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XTND HTML Translator

Version 1.0
Written by:

Brian A. Sullivan and Jonathan Ryan Day

All rights reserved.

This translator is for use in editing HTML documents in Macintosh applications that support the XTND System. It allows translators, written independently of the application, to import and export file information to and from the application. We used ClarisWorks 2.0 for testing and making various formatting decisions, which may appear different in another application.

Note: Version 1.0 is export-only. Subsequent versions of the translator will opening HTML files as well as saving them. For now, it is recommended that you keep copies of the documents in the application's native format. This will allow you to easily edit them later.

System requirements

The XTND HTML Translator requires the XTND System, which should be included with an XTND capable application. Machine requirements include System 7.0 or higher, and if you are using ClarisWorks, you must have version 2.0 or later.

How to install the XTND HTML Translator

If you have an application that supports the XTND System, then you probably will have a folder named "Claris" in your system folder. In it should reside a file called "Claris XTND System" and also a folder called "Claris Translators". Put the XTND HTML Translator in the "Claris Translators" folder. When you try to save a file in an XTND-capable application, the XTND System looks to see what translators are located in this folder. It will now appear in your "Save As" listing of file formats.

How to save a document as an HTML file

To save a document as an HTML file, simply go to the "Save As" dialog box as you normally would to specify the name and format of the saved file. In the menu marked Save As, click and scroll to select "HTML". Select the correct directory, name the file and click on Save. That's it. It is helpful to keep track of the file format of you documents by adding extensions to the filenames, such as "myfile.html" for an HTML file, or "myfile.cw" for a ClarisWorks file, but this is not necessary.

Export style guidelines and conversions

To simulate the HTML text styles in the word processor, we used the values that are defaulted to in NCSA Mosaic 1.0.3 for the Macintosh. There are limitations of what can do in HTML, so we tried hard to imitate what we could. Here's a listing of certain text attributes in ClarisWorks, and how they map to HTML:

- Bold, italics, and underline = <strong>, <cite>, and <em>

- Headers: If a piece of text is bold, it is checked for size along a range.

20pt. <= size...........Header 1

18pt. <= size < 20pt...Header 2

14pt. <= size < 18pt...Header 3

12pt. <= size < 14pt...Header 4

10pt. <= size < 12pt...Header 5

9pt. <= size < 10pt...Header 6

Because our default settings also map normal bold text to 12pt. text, we don't translate

anything to Header 4 on export.

- Hard returns in the document are forced in the HTML browser by <BR>.

- Tabs do not have a matching HTML tag, so we simulate them by pretending they are list

items. Therefore, tabs can only be used from the left margin, not in the middle of a line,

i.e., no text tables can be made.

- Special characters: In HTML, '<', '>', '&', and '"' are special characters and must be

escaped. The translator simply echoes the corresponding escape code.

- Unsupported characters (page numbers, date characters, etc.) are changed to spaces, or

simply ignored.

How to make HyperText links

Footnotes are seen by the translator as a signal for a HyperText link. If you are translating a document that was created using the ClarisWorks stationery (see below), then follow these steps:

- Highlight the text that you want to be seen as the link anchor, that is, the text that you

would want to click on in the browser and go to the next location.

- Click on the macro in the Shortcuts palette. This will automatically change the style and

color of the anchor text to make it look like would in Mosaic. A footnote mark will be

inserted, and you will see footnote text instructing you to fill in the Uniform Resource

Locator of the document you are linking to.

- Replace the text "INSERT URL HERE" with the URL of the destination document. A

URL is the method by which file locations are represented over the World Wide Web. It

has the general form: scheme: //host.domain [:port] /path /filename

(For more information on HTML and URLs, see NCSA's HTML Primer).

If you are not using the macro, footnotes will still trigger the translator to try and make a link. As long as you make the anchor text look different style-wise, and create a footnote to store the URL, it should work. If, however, you don't make the anchor a different style, the translator will try (and probably succeed) to make a HyperText link using the entire last text stream (up to 255 characters) as the link anchor.

About in line images

You can have images pasted in to your text document - the translator saves the pictures to individual files, and references them inside the HTML file. If you are going to have the HTML document located somewhere else, these image files must be moved with the HTML document itself, for they are noted as being in the same relative directory as the HTML file. In version 1.0 of the translator, the images are saved as PICTs. This works fine if you are viewing the HTML file from your local machine in the WWW browser, but PICTs are not the standard used on the Web. In order for other people to be able to access the images in the document, you will have to convert them to either GIF or XBM format. In doing this, you might have to change the HTML file to reflect a change in picture filename. Subsequent versions of the translator will save them in a different format, probably GIF.

A note on images in a document. Presently, we cannot get any information on images that have been created inside a word processor (like ClarisWorks) and are left in the draw layer. To make sure your image will be saved, just cut the picture out, and paste it back in as a piece of text.

Using the ClarisWorks stationery

Although the translator will handle almost any document you can edit in your application, it is easiest to compose HTML documents using the ClarisWorks "HTML Document" stationery that should come with the translator. It contains HTML defined styles that appear in the Style menu and has the "Create HyperText Link" macro discussed above. The macro is document-specific, but can be used in other documents by adding the macro to the ClarisWorks application macro palette.

To do this, open a new document in ClarisWorks, using the stationery menu to select "HTML Document(WP)". When you click on OK, you will get a blank page, but with the default HTML styles already defined. You can add the link macro by selecting Edit Shortcuts... from the File->Shortcuts menu. Select "Application" under "Installed Shortcuts" and highlight the link macro in the "Available Shortcuts" window (probably at the bottom of the list). Then, simply click on ">>ADD>>" and hit OK. The HyperText Link macro button should now show up in the shortcuts palette for every document.

YOUR COMMENTS ARE WELCOME!!!!

We are still adapting the code, trying to find formatting conflicts and see if there are ways to fix them. Please note any incorrect/inaccurate HTML mappings and tell us about them! This translator is Shareware, and may be distributed freely.

______________________________________
Brian A. Sullivan
binky@eecs.umich.edu
Jonathan Ryan Day
jrday@eecs.umich.edu ADME.html
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Brian A. Sullivan and Jonathan Ryan Day
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