Version history
Version 1.4.1, 2 April 1997
- A few changes to the HTML 3.2 package to make it agree with the final
recommendation from W3C 14 January 1997.
- Alpha can now optionally save a window without asking when you send it
to your browser.
- If you have more than one version of the same browser and one is running,
Alpha no longer tries to launch the second one when you send a file to
the first one.
- You can now set the line width of your HTML documents (fillColumn
variable).
- A couple of bug fixes. In particular a bug which in a few cases would
extract the wrong width and height of gifs and jpegs has been fixed.
Version 1.4, 21 January 1997
- Files outside home page folders are considered to have URLs like
file:///path/to/file.html. This implies that you can now check links
between all files, not only the ones in your home page folders. Similarly
you can make links via a file dialog between all files, and
cmd-double-click now works for all files.
- Improved integration with Big Brother. (You need Big Brother 1.1 or
later.)
- Each home page folder can have a corresponding include folder, where you
can put all your files to be dynamically included. This include folder is
mapped to the same URL as the home page folder.
- Move files works for files in these new include folders.
- 'Update folder' and 'update file' for include files.
- Case-sensitive link checking.
- You can now choose if you want to check anchors when you check links.
- Unsafe characters in URLs are coded when they are inserted, e.g. space
becomes %20.
- Long opening tags are wrapped when they are inserted.
- Cmd-double-click on an include tag opens file.
- Home page URLs no longer have to be specified in two pieces.
- 'Check links' didn't work for anchors with spaces. Fixed.
- 'Check folder' can now optionally check subfolders.
- 'Convert NCSA map' couldn't correctly translate circle areas. Fixed.
- When image maps are converted, the default URL is now put last.
- color_9 ... color_15 can be used as keyword color.
- The predefined colors are replaced by the 16 ones defined in HTML 3.2.
- HTML manual can be opened from the menu.
- Added onReset to FORM.
- Added HEIGHT to TABLE.
- SHAPE=DEFAULT removed from HTML 3.2 package.
- ALT is now correctly a required attribute of AREA.
- A couple of other minor changes and bug fixes.
Version 1.3, 17 November 1996
- New submenu 'Browsers' where you can add all your browsers, and quickly
choose which one to send files to. ('Choose browser' is gone, and as a
concequence changed the key binding for SCRIPT back again.)
- 'Check links' now checks anchors.
- Fixed a bug in 'Check links' for links like HREF="#anchor" in files
containing a <BASE HREF="url">.
- Improved error handling in 'Move files' and 'Update home page'.
- Fixed a bug with include tags split into two lines.
- 'Includes' now works for paths containing the characters "<>.
- Similar fix for 'last modified date'.
- A few other minor changes and fixes.
Version 1.3b2, 4 November 1996
- The HTML prefs file (if any) sometimes wasn't loaded in 1.3b1. Fixed.
- Modified Table template.
- New Tabs to Rows dialog.
- Function to import a table from a file.
- Make list can now optionally insert list tags.
- Untitled windows could not be sent to browser. Fixed.
- Updating dynamically included files now
changes last modified date.
- Importing an exported URL cache missed first URL. Fixed.
- You can now go back in 'Clean up cache' dialog.
- BASEFONT added to HTML 3.2 package. (Included in the latest draft from
W3C.)
- Described in this help file how to easily bind any menu item to any single
keystroke.
Version 1.3b1, 22 October 1996
- You can now define more than one home page folder, each containing files
of different sites.
- Support for dynamically included files.
- Conversion of NCSA and CERN image map files to client side image maps.
- New interface for defining colors. You can now also define a color by
specifying its hexadecimal number.
- New interface for footers.
- When selecting a GIF or JPEG file for <IMG> via a file dialog its width
and height are automatically determined. The algorithm for JPEG is taken
from the perl script 'wwwimagesize' by Alex Knowles, alex@ed.ac.uk,
and Andrew Tong, werdna@ugcs.caltech.edu.
- The URL cache can be exported to a file for later use.
- You can scan any file for URLs and import them to the URL cache.
- The names of the files in a folder can be imported to the URL cache.
- Last modified date can automatically be inserted when you save a file.
- Link checking can be done with Big Brother by François Pottier.
- Function to change choices directly in the document.
- Translation of <>&.
- A user friendly settings dialog.
- Cmd-double-click on a color attribute brings up a color picker and let
you change the color.
- Ctrl-q to skip the rest of the attributes in status bar.
- Required attributes are asked for again in status bar.
- Links checks can be done in the current window.
- 'Comment' and 'Comment line' insert HTML comment or JavaScript comment
depending on the position.
- Funcs menu lists headers H1-6.
- Function to select the content of a container.
- Shift-ctrl-opt-space bound to
- Table template optionally without TABLE tags.
- Comment color in JavaScript coloring can be changed.
- 'Reveal color' has moved to new 'Editing' sub menu, and has got a new key
binding.
- Added ARCHIVE and MAYSCRIPT to APPLET.
- Some other minor changes.
Version 1.2.2, 3 October 1996
- You can now change browser for preview (option on 'send file to browser').
As a consequence, the key binding for SCRIPT is changed.
- 'Check links', 'Move files' and cmd-double-click now correctly interpret
links like HREF="#anchor" as pointing to the file itself and not to
"index.html#anchor".
- The same functions now ignores "news:" links like they always have ignored
"mailto:" links.
Version 1.2.1, 12 September 1996
- Move files no longer remove
blank lines in the moved files.
- Special window names _self _top _parent _blank correctly set to lowercase.
- 'Mark file' didn't find header when opening tag was split into two
lines. Fixed.
- HTTP-EQUIV is no longer a required attribute of META.
- Value of NAME attribute to A, MAP and FRAME wasn't added to cache when
tags were set in lowercase. Fixed.
Version 1.2, 3 August 1996
- The package HTML 2.0 is removed, since it is out-dated. From now on
there will only be two packages, one with the latest official HTML and
one where extensions have been included.
- There is now only two way to input
attributes, the dialogs introduced
in 1.1 and the status bar.
- Improved behavior when attributes are
given in the status bar. ctrl-z to
cancel, ctrl-f for a file dialog or new color. When a value is chosen
from a popup window, Alpha immediately jumps to the next attribute.
- A new userfriendly way to add new HTML elements.
- A function to move files between folders and automatically update all
links to and in them.
- Changed JavaScript coloring. Only reserved words are colored, not built
in methods and properties. Comments in JavaScript are now colored.
- A window cache just like the URL cache. Frame names are automatically added
to this cache.
- A new submenu with plug-ins.
- JavaScript's event handlers can now
optionally appear in the attribute dialog.
- Only one menu item for <A>.
- Added SRC to <SCRIPT>.
- Added <NOSCRIPT>, <MULTICOL> and <SPACER>.
- Added FRAMEBORDER, BORDERCOLOR to <FRAME>.
- Added FRAMEBORDER, BORDERCOLOR, BORDER to <FRAMESET>.
- Added FACE to <FONT>.
- Added onMouseOut to <A>.
- Added onAbort, onError, onLoad to <IMG>.
- Added onClick, onMouseOver, onMouseOut to <AREA>.
- When trying to add a link via a file dialog, windows with ' <n>' added to
the window name were asked to be saved even if they already were saved.
Fixed!
- Send file to browser didn't work for windows with ' <n>' appended. Fixed!
- Problems finding the browser fixed.
- Reveal color didn't find color attribute if color wasn't quoted. Fixed!
- Check links didn't find BASE if it was split into two lines. Fixed!
- Check links and cmd-double-click now correctly interpret paths of the form
"./file.html".
- Check links and cmd-double-click now search for a file
index.html when a link points to a folder.
- Check links didn't work for files with UNIX or IBM newlines. (All links
were found to be ok.) Fixed!
- Some lists couldn't be inserted when using the status bar. Fixed!
- 'Change opening' didn't work for INPUT elements in lower case. Fixed!
- The variable htmlElemAttrsForAll is no longer supported.
- Some other minor changes and bug fixes.
Version 1.1.1, 17 June 1996
- Rewrote some of the code so that HTML mode loads faster.
- The menu Use Attributes is disabled when it is not needed.
- Added <U> and <NOEMBED>.
- The new suffix mapping is used to determine if a file is a HTML file
when deciding which files to scan to check the links.
Version 1.1, 21 May 1996
- The HTML elements are put into three packages, HTML 2.0, HTML 3.2 and
Extensions.
- Support for JavaScript coloring and editing.
- A function to check that all links between files in your home page are ok.
- Attributes to an element can be input in one single dialog box,
rather that giving the attributes one after another.
- When you are asked about an URL attribute, you can choose a file via a
file dialog. The relative path is automatically inserted.
- "Fill paragraph" is now sensitive to HTML elements.
- cmd-doubleclick on a relative URL opens the file, or if it does not
exits, it can create a new file and save it in the right place.
- You can define a new color when you are asked about a color attribute.
- You can define files with footers, which can be automatically inserted
when you create a new document.
- Control that a value given to a number attribute is valid.
- Control that a value given to a color attribute is valid.
- New dialog box for "New document" where you can choose which elements
you want in the head, and also select a file with a footer to insert in the
end of the body.
- Character translation can be done in a selection. The translation is also
a lot faster.
- Tab marks can be removed in a selection.
- "Select container" and "Untag" now find the correct pair of tags when
there are elements of the same kind within each other, like a <TABLE> within
a <TABLE>.
- "Select container" and "Untag" now ignores all tags without a closing tag.
- A function to select a tag with no closing tag.
- A function to untag a element with no closing tag.
- A function to untag a container and automatically select the content.
- A function to change an element in the document.
- New key binding for untag: ctrl-F1. It has been bundled with the new functions
just mentioned.
- Mark file now finds headers with opening and closing tags on different
lines. Each menu item is limited to 30 characters, not to make them too long.
- If you use any of the two old ways of inputting attributes, you can
set a flag for each element, so that you can optionally be asked about the
attributes not chosen in the "Use attributes" menu.
- A table template function, to quickly make tables.
- With "Tabs to rows" you can now optionally put table headers in first
row and/or column.
- "Rows to tabs" now follow the HTML code, not the line breaks in the file.
- A function to insert <BR> at the end of every line in a selection.
- A function to remove every <BR> in a selection.
- A function to insert <P> at empty lines in a selection.
- A function to make a HTML list from a *'d list.
- Undo is now easier, although you sometimes still have to make two "Undos"
to undo something.
- For attributes which can take any value, beginning and ending spaces are
no longer removed. Sometimes these spaces are wanted.
- When <A NAME="xxx"> or <MAP NAME="xxx"> is inserted, "#xxx" is added to
URL cache.
- New dialog box for cleaning up URL cache.
- Two identical colors can no longer be defined.
- New elements STRIKE and DFN.
- New element <INPUT TYPE=BUTTON> in extensions package. To be used
together with JavaScript.
- A couple of new attributes added so some elements.
- For the AREA element, a check is made that you use one of the attributes
HREF and NOHREF is used, but not both.
- The key binding for "Comment line" have been changed to ctrl-C-L to
conform with other modes.
Version 1.0, 25 March 1996
- A lot of new elements are included.
- It's possible to define colors to use as background color, text color etc.
from a color picker.
- Translation of accented letters (é, á etc.) to HTML entities and vice versa.
- The attributes of the elements are divided into required and optional ones.
If you skip a required one, no element is inserted. You can no longer make
elements like <A></A>.
- For some elements there is a separate key binding as well as menu item to
automatically skip all attributes.
- Improved behavior when the status bar is used to input attributes.
- Untagging works better.
- Marking of the file works better.
- Plus a number of other small changes.