Alpha HTML mode 1.4.1

April 1997

Introduction

HTML Mode is for editing HyperText Markup Language documents (suffix ".html", ".htm" or ".shtml"). Whenever you open or save a file with any of these suffixes, Alpha switches to HTML mode and inserts the HTML mode menu in the menu bar. You can also manually switch to HTML mode with the popup mode menu in the status bar.

HTML mode does not teach you HTML. Therefore you have to know at least some HTML to use it. If you do not know about HTML, I recommend that you read A Beginner's Guide to HTML. It is a good first text to read. I have collected some other links to HTML guides. See the section on HTML Tutorials and references.

The basic idea with this HTML environment is to save you time while typing, by having key bindings for all HTML elements. Also, you do not have to worry about misspelt HTML tags, missing end quotes, or missing end tags. HTML mode is probably most useful for HTML programmers with some experience of HTML, who are looking for an editor that makes the editing easier and faster.

When you use this package, by default you will see bullet characters (), called "tab marks", being dribbled near where you insert elements. These are supposed to be a feature. The tab key takes you to the next one and automatically deletes the bullet. Read the section How to use tab marks to learn to use them in the best way.

HTML mode features

HTML mode knows HTML 3.2 and Netscape's extensions to HTML.
Tools to easily and quickly insert HTML elements and give them attributes. Each element has its own key binding.
Tools to easily change or remove HTML elements.
Tools for building lists and tables.
You can define colors with a color picker to use on your web pages.
You can check that all links between your files are OK.
You can move files between folders and automatically update all links between and in them.
Support for dynamically included files.
Conversion of NCSA and CERN image map files to client side image maps.
Support for editing of JavaScript.
Translation of special characters, å, ó, ü etc. to and from their HTML entities.
Files are sent to your browser with one key stroke.
Any menu item can be bound to any single key stroke.
You can define new HTML elements. Therefore you don't have to wait for Alpha to be updated to use it for new HTML.
etc. etc.

Acknowledgments

First of all, I would like to thank Pete Keleher for writing Alpha, the best editor in the world, without which my TCL code would be pretty useless. I am also indebted to Scott Brim who wrote an earlier version of Alpha's HTML mode. Some ideas and tcl code were taken from html.el for GNU Emacs and latex.tcl for Alpha. François Pottier gave me lots of help with the code which makes Alpha talk to Big Brother. The algorithm for extracting the width and height of JPEG images were written by Alex Knowles and Andrew Tong. Many thanks to Michael O'Henly for making the wonderful Alpha HTML mode intro site. He has also who sent me a list with corrections of the language in this manual. (Don't blame him for the remaining errors!) And thanks to everybody who has sent me suggestions and bug reports. You know who you are.

Feedback

I want feedback! All comments on HTML mode are welcome. Many features in HTML mode were suggested by HTML mode users. Don't hesitate to send me your ideas. In particular, please tell me

about bugs of any kind,
about new feature you want to have included in the HTML mode,
if you think some function behaves stupidly,
if some HTML element is not defined correctly,
if something is not explained well enough in this manual.

You may also tell me that you like HTML mode. :-)

New releases

I have a page with information about HTML mode where you can download new versions before they are included in the general Alpha distribution.

If you want to be notified about new releases, including beta releases, send me a mail and I'll put you on my mailing list.

Johan Linde jl@theophys.kth.se

HTML mode is free. This means that it may be used freely, and distributed freely, as long as the receiver is not obligated in any way by receiving it. HTML mode consists of the files html.tcl, htmlCustom.tcl, htmlElems.tcl, htmlEngine.tcl, htmlExtra.tcl, htmlMenu.tcl, htmlMode.tcl, htmlUtils.tcl, HTML Help and this HTML formatted manual.

However, Alpha itself is not free. It's shareware.

Writing HTML mode has taken a considerable amount of time. Therefore, if you like HTML mode and use it a lot, I would very much appreciate if you send me a colorful postcard and tell me that. It would give me new energy to add new features to HTML mode. Note that emails don't count as postcards. Emails are not pretty enough to put on the wall. My address is

Johan Linde
Lojovägen 61
S-181 47 LIDINGÖ
SWEDEN

Language

My mother tongue is Swedish. Therefore you will, no doubt, find grammatical and other errors in this manual and in HTML mode. Please tell me about any such error you find -- in a menu, dialog box, error message...

But before you complain, I must tell you that I know that "color" is spelt "colour". :-)

Link color

To give you a true feeling of reading an Alpha document, the color of the links in this manual is the same as the color of Alpha's hypertext links.