DeScribe HTML Macros August 1996


By David Palmer
Posted here with the author's permission
The original version of this document can be found at Palmer's web site. I think this may be a bit more user-friendly. Mr. Palmer informs me that he has created some additional macros. I will post them as soon as they become available.
My special thanks to Mr. Palmer for doing this work and allowing me to share it here.
Thanks also to Judith A. Russell for making me aware of Mr. Palmer's work.
The following information is also included as the file "readme" in descmacs.zip

These macros and documentation are updated as of 8/3/96.

These macros are a casual user's attempt to ease coding of HTML documents. I know how to use DeScribe and I didn't want to learn a new software package to create Web pages. Check out http://www.wln.com/~crc/ to see what can be done with these macros. Not all HTML tags are implemented, but you can get an idea of how you can do your own. I've included the common tags I use. This includes images, tables, lists (ordered and unordered) and 6 levels of heading.

I'm a WARP, IBM WebExplorer and DeScribe user. The macro names are longfilenames. Since you are a DeScribe user I assume you use the longfilenames too. This of course means you have the HPFS file system installed.

The macros and the tool bar are zip compressed. (The originals were self-extracting; write to descmacs.zip The tool bar (htmltool) is included with the macros.

To start downloading press here.
After downloading:

  1. Switch to an OS/2 window
  2. Change the directory to your macro directory (for example: d:\describe\macro)
  3. Enter unzip descmacs (to start the extraction)
  4. Respond to the ZIP message if you need to write over old copies
  5. Enter exit You are all done extracting!
  6. Start up Describe
  7. Now, breathe a sigh of relief!
After you start DeScribe, switch to the new tool bar (HTMLTOOL),by going through the Options then Load Custom Tools menus. After doing that, and seeing your tool bar change, use the right mouse to find out what each button does. On this tool bar the upper left button, if you click and hold button-1, gives you a choice of tool bars to use. This way you can very easily drag the mouse to go back to your default tool bar. On the HTMLTOOL bar I used a few liberties when reassigning pictures to functions!! So check those symbols out first! I've tried to group similar functions together.

Using the macros

WARNING The base macro, HTML, assumes you have a document named ABLANK.HTML in whatever directory you are working on!!!
So take a moment and create that document now, in whatever directory you normally use. This was a BIG oversight on my part in the earlier releases.END WARNING If you don't want to create a document, that is fine, simply start a new blank document in DeScribe and begin to use the macros, simply don't use the HTML macro itself. :-}

A word of caution, always leave a carriage return, new line, new paragraph or whatever your background mental genealogy calls it, below the current cursor position if you are creating new documents. If you are editing and modifying an existing document the macros will anticipate data between the start and end of markup tags. Many of them insert the markup at the current cursor position and then go to the end of the paragraph and back one position to insert the ending tag.

I think HTML is short hand for Heavy Timeless Mental Lapses

More cautions -

DeScribe defaults to a DeScribe document when you save. Therefore remember to save your HTML file as ASCII.

Unlike other editors, DeScribe holds onto a file following a save. If you want to drag and drop your new html document to WebExplorer to see how it looks, you must close it first! This adds time and inconvenience to the process, but it works for me, maybe it will for you too.

I also shot myself in the foot when I cautiously save macros as ASCII after recompiling them. Don't try it! It doesn't work! Save them as only DeScribe documents.

For the curious there is documentation and a list of the macro names in the files you downloaded.
The filename is htmldocfile. It is a DeScribe document. READ IT! It is to be found whereever you downloaded and unzipped the macros.

This page was built with the macros. Have fun, experiment, and don't give up!

Since the January update the significant change is a macro which converts DeScribe tables to HTML tables, complete with markup. The only caveat is do not leave extra carriage returns in any cells. Each carriage return is translated into a new cell, and that will really foul up your HTML table. If you needed to use a carriage return within a DeScribe cell, then replace that with a HTML break symbol before you convert the table.

Comments welcome:

Dave Palmer
dpalmer@wln.com
7475 State Route 12
Oakville, WA 98568
360/273-8117
html4des.html November 12, 1995
Updated November 15, 1995
Revised on: December 16, 1995
Revised on January 11,1996
Revised on August 3, 1996