Re: Auto-Generated HTML and Authoring Tools

>Problem: the artist's WYSIWYG html tool
>doesn't understand the pseudo-html extensions.  What to do?

>So where is the world on this? Does anybody have anything even
>resembling a pseudo-proposal?

Yes, for at least part of the problem:
    http://www.akimbo.com/proposals/protosyntax.html
The proposal is for the syntax of proto-HTML (a pseudo-HTML) that can be 
read and written by WYSIWYG web authoring tools without knowing what the 
tags mean. In fact, in a simple way (by design) all web authoring tools 
already support the protosyntax.

This proposal is syntax only -- it does not define the semantics of the 
embedded prototypes, but that wasn't the issue you raised. Part of the 
point of this proposal is to allow web tools to manipulate proto-HTML 
without knowing the semantics, precisely the question you asked. The 
proposal is *not* an extension to HTML. Files using the protosyntax are 
HTML only after they have been processed (just like files using the C 
preprocessor are not valid C until they have been preprocessed). The 
syntax resembles HTML in some ways but is not HTML limited, just like the 
C preprocessor syntax is not -- you could if you wanted to use the C 
preprocessor for HTML or the protosyntax for C (although obviously each 
is more suited to its original intent).

FWIW *some* wysiwyg tools don't have problems supporting whatever oddball 
stuff you want to throw in the HTML. Any text you insert in an HTML note 
in Globetrotter is output verbatim. You can even tell Globetrotter to 
insert extra attributes *inside* some of the tags that it generates for 
you: e.g., you can tell it to insert an ONMOUSEDOWN attribute in an IMG 
or INPUT tag and then put the script in an HTML note.

    --- Bruce Leban
    Akimbo Systems
    http://www.akimbo.com/globetrotter
    Publish on the web without learning HTML! (Really.)

Received on Friday, 31 January 1997 01:19:59 UTC