Copyright: HTML Writer Copyright® 1994 Kris Nosack


CONTENTS
HTML Writer

NOTICE: This help documentation is still VERY preliminary!  The on-line help will be improved soon.  Until then, this documentation should be enough to answer most of the common questions.

Description:  An easy-to-use, Windows-based authoring tool for creating and editing HTML documents.

Some of the features of HTML Writer are:

•	Multiple-Document Interface for working on several HTML documents at once.

•	Support for all the major HTML tags in either drop-down or pop-up menus.

•	A Toolbar for quickly selecting the most commonly used functions and HTML tags.

•	"Remove codes" function to erase HTML tags from a selected text block.

•	URL dialog box makes it easy to create hypertext links.

•	Intuitive "cut and paste" operation.

•	Ability to easily test documents in Mosaic or Cello "on the fly".

Table of Conents

Setup

How to use HTML Writer

    HTML Writer was written by Kris Nosack using Microsoft's Visual Basic 3.0.
   HTML Writer is freeware (in other words, no registration fee is required) but it may not be sold without written permission from the author.  I also ask that all the documentation (HTMLWRIT.HLP, README.TXT and HISTORY.TXT) be kept together with this program.  Although HTML Writer is free, the author maintains all rights to this program.  HTML Writer is NOT a "public domain" program!  If you feel that HTML Writer has been of use to you and you wish to say thanks, contributions are certainly welcome, but in no way required.
   HTML Writer was developed independant of any other work.  Recently, I have seen a few other Windows HTML editors.  I certify that I had finished programming more than 90% of HTML Writer AFTER I had seen, or was even aware of, these other programs.
   Any questions or comments may be directed to the author at:

        Internet:          kris_nosack@byu.edu
        WWW:           http://wwf.et.byu.edu/~nosackk/htmlwrit.html
        CompuServe:   INTERNET:kris_nosack@byu.edu

               Kris Nosack
               376 North Main Street
               Orem, Utah   84057


Setup

This section presents instructions for setting up HTML Writer.

1	Copy the executable (HTMLWRIT.EXE) and this help file (HTMLWRIT.HLP) to a directory of your choosing.  (i.e. C:\WINDOWS\HTMLWRIT)

2	Make sure the VBRUN300.DLL, CMDIALOG.VBX, and COMMDLG.DLL files are in your Windows or Windows System directory.

3	View the README.TXT file for any "last minute" changes or other instructions not included here.

4	Run the program (HTMLWRIT.EXE).

That's all you should need to do to setup HTML Writer!

Note: The first time you test a file in either Mosaic or Cello (using the "File|Test..." menu command), you will be prompted for the location (path) of your Mosaic or Cello executable file (i.e. MOSAIC.EXE or CELLO.EXE).  You should only be prompted for this information once.

All of the settings which are preserved from session to session are stored in the file HTMLWRIT.INI which is created the first time you change any settings within HTML Writer.  If you have any problems with HTML Writer, you may want to use a text editor (perhaps even HTML Writer) to change the entries in the HTMLWRIT.INI file that are incorrect.  The HTMLWRIT.INI file should be in your Windows directory.


How to use HTML Writer

This section will briefly explain how to use HTML Writer.

Getting started

When HTML Writer is started, the main window is opened but no editing windows are displayed.  At this point you can either open an existing file or start a new one (use the Toolbar or the File menu).
When you open a new file, a dialog box will appear to ask you what title you wish to give this document.  Also, if the "Make matching header" box is checked, a level 1 header will be created under the title using the same text as the title.
After entering the title and pressing Enter or clicking on the OK button, you should have an open editing window inside the main window.

Entering and tagging text

Most of the operations of HTML Writer are exactly like any Windows text editor (cut, copy, paste, etc.).  For creating HTML documents, it's easiest if you first type in your text, highlight (block select) the text you want to tag, and then select the appropriate HTML tag from the HTML menu or the Toolbar.

(NOTE: The HTML menu may also be "popped-up" by pressing the right mouse button.)

Since most HTML tags mark the beginning and end of the text to be formatted (i.e. <bold>some text</bold>), these "double-ended" tags should be used AFTER a section of text has been highlighted.  With the text highlighted, the HTML tags will be placed at the beginning and end of the highlighted block of text.  If no text is highlighted, both the beginning and ending tags will be inserted at the position of the flashing text cursor.

The "single-ended" tags are inserted wherever the text cursor is currently positioned in the text.  The single-ended tags are:  Paragraph (<p>), Line break (<br>), Horizontal rule (<hr>), List Item (<li>), Plaintext (<plaintext>), the special characters & (amp;), < (&lt;), and > (&gt;), and the ASCII characters (&#xxx;).  All other tags are double-ended.

There are also a few shortcuts which make the often used paragraph tags easier to place:

•	Control-P will insert a paragraph tag (<p>) at the current position of the text cursor while Control-L will insert a line break (<br>), Control-H will insert a horizontal rule (<hr>), and Control-I will insert a list item (<li>).

•	Use the Toolbar to perform many of the most common operations.  From left to right the Toolbar buttons are: New document, Open document, Cut, Copy, Paste, Bold, Italic, Underline, Heading level 1, Heading level 2, Heading level 3, Bulleted list, Numbered (enumerated) list, Definition list, Paragraph, Line break, Horizontal rule, and Inlined Image.

•	Holding down the Control key while selecting an HTML tag from the HTML menu or Toolbar will add a paragraph tag at the end of the selected tag (i.e. <h2>My Heading</h2><p>).

If you make a mistake, you can easily remove all the HTML tags from a highlighted block of text by selecting "HTML|Remove codes" menu item.  To remove the HTML tags from the entire document, select "Edit|Select All" and then "HTML|Remove codes".

Hypertext links and inlined images

Hypertext links are constructed through the use of the "HTML|Links" menu selection.  Here are the three options:

•	Target.  Allows you to created a named tag which you can jump to using another hypertext tag.

•	Local.  Lets you create hypertext jumps to targets (named tags) in the same document.

•	Remote.  Brings up a dialog for specifying a URL for the remote resource.  All of the resource types are available, although I have not tested all of these yet.  To save some typing, the last 20 hosts and paths you have entered are saved in the drop-down list boxes.

A dialog similar to the URL selector is presented for specifying inlined images (selected from the "HTML|Other|Image" menu path or the Toolbar).  The same "memorized" hosts and paths as the URL selector are available here also.  The alignment radio buttons can be used control the alignment of the text or images which follow the inlined image.

Testing your document with Mosaic

Selecting the "File|Test" menu entry will save the HTML document in the currently active window as $TEMP.HTM, run or switch to Mosaic or Cello (depending on if "Options|Test in Mosaic" or Options|Test in Cello" is checked), and load your file into Mosaic or Cello for you to evaluate.  When testing your HTML documents in Mosaic, you may want to disable automatic home page loading by editing your MOSAIC.INI file.


HTML

An acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language.  HTML 'tags' tell the interpreting program what appearance the tagged text should have or what actions should be preformed.


Mosaic

Mosaic is a World Wide Web client program which reads and interprets HTML documents found on the Internet.  Mosaic is a product of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and is available in X-windows (unix), Microsoft Windows, and Macintosh versions.


Cello

Cello is a multipurpose Internet browser which permits you to access information from many sources in many formats - including HTML documents.  Technically, it's a World Wide Web client application.  Cello is only available for Microsoft Windows.


URL

An acronym for Uniform Resource Locator.  URL is a standard format for accessing the various resources found on the Internet.