Multi-File Documents

Large HTML documents may take a long time to access over the World-Wide Web. For this reason, it is recommended that such documents are broken down into collections of smaller, linked HTML files that are retrieved as required. HTML Author supports the creation of such a multi-file document by allowing you to maintain it as a single source document that is divided into sections.

To break a document down into sections, place the cursor at the point where you wish to break the document, and select the New Section command from the HTML Author menu. This will cause the Section Details dialogue box to be displayed.

You should then fill in the form with the name and title of the section. When the HTML files are generated, the Name will be used to create the filename for the section, and the Title field will be used to define the title for the HTML file (shown as the window banner in Netscape). If the Title field is blank, the main document title will be used as the title for the section. In this way, you may create a document in which all sections display the same title. When the OK button is pressed, a section header will be inserted into the source document at the position of the cursor. This appears as a dark red banner with a shadow, containing the name and title details. Each section in the document must have a different name.

When the HTML is generated from a multi-file source document, HTML Author will generate separate files for all the sections, and link them together with HREF anchors labelled "[Previous] [Top] [Next]". These may be used to move up and down the document as a whole. All cross-references (HREF anchors) within the document will be converted so that they refer to the appropriate HTML file. If you have generated a table of contents for the whole document, this will contain anchors to the appropriate HTML files. This manual is an example of a multi-file document generated by HTML Author.

Once you have divided your source file into sections, HTML Author can use it to produce either a collection of linked HTML files or a single HTML file. This is selected using the checkbox labelled Generate Multiple HTML Files in the Options dialogue box, which is obtained using the Options command in the HTML Author menu. This dialogue box also provides check boxes for specifying whether the HTML generator should insert Navigation Buttons (such as "[Previous] [Top] [Next]") at the top and bottom of each file generated. If you choose to generate a single HTML file, HTML Author will separate the sections using horizontal rules.

By default, the Navigation Buttons appear as "[Previous]", "[Top]", and "[Next]" in the HTML documents generated. However, you may specify any text or graphics you wish for these buttons in the Options dialogue box. For example, in the HTMLAUTH.ZIP file you will find three .GIF files named: "PREVBUT.GIF", "TOPBUT.GIF" and "NEXTBUT.GIF". These contain button images that can be used for the navigation buttons by entering the strings: <IMG SRC="PREVBUT.GIF" ALT="[Previous]"> and so on into the Button Texts fields in the Options dialogue box. This gives a much more polished appearance to you multi-file HTML documents. The ALT text is included so that the buttons will be displayed in text form when the pictures are not available (such as in a text only browser).

NOTE: You are advised to keep a multi-file document in a separate directory to avoid possible name clashes between individual HTML files. HTML Author does not check before overwriting files below the top level one. In the current version of HTML Author, a multi-file document may contain a maximum of fifty sections and 300 NAME anchors.