----------------------------------------------------------- HTMBLAST 1.12 for Windows ----------------------------------------------------------- FREEWARE Copyright 1994 by Joey Hess Please distribute HTMLBlast program with this documentation file and with the source code. ----------------------------------------------------------- Description ----------------------------------------------------------- HTMLBlast maintains signatures and time-stamps in HTML files. For example, a document might end with "Created by Joey Hess * joey@kitenet.net * April 11, 1994" HTMLBlast can easily be set up to update the date to reflect the last time the document was edited, and if the e-mail address changed, HTMLBlast could replace it with the new address on all your web pages with one operation. -------------------------------------------------------------- Installation -------------------------------------------------------------- Copy the files HTMBLAST.EXE, HTMBLAST.TAG, HTMBLAST.DOC, HTMBLAST.TAG, and HTMCODE.ZIP into a subdirectory. SETUPKIT.DLL should be placed in your windows\system directory. You will also need VBRUN300.DLL, if it is not already on your machine. Now you will need to set up your web pages so that they can be maintained by HTMLblast, as is described in the next section. -------------------------------------------------------------- Adding HTMLBlast tags to your documents -------------------------------------------------------------- For HTMLBlast to work with your documents, you need to add special tags to them. These tags are "invisible" to web browsers, and let HTMLBlast update parts of your documents each time it is run. Tags have the syntax: text and mark the beginning and end of a tag. HTMLBlast automatically inserts the text between them. For most tags, HTMLBlast just looks up the tag from a file of tags, HTMLBLAST.TAG, and replaces it with some text that you define. (See Editing the Tag File) There are three tags which HTMLBlast treats specially - "date" expands to the date that you last edited the file, "random filename" reads a random line from file filename, and "file filename" inserts a while file. So, if a file contained: * And you changed part of the file, and ran HTMLBlast, the date tag might be expanded to: joey@kitenet.net * April 11, 1994 And anyone viewing your document with a HTML browser would see simply: joey@kitenet.net * Last modified on April 11, 1994 The next time HTMLBlast was ran, it would update the date again if the file was modified again. (You can also change the format the date is displayed in; see Using the Date Tag.) Decide what tags will be useful, and add them to your documents. I reccommend that you place the date tag on every page as a timestamp, along with your e-mail address. Here's an example web page before and after HTMLBlast Before: ------ Welcome to Joey's Home Page

Hi, there. Welcome to my home page.

There's not much here as yet, but this page will grow.

. . . That's all, folks!

Joey Hess - joey@kitenet.net

After: ----- Welcome to Joey's Home Page

Hi, there. Welcome to my home page.

There's not much here as yet, but this page will grow.

. . . That's all, folks!

Joey Hess - - last modifed on

-------------------------------------------------------------- Editing the Tag File -------------------------------------------------------------- The tag file, HTMLBLAST.TAG is where HTMLBlast keeps the list of tags and the text they represent. It can be edited with any text editor. A sample tag file might look like this: email=joey@kitenet.net home=jeh22 news=I just installed HTMLBlast. Notice that the "home" tag expands to a URL. You can include and HTML formatting commands inside a tag, and tags can be nested inside any HTML commands, such as

, or

. Edit the tag file, and add lines to correspond to the tags in your HTML documents. Notes: o Each entry in the tag file must be on a seperate line, and should be no longer than 1 line. o The tag file is limited to 200 entries. o Any lines in the tag file that start with # or ; will be ignored. Use these as comments. -------------------------------------------------------------- Running the Program for the First Time -------------------------------------------------------------- With the tag file edited, and the tags in place in your documents, you are ready to run the program for the first time. In File or Program Manager, pick run from the file menu. Type in "HTMLBlast.exe c:\htmldocs\", changing the c:\htmldocs\ to the location of your HTML documents. Be sure to include a "\" at the end. Then run the program. If you have an error in one of your tags, HTMLBlast will catch it, display a message, and end, leaving your file unmodifed. You can then correct the error and try agian. -------------------------------------------------------------- Syntax -------------------------------------------------------------- The full syntax to the HTMLBLAST is: HTMLBLAST {filespec} {/any} filespec - The files to process. Wildcards are fine. If not specified defaults to all files with the HTM extention in the current directory. /any - Tell HTMLBlast to process any files that match filespec, even if they havn't been modified since HTMLBlast was last run. You should do this if you make any modifications to the tag file, to update all your documents. -------------------------------------------------------------- Using the File Tag -------------------------------------------------------------- HTMLBlast supports including a file in a tag. The syntax is: The contents of the file filename will be inserted between the two tags. This will not work if the file is larger than 64K. -------------------------------------------------------------- Using the Random Tag -------------------------------------------------------------- HTMLBlast supports including a file in a tag. The syntax is: A random line in filename will be selected and displayed between the two tags. The file you specify must be in a special format. The first line of the file shold be a number that tells how many other lines there are in the file. An example: 3 This is a random line And another one... This is the last one. -------------------------------------------------------------- Using the Date Tag -------------------------------------------------------------- The date tag is a very flexable part of HTMLBlast. It can display the date many user-defined formats. For example, to diplay the date in a long format, Like "September 21, 1994", use this date tag: Here is a description of possible date tags, taken from the Visual Basic help file: Long Date Display a Long Date, as defined in the International section of the Control Panel. Medium Date Display a date in the same form as the Short Date, as defined in the International section of the Control Panel, except spell out the month abbreviation. Short Date Display a Short Date, as defined in the International section of the Control Panel. Long Time Display a Long Time, as defined in the International section of the Control Panel. Long Time includes hours, minutes, seconds. Medium Time Display time in 12-hour format using hours and minutes and the AM/PM designator. Short Time Display a time using the 24-hour format (e.g. 17:45) The following table shows the characters you can use to create user-defined date/time formats and the meaning of each: -------------------------------------------------------------- Character Meaning c Display the date as ddddd and display the time as t t t t t, in that order. d Display the day as a number without a leading zero (1-31). dd Display the day as a number with a leading zero (01-31). ddd Display the day as an abbreviation (Sun-Sat). dddd Display the day as a full name (Sunday-Saturday). w Display the day of the week as a number (1 for Sunday through 7 for Saturday.) ww Display the week of the year as a number (1-53). m Display the month as a number without a leading zero (1-12). If m immediately follows h or hh, the minute rather than the month is displayed. mm Display the month as a number with a leading zero (01-12). If m immediately follows h or hh, the minute rather than the month is displayed. mmm Display the month as an abbreviation (Jan-Dec). mmmm Display the month as a full month name (January-December). q Display the quarter of the year as a number (1-4). y Display the day of the year as a number (1-366). yy Display the year as a two-digit number (00-99). yyyy Display the year as a four-digit number (100-9999). h Display the hour as a number without leading zeros (0-23). hh Display the hour as a number with leading zeros (00-23). n Display the minute as a number without leading zeros (0-59). nn Display the minute as a number with leading zeros (00-59). s Display the second as a number without leading zeros (0-59). ss Display the second as a number with leading zeros (00-59). t t t t t Display a a complete time (including hour, minute, and second) formatted using the time separator defined by the Time Format in the International section of the Control Panel. A leading zero is displayed if the Leading Zero option is selected and the time is before 10:00 A.M. or P.M. The default time format is h:mm:ss. AM/PM Use the 12-hour clock and display an uppercase AM with any hour before noon; display an uppercase PM with any hour between noon and 11:59 PM. am/pm Use the 12-hour clock and display a lowercase AM with any hour before noon; display a lowercase PM with any hour between noon and 11:59 PM. A/P Use the 12-hour clock and display an uppercase A with any hour before noon; display an uppercase P with any hour between noon and 11:59 PM. a/p Use the 12-hour clock and display a lowercase A with any hour before noon; display a lowercase P with any hour between noon and 11:59 PM. The following are examples of user-defined date and time tags: -------------------------------------------------------------- Tag Display date m/d/yy 12/7/58 date d-mmmm-yy 7-December-58 date d-mmmm 7 December date mmmm-yy December 58 date hh:mm AM/PM 08:50 PM date h:mm:ss a/p 8:50:35 p date h:mm 20:50 date h:mm:ss 20:50:35 date m/d/yy h:mm 12/7/58 20:50 -------------------------------------------------------------- Joey Hess * joey@kitenet.net