e-mail: kris@logic.be or 100025.2724@compuserve.com
Change history and complete contact info at the end of this document.
* What is it ? *
Collect HTML is an XTension that allows you to convert text from Quark pages into HTML format. Styles can be converted into HTML pre- and suffixes. Collect also creates JPEG previews from Quark pages or from text or picture boxes.
Collect is not well suited to convert complete Quark pages; it better for 'clipping' articles from large pages (e.g. a newspaper) for Web publication.
HTML is not as rich in features as Quark is, so do not expect a WYSIWIG behaviour in HTML. Collect just tries to help you to create good-looking HTML documents from Quark pages.
The demo version is crippled: it is time limited until juli 30,1995, and it only works for 5 consecutive minutes.
You need to have QuickTime installed in order to be able to create JPEG previews.
* Configuring *
Before starting to use Collect, you must first configure it. You can set up HTML prefixes and suffixes in order to translate Quark attributes, and to set up other manipulations.
The default settings are:
- bold gets translated into <B>...</B>.
- italic into <I>...</I>.
- underline into <U>...</U>.
- a paragraph mark is translated into a space to avoid getting ugly short lines when viewing the resulting page.
- a style change results in the insertion of a <BR>.
- nothing is inserted between texts from different text boxes.
- styles are not pre- or suffixed.
You have to set up translations for the styles you used. This is done by clicking in a text with a certain style, and then using the 'HTML Style settings...' menu option. You can then type the prefix and suffix for this style.
Tip: when a style is used for a title, use <H1> and </H1>. For sub-titles, use <H2> and </H2>, and so on.
Tip: when a style stands out from the others, use <B> and </B>, or <EM> and </EM> to make it stand out.
* Collecting. *
Once the extension is set up, you can start collecting and exporting text and images. The idea is to click in the boxes that compose the article you want to export, and for each box, you press Command-7 (or select 'Add box' from the menu). When all boxes of a single article are collected this way, you press Command-8 (or select 'End Collection' from the menu). This creates an HTML file and eventually some JPEG files. The default name for the file is a unique name, derived from the name of the original Quark page.
In order to add or remove a collected box, you must select the floating text box that contains the sequence number, not the collected box. After selecting a floating box, use the Collect menu to move or remove the selected box.
If you want to include a text box in a WYSIWYG way, hold the shift key while collecting it. By doing this, it will not be converted to HTML - it will be exported to a linked JPEG image instead.
Tip: When collecting text in linked text boxes, you only need to collect one of the boxes; the other boxes are included automatically.
Tip: Once you collected the first box with Command-7 or 'Collect - Add box', you can add subsequent boxes by just option-clicking in them. Option-Shift-Click to convert text boxes to JPEG files.
You can later re-load a previous collection from the HTML file in order to add or remove boxes from the collection, or to change the sequence of the collected boxes.
Attention: the settings for Collect are saved within the XTension. This allows you to set up the XTension once, and then to distribute a single file with settings included within your company; there is no separate settings file.
Tip: To see the list of definitions that are already present in the XTension, you have to create a new, empty text box on the page you are viewing. Then choose 'Insert style translation table' from the menu. The text box will be filled with the current settings. Every line in the text box takes over the style it is named after, so you can click on one of the lines and use 'HTML Style settings...' to change a style's setting.
This only works for styles that are available in the current document.
Tip: There are also two pseudo-HTML commands: <DROP> and </DROP>. Styles that use these as prefix or suffix are not exported, but dropped. Attention: DROP is not a real HTML command! It is processed by the XTension while it exports the text. Also, be careful not to include spaces around <DROP> or </DROP> when setting up a style to be dropped.
Versions in languages other than English are possible; for example a Swedish version is already available. Collect HTML is written by Kris Coppieters. See below for contact information.
* Change history *
1.2.6
- Allow including JPEG previews of text boxes by holding shift while collecting them.
- Point to file for inserting URL's from your WWW server instead of typing them explicitly.
1.2.5
- Changed collected box marker to a small floating text box, so the collected box remains partially visible.
- Option-Click can be used to collect subsequent boxes after collecting the first one with 'Collect-Add box'.
- Manual URL links can be set on selected text.
- Picture boxes can be collected and are converted to JPEG.
1.2.4:
- Increased robustness in cases of missing QuickTime, low memory, low diskspace
- Moved a number of hardcoded strings into resource fork for easier editing with ResEdit
1.2.2:
- Visual feedback for collected boxes
- Reloading of a set of collected boxes from a previous HTML file
- Making changes to a set of collected boxes (adding/deleting/resequencing)
- JPEG preview of complete pages
- Standard file dialog for saving collected files and JPEG previews
