AOLpress Help

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Viewing and Editing HTML

If you know the source language for Web pages, HTML, or  if you want to learn about it by example, use the Tools Show HTML menu item. You will see the HTML tags for the page.

AOLpress lets you edit the HTML source directly and then test your changes quickly. You might want to edit the HTML source to add tags for which AOLpress does not provide direct authoring support. You might also want to view the HTML source to find out how a particular page was created so that you can create similar pages.

Viewing HTML

Open a window showing the HTML tags:

1. Open a Web page. The page need not be part of a MiniWeb.
2. Choose the Tools Show HTML menu item to open a window containing the HTML for your page. The HTML window automatically scrolls to the position of your cursor in the page.
   
   The HTML tags (such as <P> for paragraph) are blue, the HTML tag attributes (such as ALIGN= to align items) are purple, hidden comments are green, and your text is black. AOLpress automatically indents the HTML code for headings, lists, and other structures to make the code easier for you to read.

You can open multiple HTML windows for different Page windows at the same time, if you like.

To close the HTML window, either:

• With focus in the HTML window, choose the File Close menu item.
• Edit the page in the Page window. The HTML window closes automatically when you edit the Page window so that the contents of the Page window and the HTML window will not conflict.
  

Editing HTML

You can edit the HTML source and load the changes you make into the Page window. For example, you might want to add HTML extensions for which AOLpress does not provide direct authoring support.

Editing the HTML source:

1. Open an AOLpress page.
2. Choose the Tools Show HTML menu item.
3. You can edit the HTML by typing text directly or by using any of the commands in the Edit menu.
   • If you cut and paste from an HTML window to a Page window, you will be able to see the HTML tags in the Page window. You can use this technique if you want to create a Web page that explains how to use HTML tags.
   • If you cut and paste from a Page window into an HTML window, the tags will not be pasted.
4. To save changes you make in an HTML window, choose the File Parse menu item. AOLpress checks your HTML code for errors. If any errors are found, you will see a message explaining the error. If no errors occur (or if you choose to ignore the errors), your changes will be shown in the Page window.
   • You can also choose File Save As to save your HTML changes to a separate file.This can be useful if you are making changes that AOLpress considers illegal, or if you want to maintain the formatting of your changes.
   • Use File Reload if you want to discard changes you made to the HTML and start modifying the HTML again using the current code for the Page window.You can also use File Reload to load a page and see the HTML before it has been parsed by AOLpress for display.
     

Server-Side Include Support

If you use "server-side includes (SSI)" (also called "server-parsed HTML") to automatically include other files, environment variables, or the results of programs in your pages, you can edit your source code with AOLpress (if your pages are stored on a v2.0 or later AOLserver).

To make AOLpress load the HTML source files without interpreting the server-side include commands, choose ToolsPreferencesGeneral and put a check in the "Never Load" box for Server Side Includes. If you are viewing the HTML for a page, you can choose FileReload without SSI to see the server-side include commands and FileReload with SSI to see the results when the commands are interpreted.

Server-side include commands are stored as comments in the HTML code, so you only see them when you edit the HTML. For example, the command to include a file called "include.txt" would look like:

  <!--#include file="include.txt" -->

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