Engine room |
The purpose of this engine room is to give the reader a sense of how this document was developed. We gained considerable experience in the creation and management of a set of HTML files, and the lessons we learned might be of benefit to others. We discuss writing HTML code, spell checking the files, and animating the POT interface. |
Creating the HTML code |
The initial version of this article was prepared using Microsoft Word 6.0. This text was converted to rich text format (RTF) using the Save As feature in Word, and then converted to HTML using a RTF to HTML converter. The linear text was then carved up into sections, which each became a HTML file. World Wide Web Weaver was used to modify the generated HTML, until the release of Adobe's PageMill in late 1995 which was then adopted as the editor. The advantage of PageMill is that we were no longer concerned with writing HTML code, except for features such as tables. We estimate that adoption of PageMill resulted in a 200% productivity increase. In Spring 1996, Adobe released SiteMill, which incorporates PageMill and tools for maintaining a large collection of Web pages (this document has nearly 200 files and folders). This was adopted soon after its release. Again, we gained a productivity increase because it became very simple to make changes to links that affected many pages. We investigated one other tool, Clay Basket, a framework for Web site design and management, which could have helped with maintaining a large number of Web pages. However, the documentation for this freeware product was inadequate, and we decided not to use it. The tool has considerable potential to maintain links between a set of pages that can be represented using an outliner. In the final stages, we switched to a beta version of Claris Home Page, because of its ability to handle tables and show raw HTML as well as WYSIWYG. This was used in combination with SiteMill. MS Word's Internet Assistant was also used at various stages. This may be a suitable tool for some writers, but it does lack some of the speed and specific capabilities of purpose built HTML editors. Our goal was to use productivity tools wherever possible, and we actively sought such tools. However, often our needs were well in advance of the availability of tools, and we were often forced to adopt workarounds (e.g., spell checking). |
Spell checking |
Neither PageMill 1.0 nor Claris Home Page include a spell checker. This comes with a later release. As a result, we had to convert the HTML code into Microsoft Word 6.0, run the spell checker, and then correct the mistakes in the HTML version -- messy and time consuming, but necessary. |
Animation of the POT interface |
We considered several tools for making a mpeg or QuickTime movie. The procedures for making such a movie requires a lot of work and the timing of image capture as well as the sequencing is critical. Also the size of the movie would be several Megabytes. Considering the amount of work required and the uncertainty tied to the result, we chose another solution to illustrating the POT interface. We made an activeX presentation (compressed PowerPoint) that illustrates the interface (including commentary text). This presentation can be downloaded and viewed using free PowerPoint viewers. We believe that producing material for electronic journals using tools with which most authors are familiar is the appropriate direction given that many personal productivity tools are currently being upgraded with plug-ins for publishing on the Web. The bad news is that the animation effects we have chosen to use were introduced in the Windows 95 version of PowerPoint and that this version was not available for the Mac platform when we completed this article. |
