Version history

Version 2.1.4, 24 April 1999

The package Better Templates is turned off in HTML mode because of incompatibility. (Only in Alpha 7.1 and above.)
Added support for iCab.
Fixed problem with translation of ¡ and ¿.
Alpha looks for more than one  when saving.
Some few changes to the attributes of some elements according to errata of the HTML 4.0 specification.
A few other minor bug fixes.

Version 2.1.3, 1 November 1998

In the prefs dialog "Attributes..." the settings in the two checkboxes weren't saved between sessions. Fixed!

Version 2.1.2, 2 June 1998

When including the same include file more than once in a document, Alpha thought there was an infinite loop of includes. Fixed!

Version 2.1.1, 16 May 1998

HTML mode now recognizes the prefs variable indentationAmount and doesn't just indent with tabs.

Version 2.1, 5 April 1998

Added support for HTML 4.0.
The Packages menu is gone. Global preferences for which elements and attributes to use are set using 'Attributes...' in the Preferences submenu.
The way to choose which attributes to be asked about has been modified and simplified (I hope).
The event handlers are treated in the same way as other attributes. The setting 'Include event handlers in attribute dialogs' is gone.
A document type declaration can now be inserted when creating a new document. This document type declaration is used by HTML mode to determine which elements and attributes are allowed.
Relative links in dynamically included files can now be built when the files are included. No need anymore to use absolute links in the included files.
Recursive including of files is now supported. One file can include another file which includes another file which...
Include tags can now be pasted from the home page windows.
By default 'Insert include tags' only inserts the tags and not the file. This behavior can be changed in the preferences.
Added many new character entities. Key bindings for the entities can now be defined.
Removed 'Word complete' and the various tab functions from the Editing submenu. The functionality is still there! HTML mode now uses global functions for this. If you want to modify the key bindings for these functions, this is now done using Config -> Global -> Special Keys...
In Alpha 7.0 word completion now requires that Elec Completions in activated in the Packages submenu. In Alpha 7.1 it requires that Elec Completions is checked in the dialog Config -> Global -> Menus and Features...
Cmd-double-clicking on HREF="file#anchor" now makes Alpha jump to the anchor.
Added electric completions to JavaScript mode. (They also work in HTML mode.)
Tranformation of all tags to uppercase or lowercase.
To save your ears Alpha now only beeps for the first attribute when using the status bar.
Alpha can also flash the status bar when asking for attributes.
Setting for case sensitive link checking now also applies to Big Brother.
Chosing a new browser now also sends the window to the browser unless the option key is pressed.
Changed the key binding for 'New Document' to make it the same as in other modes.
Changed default menu icons.
The tab marks are now called template stops, which is the term used elsewhere in Alpha.

Version 2.0.5, 2 March 1998

The same as version 2.0.4 but for Alpha 7.1b1.

Version 2.0.4, 7 February 1998

'Send file to browser' sometimes sent the wrong page in Alpha 7.0. Fixed.
'New element' didn't work with Alpha 7.0. Fixed.

Version 2.0.3, 3 November 1997 [update of version 2.0.1]

The same as version 2.0.2 but for Alpha 7.0.

Version 2.0.2, 3 November 1997 [update of version 2.0]

Cmd-double-clicking on a JavaScript keyword makes Alpha jump to a reference guide. This requires that you install the JavaScript reference for Alpha by Wolfgang Haeuptli.
Under MacOS 8 Alpha always thought Big Brother was too old. Fixed.
When changing CSS properties using the dialogs, Alpha would delete text incorrectly. Fixed.
Some other CSS bugs fixed.

Version 2.0.1, 19 October 1997

Updated to work with Alpha 7.0.
Added icons to the 'Browsers' menu just for fun.
Menu icons can be changed.
Braces bindings use the 'International' prefs.

Version 2.0, 22 September 1997

'Save to FTP server' didn't work for files in subdirectories. Fixed.
'Save to FTP server' now also works with NetFinder.
Added 'Reload in Browser' to CSS menu.
Redesigned key bindings dialog.
'Last modified' default text can be changed.
Interchanged keybindings for 'Word Complete' and 'Remove marks' for compatibility with future versions of Alpha.
'Word completion' now calls the general word completion when appropriate.
Fixed problem with electric colon in JavaScript mode.
Worked around the coloring bug when changing coloring.
Fine tuning of word completion and indentation.
A couple of other bugs have been fixed.

Version 2.0b2, 17 August 1997

When you're using CSS dialogs Alpha is more clever about where to insert the text and what to delete.
The sizes and positions of home page windows are remembered when they are closed.
Checking and fixing remote links with Big Brother.
Redefined what is meant by Netscape and IE only: Anything in HTML 4.0 draft are not considered to be Netscape or IE 'only' elements or attributes.
When using 'Save to Ftp Server' Alpha would freeze waiting for a reply. Fixed.
When making 'include tags' the path to the file to include begins with :INCLUDE: if it's in a include folder. This makes it easier to move the include folder.
Bindings of custom HTML elements now always work in CSS mode.
Added elecColon to JavaScript mode.
HTML words are now be colored in CSS mode.
Slightly changed behavior for 'New Document'.
A couple of bugs introduced in version 2.0b1 have been fixed.

Version 2.0b1, 20 July 1997

Support for editing of Cascading Style Sheets and a separate CSS mode.
Lots of new HTML elements. Now possible to hide certain attributes in the attribute dialogs.
A clever word completion feature to save you time while typing.
Customizable indentation of the code.
A function to reformat messy code to make it more readable.
You can open windows, called "home page windows", with lists of files from where you can easily copy and paste to make links.
A separate JavaScript mode.
The menu is split into two menus.
When changing packages the menu is no longer rebuilt. Menu items are disabled or enabled instead.
A userfriendly interface to change the key bindings in the menus.
Coloring more customizable.
Added a 'Preferences' submenu to the HTML menu.
Validation of the code.
Option-click on titlebar brings up popup menu with attributes.
It's now possible to change attributes in the status bar. Ctrl-D to ignore default value.
'Use Attributes' settings optionally apply to attribute dialogs.
In 'Tabs to Rows' and 'Import Table' multiple tabs can now be treated as a single one.
Cmd-double-click on a tag to change attributes.
Check links, move files etc. now recognize comments.
Check links, move files etc. understand CSS urls.
A Frontier menu.
Less blank lines are inserted after tags.
Function to create index of document.
Function to remove all tags.
A function to calculate the total document size including images etc.
Saving to FTP server.
You can fix links by selecting a new file after checking links.
In status bar event handlers are always asked for when 'include event handlers' is set.
'New Document' can open a new window if window is non-empty.
Braces are only electric between SCRIPT and STYLE tags.
'Help' can open different pages in the manual.
MSIE no longer opens a new window when a file is sent to it.
Now possible to send window to Cyberdog.
Support for custom palettes.
Scanning of files more memory efficient (how about that Netscape?) when there are very many or very large files.
Now compatible with Vince's Additions (except for a few key bindings in the menus you may have to change).
A number of other small changes and a few minor bug fixes.

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 consequence 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.