New colour selection systems - 24bpp and Named colours
In all instances where previous versions of HTMLEdit displayed an old RISC OS 3.1-style colour selection window, HTMLEdit v6 uses the more up-to-date colour selector, allowing a broader range of colours to be selected, as well as colour selection via CMYK and HSV colour models. This makes HTMLEdit far more flexible in colour picking.
In addition, HTMLEdit v6 includes support for Named colours. A list of named colours is kept in !HTMLEdit.User.Colours. These will be shown on a menu when you click on the colour selection buttons in the various windows. Simply select one of these colours, and it will be shown correctly in most browsers. Named colours have the advantage that they make more sense to we mere mortals! #FF0000 may mean red to a computer, but "red" makes far more sense to us! The standard list of colours supplied with HTMLEdit has been chosen to include those understood by all browsers supporting named colours.
JavaScript properties for links, form gadgets etc.
In many windows, most notably the link (Anchor) window, and the form gadget windows, you will notice that there is now a toggle size icon at the right of the title bar. Clicking on this will reveal spaces for entering JavaScript commands relevant to the window. So, as an example, you can specify a piece of JavaScript to be executed when a link is clicked.
Please note that whilst these options are present to assist in the use of JavaScript in your pages, it is beyond the scope of HTMLEdit to teach you JavaScript, which is a complex programming language similar to C++.
Additionally, the options available by clicking on the JavaScript button on the Plugins toolbar have been extended, allowing you to specify the 'version' of JavaScript you are writing in. This isn't necessary, but can be useful if you plan to make use of facilities only present in later browsers. The code inserted by HTMLEdit now also hides the JavaScript from browsers which don't support it, again making this a much more useful window.
JavaScript "Roll-over" buttons
It is now common to come across web sites in which images change as you move your mouse pointer over them, to indicate that clicking on the button will trigger a change. These rely on JavaScript, but HTMLEdit v6 makes it easy to add these to your pages. You will, of course, need to design the two images which will be used (one image will be shown normally, the other used when the pointer is over the image). Once you have done this, right click on the Image button on the toolbar, and the Roll-over assistant will open.
The assistant describes what you need to do at each stage, so drag in the images when prompted, and tell the program the URL you wish to link to when the button is clicked. Once done, HTMLEdit will insert the appropriate code to allow this to work. Note that this will degrade gracefully on browsers which do not support JavaScript, so the links will still work.
New handling of the Font tag
HTMLEdit v6 allows you to specify the font face to be used for a selection of text. To do this, click on the Font colour/size button on the toolbar. A menu will appear, and you can pick the font from the appropriate sub-menu. Please note that whilst most Windows browsers support the Font Face tag, most RISC OS ones do not, the exception (at the time of writing) being R-Comp's WebsterXL which maps Windows fonts to their RISC OS equivalents.
In HTMLEdit v6, all the font properties - size, colour, face have been grouped together on this menu. However, it is likely that you will want to specify more than one of these attributes for a piece of text. If you wish to do this, select Combination... from the menu, and a window will open allowing you to specify the full set of properties for the text.
Previewing images in the image database
Most windows which give access to the image database now have an extra icon, which looks like an eye. Clicking on this will open a menu showing the contents of the image database, but selecting an image will show you a preview. This allows you to check out the images contained therein before committing to using an image.
Extra dynamic content command, and enhanced previewing
Although primarily relevant only to those designing large web sites, we have added another command to HTMLEdit's dynamic content feature. Dynamic content allows pages to share information between themselves, so that the same design can be used on several pages, but only need updating once. In addition, dates, times and version numbers can be inserted when the page is "published" so that, for example, you can automatically have the last-updated times set.
New in HTMLEdit v6 is the @RELTEXT command, which allows you to specify a shared text file as a relative 'UNIX-style' path for the shared data. This makes moving the site around far more straightforward, but you may still wish to use the old command if the shared files are stored elsewhere on your hard disc, outside of your website directory.
Additionally, right clicking on the Preview button, will now cause the page to be published in the background, and then the preview will be of the published version. This makes working with and previewing pages using dynamic content far more practical and effective.
Remembering positions in the page
When working on longer pages, you may well wish to jump quickly between positions on the page when using HTMLEdit (note, this is only to facilitate editing in HTMLEdit!). To this end, the program now allows for two markers to be set via Ctrl-Shift 9 and Ctrl-Shift 0. Use Ctrl-9 and Ctrl-0 to jump back to the corresponding points in the document.
XHTML and HTML 4.01 support
HTMLEdit v6 now includes XHTML support and defaults to HTML v4.01. These can be found in the list of supported versions for syntax checking. Whilst broadly the same as HTML 4, we feel it is best to support the latest standards in any new release of HTMLEdit.
Target field when linking pages together
When creating links between pages, especially framed pages, you often need to specify the frame or window in which you wish the linked file to appear. This is done by specifying it by name in the Target field in the link window. Additionally various special targets are supported by web browsers to allow the linked file to, for example, fill the whole of the browser window, rather than just a specific frame. These special values are available via the pop up menu next to the Target field in the link window.
Cascading Style Sheet support
HTMLEdit v6 introduces support for Cascading Style Sheets. There have been a number of changes and additions to the program to facilitate this. Please note that at the time of writing, support for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) in RISC OS browsers is best described as 'minimal'. Also, by their nature, style sheets are not particularly 'simple' in that they allow almost every aspect of each tag to be modified - a book or introduction to CSS is strongly recommended.
When creating a page, you will notice that the Advanced version of the HTML 3.2/HTML 4 page creation window now has a toggle size button on it. As well as allowing JavaScript properties to be set for your page, you can also drag in a Style Sheet to the appropriate box. This will result in the browser reading in the styles from the file when it is displayed.
When editing the page itself, two new windows are available. Firstly the <SPAN> tag can be created by right clicking on the Font colour/style button. The <SPAN> tag is used to specify style information for a block of text, in much the same way as the <FONT> tag, the difference being that the <SPAN> tag has its effects set via CSS. In addition, for larger sections of the document, CSS properties may be set via the <DIV> tag, which is available by right-clicking on the paragraph break button.
Both of these tags are controlled by similar windows. The first field (Class) allows you to make use of a pre-defined style (perhaps one contained in a Style Sheet you dragged in when you created the page). The second field (Style) allows you to set CSS attributes for the block without first having to define a proper style. For those with a background in DTP, think of the Class field as a traditional DTP 'Style' whereas the Style field approximates to DTP Effects.
To the right of the Style field is a button which, when clicked, opens a further window allowing the CSS properties to be selected via an easy-to-use window. When you click on the OK button in this window, the code for the effect will be created automatically. The aim of this is to make it much easier for people to create CSS effects.
If you are creating CSS styles for your page by hand, or are setting the style for other tags, this window is available via the HTMLEdit v6 window menu, from the Insert->CSS Style... option. When accessed via this menu, the code will be written directly to the page at the caret. Whilst this is unlikely to be of use to many users, those making extensive use of CSS will find it saves a lot of time.
An additional, minor change for CSS support is an addition to the Meta tags window, activated by right clicking on the Document properties button on the toolbar. Meta tags are additional information stored in the header of the page. Since this is where external Style Sheets are usually linked in, it seemed a sensible place to include an extra space for you to drag them in, just like the field described above used when creating a new page.
!JvScript and !CSSDesign
These two applications can be found on the white HTMLEdit disc, in the CSS+JS directory. They provide useful extensions to HTMLEdit v6's JavaScript and Cascading Style Sheet support. The former consists of a series of JavaScript routines, and macros for writing your own JS, whilst !CSSDesign allows you to create external style sheets, which can be included in pages by dragging them to the appropriate box when creating pages.
