT attribute where HTTP-EQUIV="keywords". Don't worry if you didn't catch that last one. Neither did I. For more information, see the Utility menu.

⌥ Balloon Help
Includes balloon help for most on-screen buttons and fields.

⌥ PowerPC™ Native Mode Support
Now available in three versions: the "68K" version for 680x0 (non-PowerPC) Macintoshes; the "PPC" version, which runs in native mode on Power Macintosh platforms (only); and the "FAT" version, which runs on either a 680x0 or Power Macintosh.

⌥ This editor is a standalone application and does not require HyperCard to run. It's larger than a stack, as it includes the HyperCard engine. The advantage is that HyperCard 2.3 is not required to use it. Since we're still operating in the HyperCard environment, I've added an automatic stack compaction feature, also set by Compacting Preferences.

⌥ The Index card has been substantially improved, with a cleaner interface and new document management features (such as sorting and labelling).

⌥ Performs HTML structural error checking. The Add All Structural Tags command found in the palette Structure submenu (under the HyperText menu on the Tool palette) adds all structural elements and checks for duplicates and correct placement. Yes, you can fool it, but it works pretty well.

⌥ Supports an Undo command which restores the original text selection.

⌥  <P>, <BR> and HTML 2.0 <P></P> paragraph codes are entered by typing Option-Return, Shift-Return and Option-Shift-Return, respectively. This is a modifiable option set under HTML Preferences. Now includes sensing of cursor position: type option-return when the cursor precedes a paragraph closing tag </P> and HTML.edit will create a new HTML paragraph on the next line.

⌥ Creating HTML anchors (which provide the WWW hypertext links) is now provided with the Anchor Utility, which provides a common interface for both hypertext links and named anchors (targets). This includes popUp menus for selecting links to documents within the editor as well as external text files. If the path to the HTTP server folder is set (from Paths & Labels Preferences on the Preferences card), the relative path to selected documents is maintained.

⌥ And back by popular demand! The Anchor menu again displays the Quick HyperText Link and Quick Named Anchor commands, which use a minimalized dialog box version of the Anchor Utility to create quick and dirty Hypertext Links or Named Anchors. See the Anchor menu for more information.

⌥ HTML.edit remembers the full pathname to an exported document, so you can update the entire contents of your server with a single command from the Index card. You can also set the target location by using a document label associated with specific project folder (not implemented yet in 1.7).

⌥ Creating image elements is now provided with the Image Utility, which provides an interface for creating URLs similar to the Anchor Utility. This includes a popUp menu for selecting from a stored list of images URLs (located on the Preferences card) or selecting external image files. If the path to the HTTP server folder is set (from Paths & Labels Preferences on the Preferences card), the relative path to selected external image files is maintained.

⌥ Creating <BASE> elements is now provided with the Base Utility, which provides an interface for creating URLs similar to the Anchor Utility.

⌥ There is now no limit to the number of Master Headers or Footers stored within the editor, as they are now handled similarly to documents, and optionally show up on the Index. Each Master Footer has available a Footer Utility to build the HTML for author and curator information, and is now more accessable on smaller screens. The new Footer Utility is resizeable, allows for column width resizing, includes email addresses, and allows for copying of the Author/Curator table between Master Footers. You can also preview a Master Header or Footer by typing Command-J.

⌥  A global URL hotlist has been added to the Preferences card. This list is appended to the URL popUp menu, and can be used to easily create HyperText Links. The Add to Hotlist button on the Anchor Utility adds the current URL to this list.

⌥ The Remove HTML command (found under the Utility menu) removes simple as well as most complex HTML tags from a selection of text.

⌥ You can drag TEXT files onto an already running HTML.edit application and they will be imported into the editor. See Import for more information.

⌥ The Editor Window is now sizeable up to 1024 by 1024 pixels. Option-drag on the document (not window) zoom box to display a popUp menu of standard window sizes, or use the Scroll Window.

⌥ Each document is divided into a Header, Body, and Footer section. This is designed to help you create a more standardized interface for your projects, and also allows for documents larger than 30K characters. See Document Structure for more information.

⌥ This version allows a selection of editor text fonts and sizes, selected from the Editor Preferences.

⌥ Another new option is automatic display of the Tool Palette upon entering the Editor window. Command-T hides or shows the Tool Palette. There is also a visual description of the HTML.edit application window -- see Window Elements.

⌥ The Delete Forward  button now works, admittedly slower than Delete (since I have to trap the keystroke and do my own Undo routine).

Back to Project Strategy, on to Installing HTML.edit, or return to HTML.edit Features.