Softpanorama (slightly skeptical) Open Source Software Educational Society

May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-) Softpanorama Search

Webmaster Toolset

A Web Site is a Harsh Mistress

Nikolai Bezroukov

News

demoroniser - correct moronic and gratuitously incompatible Microsoft HTML

This page describes, in Unix manual page style, a Perl program available for downloading from this site which corrects numerous errors and incompatibilities in HTML generated by, or edited with, Microsoft applications. The demoroniser keeps you from looking dumber than a bag of dirt when your Web page is viewed by a user on a non-Microsoft platform.

Many slick, high profile corporate Web sites I visit seemed to exhibit terrible grammar completely inconsistent with the obvious investment in graphics and design. Apostrophes and quote marks were frequently omitted, and every couple of paragraphs words were run together which should have been separated by a punctuation mark of some kind.

This remained a mystery to me until I wanted to convert a presentation I'd developed in 1996 using Microsoft PowerPoint into a set of Web pages. A friend was kind enough to run the presentation through PowerPoint's "Save as HTML" feature (I have abandoned all use of Microsoft products, so I did not have a current version of PowerPoint which includes this feature). When I got the PowerPoint-generated HTML back and viewed it in my browser, I discovered that it contained precisely the same grammatical errors I'd noted on so many Web sites, and which certainly were not present in my original presentation.

A little detective work revealed that, as is usually the case when you encounter something shoddy in the vicinity of a computer, Microsoft incompetence and gratuitous incompatibility were to blame. Western language HTML documents are written in the ISO 8859-1 Latin-1 character set, with a specified set of escapes for special characters. Blithely ignoring this prescription, as usual, Microsoft use their own "extension" to Latin-1, in which a variety of characters which do not appear in Latin-1 are inserted in the range 0x82 through 0x95--this having the merit of being incompatible with both Latin-1 and Unicode, which reserve this region for additional control characters.

USENIX ;login - Speaking HTTP

ZDNet Arachnophilia Create Web pages with RTF docs - ZDNet Downloads Arachnophilia is a feature-packed HTML editor, useful for both the novice and experienced Webmaster.

Perhaps its most useful feature is the ability to take files in Rich Text Format (.rtf) created by many word processors (such as Microsoft Word) and automatically convert them into HTML documents -- a great time-saver if you have documents in .rtf format and want to put them on the Web without the fuss of manually converting them. Arachnophilia is also a very competent general-purpose HTML editor, allowing you to create HTML files from scratch. Wizards for lists and tables, along with special menus for forms, frames, and styles, make page creation quick. Arachnophilia also features a built-in browser, so you can easily preview your work as you go; an integral FTP utility for uploading your site to a server; and a site analyzer to spot errors, along with many more options.

check out ps2pdf.com its pretty cool. you can upload postscript files and it will convert them into pdf files for you. this is nice if you dont have access to a unix machine.

[fm] dep.pl  -- dep.pl analyzes the dependencies of a set of files and produces an easily-parsable report.

tableau --  Perl CGI program to generate and edit HTML tables based on CSV files. Jun 09th 1999, 05:35 stable: none - devel: 1.38 license: GPL

RearSitee François Dagorn - June 16th 1999, 04:11 EST 

RearSite is an application allowing the management of files from a WWW interface. RearSite was written to give users the ability to update their personal home pages (without using any commercial product or FTP). Using RearSite is quite simple: after login, the user has access to his home directory and is able to delete, rename and
create documents. RearSite is able to upload WWW directories previously created (using any editors). It's very easy to transfer and install archives (ZIP, tar or tar.gz)

[July 14, 1999] HTML Tidy is a free utility to fix mistakes made while editing HTML and to automatically tidy up sloppy editing into nicely layed out markup. It also works great on the atrociously hard to read markup generated by specialized HTML editors and conversion tools, and can help you identify where you need to pay further attention
on making your pages more accessible to people with disabilities.  

WebPosition Online Strategies Workshop  commercial 6 week course with accreditation.  Upon completion of this course, students will be able to: 

• Determine effective keywords for their web pages and learn where  to place those keywords for maximum benefit in the search engine  rankings
• Optimize their web pages and fine tune them for one or  two keyword phrases in order to gain an edge in the rankings 
• Develop captivating titles and descriptions that will lure web  viewers to their sites
• Create effective doorway pages to their  main website for each individual keyword phrase
• Analyze competing websites and learn from their success or failure and be able to  apply those techniques to the students' own websites
• Understand  what works and what doesn't with InfoSeek and AltaVista, and be  able to apply web positioning techniques to websites created for  the other major engines 
• Have a clear understanding of how to get  their websites ranked high in the engines and understand how to  fine tune their web pages for maximum relevancy and to gain an  edge over their competition. 

The student demonstrates his or her understanding of web positioning techniques by applying those techniques to his/her own website, then seeing the results in the search engine rankings. Lessons are  completed and turned in, as well as a final exam. Depending on the  website and the popularity of keywords choosen, students may have  to spend more time tweaking their site before watching those  rankings go slowly up. But, the lessons provide the knowledge  needed in order to achieve those high rankings. 

http://216.25.105.11/business/e-course.htm

E-commerce: Doing Internet Business the RIGHT Way  Upon completion of this course, students will be able to: A. Recognize and understand their target audience and client base. B. Establish and outline obtainable goals and objectives for  capturing and keeping online customers/clients. C. Determine a successful strategy for conducting e-commerce,  select the tools necessary to reach those goals, and and put them  into practice. D. Design, implement and maintain an effective Website to e-commerce strategy and the various e-commerce tools available to them such as virtual stores, electronic shopping carts, REGNET, e-mail,  autoresponders and more. E. Understand the importance of offering customers secure online transactions and which tools are currently available for maintenance  of customer privacy. F. Learn how to incorporate electronic commerce into their business strategy, whether they are dealing with a one-person business or  a large corporation.

The student demonstrates his or her understanding of e-commerce by outlining a strategy for a fictitious company by developing a  three- to five-page implementation plan which uses specific  e-commerce tools and methods discussed during the course.

Free Online Educational Book (review of a free educational book available online) Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing http://photo.net/wtr/thebook/

To make a great site, you need to know a little bit about writing, photography, publishing, Unix system administration, relational  database management systems (RDBMS), user interface design, and  computer programming.

Reference

• The World Wide Web Consortium has an excellent set of tools, doc format-to-html filters, editors, checkers, robots, administrative tools
• Web Developers Home Page.
• The Webmaster's Reference Library.
• The CGI Resource Index.
• Willcam's Comprehensive HTML Cross Reference
• Weblint, by Neil Bowers, syntax and minimal style checker for HTML. Also include pointers to HTML editors and link validation tools. 

See also

• Web logs
• Server Side Includes (SSI)
• mirroring_tools
• Html, DHML and style sheets
• WWW Maintenance Perl Scripts
• HTTP and CGI
• Web Servers
• Browsers

Recommended Links

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In case of broken links please try to use Google search. If you find the page please notify us about new location

• Generally Markup XML Resources
• Refsnes Datas Site Builder Web
• WDVL Tutorials for Web Developers -- good
• Web Tools -- Web Authoring Tools -- good (from Scout project)
• Webmaster Resources Authoring Tools provides an overview of authoring tools.
•  Elsop Webmaster Resource Center is a comprehensive site of software, site mappers, link validators, trade associations, computer law, webmaster humor, training, site develpment services, and more.
•  internet.com from Mecklermedia can help you search the list of Internet Service Providers, give you data on all the browsers available, compare features of web server and Internet apps. Great "Guide to Electronic Commerce".
•  Web Design Group's Web Authoring FAQ (also known as the comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html FAQ) has valuable info on editors, HTML tags and special characters, HTML tips, search engine submissions, and other common HTML issues. A great starter site for all HTML authors.
• Thomas Boutell's WWW FAQ site will point you to the FAQ in the country and language of your choice.
• OpenFAQ to the Rescue
• Web Site Test Tools and Site Management is a great set of tools for load, regression, and performance testing, Java testing, link checkers, HTML validators, Web site security and management, and much more. Part of the overall Software QA and Testing Resource Center.
• F.A.Q.- Subjects
• Designing For the Web Diane Wilson's Web Authoring Page. Slightly outdated (not updated since 1996), but still relevant
  • Diane's Web Rant --  A Web Site is a Harsh Mistress !!! -- very true
  • Rules of Thumb
  • Color Perception Issues
  • Guidelines for Frames
  • Overnight Success   -- In any field, it takes ten years to become an overnight success.
• Web Authoring Group HTML Help Page (Read this first!)
• A Beginner's Guide to HTML (Excellent tutorial on basic, standard, HTML constructs)
• Alan Flavell's Web Authoring Page   -- good information about text-compatibility, proxy caches, and caveats about web statistics
• Warren Steel's Web Authoring Page -- information about document portability, style sheets, and validation

non-perl

• [July 14, 1999] Search & Replace 98 Download -- html search and replace

• Search and Replace Search and Replace 98 From: Andromeda HTML Workshop Version: 2.21 Date: July 19, 1998 File size: 263.2K Downloads: 835 License: Free Search and Replace 98 is a text search-and-replace tool that can work on single files or an entire directory of HTML pages. Search and Replace 98 can read files of up to 512K in size.

• BK ReplaceEm BK ReplaceEm From: BK Computer Programming pop Version: 1.7 Date: January 5, 1998 File size: 457K Downloads: 8,538 Freeware string-replacing utility. At its core, BK ReplaceEm is a text search and replace program. However, unlike the search and replace functionality of a standard text editor, BK ReplaceEm is designed to operate on multiple text files at once. And you need not only perform one search and replace operation per file--you can set up a list of operations to perform. You can perform different operations on multiple file groups. You can also specify a backup file for each file processed, just in case the replace operation doesn't meet your expectations. This latest version adds whole-word search support and other enhancements. The file-processing engine has been completely rewritten in this version.

Not Traditional Tools

[June 7, 1999] CVS Version Control for Web Site Projects

Whatcha' gonna make - SunWorld - October 1998 -- make can be used for compiling a book or WEB site

Using m4 to write HTML.

Web Page Generator (Perl) This program allows the user to create a generic web page.

CGI Security

The problem with /usr/ucb/mail shell escapes is going stay with us for quite a while: I have found that many web sites run CGI helper scripts that send data from the network into /usr/ucb/mail, without censoring of, for example, newline characters embedded in the data.

• WWW Security FAQ CGI Scripts

• WWW Security FAQ Safe Scripting in Perl

• WEBsmith Issue 2 CGI Security

• CGI Security

• Server Side Includes and CGI Security

Etc

WebMaker

WebMaker is a GUI HTML Editor for Unix. Main features include a nice GUI interface, menus, toolbar and dialogs for tag editing, multiple windows support, HTML 4.0 support, color syntax highlighting, preview with external browser, ability to filter editor content through any external program that supports stdin/stdout and KDE integration.

• [June 19, 1999] Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing -- fragments of a free book
• [June 17, 1999] DES - Web Publishing and Design
• [June 7, 1999] CVS Version Control for Web Site Projects
• Server Side Includes (SSI)
• Thinking in PostScript  
• [www.w3.org] World Wide Web. -- WWW standards
• HTML Editors.
• NCDesign HOME PAGE.
• Improving Your Keyword Density

• Web Tools -- Web Authoring Tools -- good

• The Web Developers Virtual Library is an award-winning webmaster's encyclopedia.

• Web Development guidelines for creating an effective Web site.

• Web Site Development Primer is a beginners guide to Web site design and publishing.

• The Complete Intranet Resource provides resources to research and implement Intranets.

• WWW Robots, Wanderers, and Spiders are programs that traverse the Web automatically.

• RadView Software Inc. - Developers of WebLoad -- stress testing

• Amaya from W3.org is a Web client that acts as a browser and an authoring tool. 
• asWedit HTML and text editor is available in both free and commercial versions. Runs on Linux.