!xyWWWiz
most recent revises
4 july 2001
Tap your !BetterThanAverageTaggingTool key at the beginning of text you want to tag and take cursor to the end (or tap the key, then type the text): Tap the key again and type a char--"a" = <a ... > "b" = <b>, " 1" = <h1 ... >, etc. The deed is done. If <a ... >, you'd have blocked the name of the file or label or mailto address; !BetterThanAverageTaggingTool waits while you move your cursor to the place where you want it to insert the </a>. When you block <title> content, !btatt also takes care of structural tags like <html>, <head>, and <body>.
If the tag has attributes, !BetterThanAverageTaggingTool prompts for the value of each so you needn't type attribute names: !btatt inserts names and values (or nothing or a value-TK attribute=""). !btatt also embraces blocks with some iso8859 entities (in the previous graf, "a" etc were made with "/" pairings, <a ... > etc with </> pairs). With nothing blocked, !btatt inserts a few others like and &.
For proofing, !BetterThanAverageTaggingTool key->"j"= Jump this page to browser. !BetterThanAverageTaggingTool key->"c" = render in browser the !xyWWWiz Quick Reference WWW-Safe HTML Color Chart bundled with both releases.
<lynx alert> gui browsers render each of the next 16 chars in a different color</lynx alert>
Easy color tagging: Of the 216 colors most browsers render on most systems, those 16 (including the silent final g--the same silver shade as the default background) are considered safest. (On my laptop's 256-color screen, e.g., at least 20 standard-216 light hues print white.) When you tag body, tables, and fonts attributes, !BetterThanAverageTaggingTool prompts for the safest 16 colors and inserts the associated hex code as the value.
You can of course tag the full html color spectrum manually. The !xyWWWiz Quick Reference WWW-Safe HTML Color Chart displays each standard-216 color (with hex code and name) as background and as text against a safest-16-color background. The chart, a !xyWWWiz and xyWin/nbWin !BetterThanAverageTaggingTool component, also is downloadable as a separate zip.
When the page you've tagged is ready for upload, to make it consistent with unix standards the !xyWWWiz !BetterThanAverageTaggingTool converts newlines--the line ends xyWrite documentation calls "carriage returns"--to linefeeds and stores without the invisible 'net-no-no dos eof marker xyWrite adds to every file. And why doesn't the xyWin/nbWin BetterThanAverageTaggingTool port do this too? Ask TTG. (I vent my frustration in some comparative notes on Signature+ gui releases and NoteTab.)
Both versions now can can insert
a file name to supply an href=
or src= value: Place your cursor on the target
html or img file name
in a dir list in the adjacent
the window, or in file
if it's open there, and back in the page
you're tagging tap your !BetterThanAverageTaggingTool
key twice, then a for <a> or g for <imG>.
(The feature was implemented in the nbWin/xyWin port
29 August 2001.)
An optional quick-start
front end lists tags and
launches your !BetterThanAverageTaggingTool of
choice. (For technical reasons, !xyWiz module
names begin with a bang! So, as a set of *.U2
frames, not an independent pgm, technically
the xyWin/nbWin
port of !BetterThanAverageTaggingTool
is simply BetterThanAverageTaggingTool.
If you use xyWin or nbWin and cringe
at the mention of U2 files, not to worry. Whether or not
you already use a U2, BetterThanAverageTaggingTool
prep is trivial and the port won't dominate your
system and can't affect other pgms.) If you try out
the port with xyDos4, please let me know how it works.
xyWrite 3 autoreplace is a mixed blessing. The feature is fabulous, but pers.spl makes a fearsome hit on memory. !BetterThanAverageTaggingTool lets you remove tagging stuff you've put in pers.spl and maybe regain some memory.
What !btatt doesn't do and probably never will: tags for frames, DHTML, applets, and scripts. Otherwise, !xyWWWiz would put xyWrite 3 in the same league with any text-editor-style dedicated html editor.
Validation services and software don't tell the whole story. Even if it checks out, you may be able to make your site accessible to more visitors painlessly. (To skip noteson two popular low-overhead browsers, click the first link on the low-tech tagging tips page.)
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No automated tagging utility is perfect, but you might like to give the !xyWWWiz module !4www a shot. !4www translates some xyWrite formatting to html, inserts the usual structure tags, and has a set of protocols for some tags xyW has no equivalent for.
In addition to the obvious--«mdbo» to <b>, «mdbr» to <i>, etc--!4www converts xyW column tables to html tables (makes each new «co1» a new <tr>) and converts xyW indented sections to html lists. !4www can handle anything from an unformatted ascii 32-127 file to a fairly complex pretagged file. To some extent, it can overcome xyW's antagonism to nesting almost anything, but that gets into xyWrite as neo-typesetting tool and you may find the process more labor-intensive than it's worth to you. A !4www tagging tool with the same interface as !BetterThanAverageTaggingTool helps. Run !4www with the thorough !xyWWWiz documentation open, and you'll get a page you can keep as a demo and an easily navigable reference in your browser.
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Other !xyWWWiz tagging assistants:
-
If you nest page sections for layout purposes you
know all too well that as you tag a section it's
distinct enough, but maintaining a multiply nested
page can be a hair-tearing job.
:
The programming language style convention
of indenting nested
code simply doesn't translate to
an environment where tags melt into text visually.
!xyWWWiz !Nests
wends through a page and comments with a matching
number up to 999 the sectional start and end of
each instance of any designated tag. If you don't
designate a tag as a CMline arg, !Nests defaults
to <table> (the !xyWiz documentation
html port has 142 [!]). Not a cure for nest
confusion, but may prevent baldness. !Nests also is
useful for analyzing pages from other sites.
- !lcTags tries to help bring tags into compliance with xml requirements by lowercasing them.
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Tip: If !BetterThanAverageTaggingTool didn't exist, I'd tag with the NoteTab html clipbook that employs a similar strategy. The 32bit freeware/shareware's no more a dedicated html editor than xyWrite 3 is a dedicated word processor. Both are expandable text editors. But without intruding on its basic text editorness, two tagging Clipbooks bundled with all three flavors turn NoteTab into a stealth authoring editor. Even with !xyWWWiz and even if NoteTab weren't the best gui text editor I know, one built-in NoteTab html service--the geewhiz kind we used to be able to expect from XyQuest--by itself would make NoteTab worth downloading and installing as a Web assistant: Drag the name of an image file from a dir quick list to a displayed html file and NoteTab automatically builds an <img> tag complete with height= and width= values.
But keep in mind: Less image sizing, xyW3 !xyWWWiz !BetterThanAverageTaggingTool's option to build an anchor or image tag around a file name it inserts is akin to dragging a target file's name from a NoteTab quick list into a page you're tagging. If you want you can dedicate a !xyWWWiz and xyWin/nbWin !BetterThanAverageTaggingTool key to rendering the page you're working on in your browser--just like NoteTab's <F8>. Like NoteTab, !xyWWWiz !4www can tag a file automatically; unlike NoteTab, !4www converts xyWrite formatting to html tags. !xyWiz's !YetAnotherTagStripper strips tags but preserves URLs and converts some html formatting tags to xyWrite formatting. To strip all tags or to hide them temporarily use !xyWiz !nosee'em. The !xyWWWiz Quick Reference WWW-Safe HTML Color Chart provides comprehensive color information. Etc, etc. Etc.
In the final analysis, !xyWWWiz has two invincible advantages over other html editors that require you to Alt+Tab to your browser to preview: !xyWWWiz never forces you to reach for a rodent and !xyWWWiz keeps at your constant disposal the xyWrite engine's familiar text processing power.
Compass: The table of contents at the end of each linked page at this site lets you shift laterally to other local pages, get back to the xyWrite and xyW/PostScript index page ("overview"), download the zipped files the docs describe, and explore other resources.
