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HTML Editors: PageSpinner (to search for a specific PageSpinner topic, see the PageSpinner index for the workshop)

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Figure A: Balloon help button in PageSpinner

PageSpinner is a good shareware HTML editor. It doesn't have the WYSIWYG drag-and-drop interface that PageMill boasts, but is a full featured HTML editor that produces good HTML, and (an added bonus for those of us that like this type of thing) keeps the user in touch with the inner-HTML. To get help on which buttons do what in PageSpinner, consider turning on balloon help (figure A)---which will elicit possibly annoying helpful hints as to the function of each button as the mouse is positioned over it.

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Starting PageSpinner:
PageSpinner is in the Olin computer lab under the applications submenu under the Apple menu. Firing it up, we see the new document screen shown in figure 1.

Figure 1: PageSpinner new document

Note that we can still see all of the HTML tags, which are hidden from us by PageMill.

Setting Document Characteristics & Email Links:

Figure 2a: HTML Assistant

Figure 2b: Assistant Window

To set document characteristics in PageSpinner, use the HTML Assistant, which is started by clicking on the non-minority-figure's head at the top right of the PageSpinner window (figure 2a). This brings up the HTML Assistant window (figure 2b), which has a menu of HTML topics at the top (clicking on the topic line as shown brings up the list). This allows characteristics of the document or of highlighted text to be set. (To insert the tag or apply the change, click on the "Apply" button in the Assistant---or is that obvious?)

body: that if the HTML Assistant is used to change the characteristics of the body tag in a document, it will insert a new tag---so be sure that (1) it puts the tag where it ought to be, and (2) you end up with only one body tag in the document.

head: the "Head" option in the HTML Assistant is particularly good---but it also inserts head and title tags that must appear at the top of the page and can only appear once. See the comment above!

e-mail: the other (most?) useful feature of the HTML Assistant is that to set e-mail links. Either select "Email" in the Assistant and proceed to enter the e-mail address and link text to include, or select some text in the HTML document being edited and then select "Email" in the Assistant.

Links and Anchors:

Figure 3: PageSpinner link (left) and anchor (right) buttons

To set a link to another document, select the text that is to be the link and then click on the link button (figure 3). This brings up the HTML Assistant link window to enter the URL to which to link. If the link is to be to a named anchor elsewhere in the document (e.g., <a href="#anAnchor">to name anAnchor</a>), enter the name of the anchor as the URL and check the "this is a named anchor" button. To create the named anchor (e.g., <a name=anAnchor>the text to go to</a>), use the "Anchor" button (figure 3) similarly.

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[editors] [pagemill] | [pm 2] | [pm 3] | [pm index]
[pagespinner] | [ps 2] | [ps index]

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[title]	[objectives]	[www uses]	[the works]	[basic html]
[adv html]	[editors]	[resources]		[feedback]

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last modified ((Wed Jun 25 20:46:59 CDT 1997))
HTML/WWW Wkshop: HTML editors-PageSpinner
©1997 Gavin LaRose
Comments to: glarose@NebrWesleyan.edu