Linux Unleashed, Third Edition:HTML Programming Basics





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Developing Web Pages on Windows
As mentioned earlier there are a lot more tools available on Windows machines than Linux for developing HTML code. You can easily develop the code on your Windows system then move it across to Linux, if you run both machines. Windows- and DOS-based HTML tools come in three varieties: WYSIWYG HTML editors, non-WYSIWYG HTML editors, and add-in converters for documentation applications such as Word for Windows or WordPerfect.

Probably the most popular non-WYSIWYG HTML editor for Microsoft Windows is HTML Assistant. It is a text editor with a few additional features and a graphical interface that lets you insert the most commonly used HTML tags quickly. It allows you to open multiple windows simultaneously with cut-and-paste between them.

Tip:  To obtain a copy of HTML Assistant through FTP, log in through anonymous FTP to ftp.cuhk.hk and check the directory /pub/www/windows/util for the file htmlasst.zip.

HTML Assistant has one major limitation: File sizes cannot be larger than 32KB. Large Web pages cannot be written with HTML Assistant unless you do them in sections and then combine them by using another editor. If you attempt to edit a file larger than 32KB or write enough material to exceed that limit, you can get “Out of Memory” errors and potentially lose some work.

HTML Assistant has good on-line help as well as a few useful features, like the capability to automatically instruct a Web browser to load the document you are working with so you can see how it looks properly formatted. Using this feature, you can flip between the code and the formatted screen easily, ensuring the layout is correct. This helps alleviate the problem of having a non-WYSIWYG editor.
HTML Assistant also helps you construct URLs. It maintains a list of the URLs you use, too, so jumping to any of them is quite rapid.
HTMLed is another shareware HTML editor for Microsoft Windows. It is a fast editor with full foreign character tag support and the capability to read and save in either DOS or UNIX formats. A neat feature of HTMLed is the capability to convert a URL in a MOSAIC.INI file into an HTML document while retaining the original structure. It is also relatively easy to convert ASCII documents to HTML with HTMLed, as compared to HTML Assistant.

Tip:  To obtain a copy of HTMLed by anonymous FTP, connect to ftp.cuhk.hk and change to the directory /pub/www/windows/util. The file is htmed10.zip (later versions may increment to number).

HTMLed doesn’t have multiple rows of buttons for tags as HTML Assistant offers. Instead, it uses a set of pull-down menus and a customizable toolbar for tags. Several toolbars can be created, with tags embedded as icons. The toolbars can “float,” meaning that they can always move on top of the current document. The current version of HTMLed has no on-line help, although help is planned for a future release.

HTMLed has a clever insertion process for tags that knows the format and prevents multiple tags on a line (when illegal). This helps prevent one of the most common HTML tag errors. Like HTML Assistant, HTMLed has a button linking to a browser for rapid comparison of the code and the formatted document.
Softquad’s HoTMetaL is an almost-WYSIWYG editor that is probably the preferable editor for anyone starting to write HTML pages. HoTMetaL is available for Windows and some UNIX platforms. A reduced functionality version (which is still pretty powerful) is provided as freeware, while a full-blown commercial version (HoTMetaL Pro) is also available from Softquad.

Tip:  A copy of HoTMetaL can be picked up at most utility sites like NCSA and CERN. Try the Web page http://info.cren.ch/hypertext/WWW/Tools and the file HoTMetaL.html.

HoTMetaL is an integrated editor and display utility, which, while not quite WYSIWYG, provides you with a good view of what your final document format will look like. HoTMetaL almost forces you to write proper HTML code, as it checks for proper tags at the start and end of the document, and only allows tags to be inserted where legal. (This is a very useful timesaver for new HTML users.)

HoTMetaL can check your code for you and display messages about problems with tags (usually encountered when a document from another editor is imported, because HoTMetaL won’t allow you to make the mistake in the first place). Unfortunately, the line in the document that HoTMetaL fingers as the guilty line is not always the one causing the problem.
HoTMetaL does have a couple of drawbacks. Any images (.GIF files) that are added to a document are not visible within the HoTMetaL window (you must load a Web viewer to see the results). Also, any document that doesn’t conform to HTML code practices can’t be loaded or conform to a set of rules that do not enforce proper style. This can be a problem with older HTML pages.
An alternative to using a dedicated editor for HTML documents is to enhance an existing WYSIWYG word processor to handle HTML properly. The most commonly targeted word processor for these extensions is Word for Windows, Word Perfect, and Word for DOS. Several extension products are available, of varying degrees of complexity. Most run under Windows, although a few have been ported to Linux.
The advantage to using one of these extensions is that you retain a familiar editor and make use of the near-WYSIWYG features it can provide for HTML documents. Although it can’t show you the final document in Web format, it can be close enough to prevent all but the most minor problems.
CU_HTML is a template for Microsoft’s Word for Windows that gives an almost WYSIWYG view of HTML documents. Graphically, CU_HTML looks much the same as Word, but with a new toolbar and pull-down menu item. CU_HTML provides a number of different styles and a toolbar of oft-used tasks. Tasks such as linking documents are easy, as are most tasks that tend to worry new HTML document writers. Dialog boxes are used for many tasks, simplifying the interface considerably.
The only major disadvantage to CU_HTML is that it can’t be used to edit existing HTML documents if they are not in Word format. When CU_HTML creates an HTML document, there are two versions produced, one in HTML and the other as a Word .DOC file. Without both, the document can’t be edited. An existing document can be imported, but it loses all the tags.
Like CU_HTML, ANT_HTML is an extension to Word. There are some advantages and disadvantages of ANT_HTML over CU_HTML. The documentation and help is better with ANT_HTML, and the toolbar is much better. It also has automatic insertion of opening and closing tags as needed.



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