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.net (French) 1996 November
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.net Magazine (FR) - Issue 01 - Nov 1996.iso
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arachnid-1.8.5 Folder
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Arachnid ß 1.8.5 Folder
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Release Notes
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1995-10-09
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********NOTE********You CANNOT test the behavior of clickable regions with just a Browser application.
You MUST be running a server to even test the simplest of links. The platform and application itself
determine what has to be done to make maps work. Using MacHTTP or WebStar, another mapserver
application is required. Arachnid's menu supports using MapServe.acgi, imagemap.cgi, and another
application called imagemap.cgi. My tests suggest that MapServe is the easiest to set up. It does not require
MacPearl(which one of the other 2 does) and works seamlessly if it is in the same directory as MacHTTP. If
you link to local files for regions, the files will need to be within the same folder hierarchy as the MapServe
app, so this is where you should put your project and media folder.
Note, Most Unix servers use a file called "imagemap.conf" to hold the paths to map files. The Arachnid
menu of MapServers has a "None" option to allow encoding HTML for unix servers.
Jon Wiederspan has a very good tutorial on setting up maps on your MacHTTP server.
Non WYSIWYG Tags
FULL support for all additional HTML tags and Extensions. The beta 1.5.1 was the first version to specifically
trap for "","&" characters and convert them into the corresponding HTML macros. The export dialog now
lets you choose that as an option. If you Allow HTML Codes, you can directly type codes not supported by
Arachnid. But you do NOT have to type codes.
There are a lot of new commands to insert HTML tags and extensions. For example, to create a Blinking span
of text, simply select the text and choose the Blink command from the HTML TAGS-ON menu, located
under the Format menu. This will insert both the leading and trailing "<Blink>" tag to generate the HTML
needed. HTML tags are inserted as Outline styled text, so they stand out from the WYSIWYG text.
There is an Edit menu command for global replacement of tags. You can specify the range of pages to work
on: only the current page, all of the pages in the project containing the current page, or all open pages.
The rest of Netscape's extensions are supported similarly. Some tags need to be inserted at the very top of the
HTML file to be recognized as valid HTML. Because of this, some codes generated by Arachnid are not
inserted visibly into a text field. Using the ColorPicker, you can select background colors(as many as you
want, they ALL get exported and that's how you create a cascade of colors when a page opens), text colors,
link colors and the File dialog to choose an image file for the background image. These tags are not normally
visible. There is a new Page Info command within the Page menu under the Edit menu to view and change
all of this information.
***text, link, and background colors and images do NOT have a visual representation within Arachnid.
Hopefully in a later version there will be WYSIWYG support for these features but for now you are limited
to only setting the values.
There are additional interfaces for creating Tables, not in any kind of WYSIWYG fashion, but you can set
values for any available options when defining a table or table data tag. When you choose the Table
command, a dialog opens for setting these options. There are popup menus for setting the table's Border size,
height, width, cell spacing and cell padding. When you designate some text as table data, a dialog opens in
which you can set the data's alignment, its height in rows and its width in columns.
**Arachnid requires that actual text be selected to insert these tags. After selecting text and inserting the table
definition tag, you can cut the "" tag from the field and paste it into another field below on the page. Now if
you do the some thing with a table data tag(cut and paste the "" tag into the lower field) you can drag in line
graphics between the fields and have images appear within the Table.
Export option1: There are several new export options. You can choose whether to allow HTML codes within
your text or not. If allowed, you can take advantage of many pull down menus to insert HTML tags and
extensions not previously built into Arachnid. When turned off, you can type "","&" characters normally
and the export will generate the corresponding macros to represent those characters.
Export option2: Default URL for image maps and default MapServer for Mac based servers. Type or paste the
name of a URL for image maps, choose a MapServer application(or none)from a popup menu.
Export option3: Default CGI for Forms. Type or paste the text for the location of a CGI script. If this is entered,
the Export will no longer prompt you to choose a URL. If no CGI location is entered, the export sequence
proceeds normally as it does now.
**Note, to set it up so that Arachnid can be networked, "Get Info" on the application at the Finder and
choose the "Locked" option. Arachnid will now allow multiple users across a network from a locked
volume.
Text that is the destination of another link is now colored and underlined. The code to fix the links within a
field was not detecting this text as links and wiping out the information stored for it. ---------------------------------
----------------------------
New or changed in beta 1.8
The Tools palette is now Closeable. There is a new menu next to the Format menu. This the Tools menu. A
greatly simplified, HyperCard like, version of the Tools palette is available as a pull down menu from the
Tools menu. Unfortunately, unlike the HyperCard Tools menu, Arachnid's is not "Tear-offable". I hope to
have this ready for the next version. This smaller Tools palette is also available with the View menu. Both
Tools palettes have commends within the View menu. Arachnid only allows one of the two to be open at a
time. So if one is open, opening the other will close the palette that was previously open. Command 1 and 2
keys will opens the big and small Tools palettes, respectively.
Entire library of Links, including all URLs and possible project pages links, are now available as a pull down
menu. A Links menu is next to the Tools menu. The Links menu is split into 6 logical types: URLs, page
Links, Movie Links, Image Links, Audio Links, and other Links. A sorted list of each type of link is available
as a submenu of the Links menu. The exception to this are the Page link menu, which is an ordered list of
the pages within your project, and the URLs menu. The URLs menu contains 6 submenus, one for each of
five different types of URLs and another for all remaining types. Based on the Name associated with each
URL, there are sorted lists for: HTTPs, FTPs, MailTos, News, and Gopher addresses.
The Library palette now generates a message when you try to cut URL, page or text links. You cannot perform
these operations with the Library palette.