Cy_Jobes
Member
Posts: 62
Joined: 10/04/2001 |
10/25/2001 01:38:13 PM |
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For the first time I have been able to make some understanding about
the VTM language. Homesite 5, though it's no big triumph, has a much
better Help section. Both in writing and appearance. But it still lacks
in depth description and/or example pics of how to use certain
features. In this case I am talking about how to create a new tag
editor.
Now that Macromedia has obtained Homesite I would hope that
some decent tutorials would be written on this topic.
Please, give us some examples using both code and pictures that show the
result of the code. This way we can match things up.
Show us how to put this feature to use. Not just how to customize an already
existing VTM tag, but to make one from scratch.
PLEASE. This is version 5. By now there should be something more than
just an obscure help file.
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troydeck
Junior Member
Posts: 1
Joined: 04/10/2001 |
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10/28/2001 09:21:11 PM |
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Han,
I totally agree with you. I'm really trying to decipher the help file and
get something useful from it. As for the advice of putting this in the
'feature request', it has seemed to me that these are largely ignored
except for possibly planning future versions.
A tutorial could
be, and should be, done NOW!! It is such an amazing feature of the
program it is hard to believe that it is not fully documented and
explained.
Thanks for your post.
Troy
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hjg
Junior Member
Posts: 6
Joined: 10/28/2001 |
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11/02/2001 09:01:18 AM |
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troydeck,
Hallo, I'm Herman and a "Dummy".
I'm using the evaluation Homesite.
Though I went to University in the Netherlands, the help function is very hard
for me to understand. I just would like some tutorial for dummies, just
some very simple basic stuff, how to start using homeSite the easy way!
I'm glad I'm not the only one looking for something like that.
All my compliments about this support forum! I got some great help here from Bridger.
all the best,
herman
-------------------------
241243
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Han
Senior Member
Posts: 548
Joined: 04/06/2001 |
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11/02/2001 09:26:34 AM |
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Actually beside the Help section that comes with homesite, people can
also go to www.coldfusion.com and search for KB articles on different
topics about homesite.
-------------------------
Allaire/Macromedia visual tool support
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Cy_Jobes
Member
Posts: 62
Joined: 10/04/2001 |
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11/02/2001 09:47:24 AM |
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Han,
The problem here is that we are using Homesite, not ColdFusion.
Without being told by you, how are HomeSite users supposed to know to
look in ColdFusion for answers?
My experience shows that unless people
are working with ColdFusion, and have a use for it, most HomeSite users look
into HomeSite for their answers and have no knowledge of
ColdFusion.
For example, why would someone go to Dreamweaver for a
Flash question, even though the two may work with one another?
So my biggest complaint here is that if this is an option only for ColdFusion
then take it out of HomeSite. I would hate to see that done, so why not
do the obvious? If it is a functionality of HomeSite, and is as
powerful as we hope, create an easy to understand tutorial and let us
make use of this excellent tool.
It makes no sense to add this
component of the product if we're not going to be told how to use it.
And to write it as if we should understand it is being far presumptious
of users. The writers should take a poll of Homesite users and see how
many of them use this component. And if they don't, why? My bet is that
the majority of persons who don't use it will answer that they were not
aware of the feature, don't see a use for it and becasue they can't
find easy to understand instructions and examples to get them started,
don't even bother.
OK, that's my soapbox. I'm not attacking you,
I was just hoping that since Macromedia got a hold of HomeSite that
these features would be well explained and taught.
Cy
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Han
Senior Member
Posts: 548
Joined: 04/06/2001 |
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11/02/2001 09:57:00 AM |
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Cy_Jobes,
http://www.coldfusion.com/Support/KnowledgeBase/SearchForm.cfm
http://www.macromedia.com/support/
http://www.wilk4.com/asp4hs/
http://hshelp.com/
It is not just for coldfusion, the KnowledgeBase search page is for all
the ex-allaire products, which including homesite. For other macromedia
product such as Flash and Dreamweaver etc., you can go to Macromedia
support page for more information. And beside the company websites,
there are lot of third party web resources available for homesite too.
Get a homesite book in local computer store also would be a good idea
for beginner.
-------------------------
Allaire/Macromedia visual tool support
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JeffW
Senior Member
Posts: 985
Joined: 04/10/2001 |
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11/02/2001 05:34:52 PM |
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Han, he's right though, VTML is powerful and extremely useful and there
really should be better tutorials written for it. I haven't looked
closely at the HSv5 docs on this yet, but traditionally they documented
the tag reference, then mostly recommended that you look at the
existing VTML files. That's not a tutorial.
There are a number of good articles and tutorials on scripting HS, but few on
VTML. See my articles page
for a list of about every HS article I've come across in the last few years. No VTML...
Han, Please pass this thread to the HS devpages folk there. (Marlana Patton)
Perhaps she can get one of her writers going on this area.
-------------------------
Jeff Wilkinson, Team Macromedia Volunteer for HomeSite
Asp4Hs
and PHP4Hs: HomeSite/ASP/PHP/.Net Add-on's and Resources
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JeffW
Senior Member
Posts: 985
Joined: 04/10/2001 |
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11/02/2001 05:37:48 PM |
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Cy_Jobes, I know its not a tutorial, but for some powerful examples, see the
ASP database custom dialogs on asp4hs.
(here)
They might give you some help and ideas. They are excellent examples of
powerful VTML custom dialogs for code generation.
-------------------------
Jeff Wilkinson, Team Macromedia Volunteer for HomeSite
Asp4Hs
and PHP4Hs: HomeSite/ASP/PHP/.Net Add-on's and Resources
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Cy_Jobes
Member
Posts: 62
Joined: 10/04/2001 |
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11/02/2001 11:59:48 PM |
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JeffW & Han.
First of all I want to thank you folks for all your help and understanding.
It's great to have a forum that actually works with and for you.
I truly hope that there will soon be a tutorial on VTML. Especially with
at least one to two examples.
I see such a window of opportunity and ways to streamline things. I work
with a lot of templates and make lots of changes to messed up code.
“Extend Find And Replace” has been my helper for the most part. But one
mistake and you gotta go back to the last saved version and start from
there.
I also have sites where a customized editor with some preset option/pull
down menus would be so helpful.
With so much to do, and so little time, figuring out VTML based on the Help
section is just not feasible. And searching the web for tutorials that
get to the heart of the matter is almost as time consuming. They don't
exist.
I know that this can't be explained as simple as writing
a Flash tutorial for Flash. But, then again, it is a markup language.
Show me some working examples (with pictures so I know I come up with
what is expected) and how to write them and I'll catch on in no time.
Please let me know as soon as there is an easy way to learn VTML.
Thanks,
Cy
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HShelp
Member
Posts: 150
Joined: 04/12/2001 |
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11/06/2001 12:33:27 PM |
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Cy_Jobes,
<< Now that Macromedia has obtained Homesite I would
hope that some decent tutorials would be written on this topic. >>
The original plan was to write a VTML tutorial. That
plan fell by the wayside when Macromedia took over... So I don't think you should
look to MM to provide this.
Then again, I'd love to write either an on-line tutorial, or write one as part
of an "advanced" HomeSite book.
It would help (for either) if you could describe what particular problems
you had with the existing documentation. That way I could avoid some of
the problems people are having now.
(Note that I wrote the VTML Reference
for version 4.5.2, but I only played the role of "editor" for
"Customizing the Development Environment". We were not entirely happy
with the result, since this was seen as an intermediate solution -
hence teh plan to write a real tutorial for version 5.)
<< Show me some working examples (with pictures so I know I come up with what
is expected) and how to write them and I’ll catch on in no time. >>
Hmm, well, is 474 working examples enough? You'll find them in the
Extensions directory of HomeSite! They range from very simple to very
complicated. Plenty to study there ;-)
-------------------------
Marjolein Katsma
Member of Authoring Tool Guidelines Working Group (invited expert)
More help at HomeSite Help
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HShelp
Member
Posts: 150
Joined: 04/12/2001 |
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11/06/2001 12:44:32 PM |
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Herman,
<< Though
I went to University in the Netherlands, the help function is very hard
for me to understand. I just would like some tutorial for dummies, just
some very simple basic stuff, how to start using homeSite the easy way! >>
Sounds like you are the ideal candidate for the book "HomeSite for Dummies" ;-)
In case you'd like to order at Amazon.com, you can find a link here:
HomeSite Books
(...and support HomeSite Help!)
-------------------------
Marjolein Katsma
Member of Authoring Tool Guidelines Working Group (invited expert)
More help at HomeSite Help
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Cy_Jobes
Member
Posts: 62
Joined: 10/04/2001 |
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11/06/2001 01:41:59 PM |
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Readers of this thread who believe they can make use of creating Tag Editors
using VTML should respond to this thread. I hope I am not the only one.
---------------------------------------
I think the approach to creating a tutorial should not be one as though
everyone knows what you are saying. As you can see, that has already
been done. Not working so far.
This tutorial should be one with
real examples. Showing how to build an editor and what the final
results will be. Without these you might as well just not even try.
That would be the same as sending me to a site where I read and read
but have no example to go by.
Maybe I sound like a complete
idiot that needs his hand held to get some sort of understanding. Well,
having gone through the Flash tutorial long ago (as an example) my hand
was held all the way. I was able to grasp on what I was doing because I
was seeing a working example.
So far everyone seems to agree
that a tutorial is needed for VTML. In addition, we agree that this is
an excellent and powerful addition to HomeSite. But I fear that
Macromedia is going to take the same approach as Allaire and just shove
this off as "who cares".
I work for the worlds largest privately
owned Software Company. If we had that attitude we would not have that
position. And we would not even ship a product with extra functionality
as though it were an after thought.
I have to admit I'm getting
exasperated over this thread. First we're told to look for answers to
VTML where we would never even think of looking (ColdFusion).
Second, Macromedia people tell us that they agree that the topic deserves
better explanation and a tutorial.
Third
we're told that "The original plan was to write a VTML tutorial. That
plan fell by the wayside when Macromedia took over... So I don't think
you should look to MM to provide this." Then, "is 474 working examples
enough? You'll find them in the Extensions directory of HomeSite! They
range from very simple to very complicated. Plenty to study there."
I'm sorry but I have no idea what the heck is 474? Study? I really don't
have time to respond to this thread, let alone time to decipher code in
hopes of learning it. Thus I am asking for a tutorial. I'm busy and
want to utilize an existing tool to expedite my work. VTML could do
that, if I knew how to use it.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate
your help. What would be of more help to all of us, the customers who
purchase HomeSite, is to have a tutorial that will teach us to use VTML
to create Tag Editors. As I said in the beginning, the approach to
creating a tutorial should not be one as though everyone knows what you
are talking about. And, though we're not idiots, it would be best to
take an elementary approach. Just because we know how to use HomeSite
does not mean we know VTML.
Please, please, please make a tutorial.
PS: As exasperated as I am, I will not let this go. By your own admission this
is a powerful tool and deserves more clarity in teaching.
----------------------------------------
Readers of this thread who believe they can make use of creating Tag Editors
using VTML should respond to this thread. I hope I am not the only one.
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HShelp
Member
Posts: 150
Joined: 04/12/2001 |
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11/06/2001 02:49:39 PM |
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Han,
(BTW, my name is Marjolein, it's in my sig.)
<< Nop, it should be a big one. >>
That doesn't give us much hope that version 6 will even be remotely what was
originally planned for 5.0...
Such as:- Accessibility support, or
- XML support
- both of which were originally major ticket items for 5.0 before MM took over.
If May is a target date, that doesn't sound like Macromedia is really taking
HomeSite serious! Or at least not serious enough.
-------------------------
Marjolein Katsma
Member of Authoring Tool Guidelines Working Group (invited expert)
More help at HomeSite Help
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HShelp
Member
Posts: 150
Joined: 04/12/2001 |
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11/06/2001 03:20:16 PM |
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Cy_Jobes,
I'm quite serious I want
to write a tutorial, but your reply doesn't help me much in determining
what is wrong with the current documentation. Please help me help you!
<< This
tutorial should be one with real examples. Showing how to build an
editor and what the final results will be. Without these you might as
well just not even try. That would be the same as sending me to a site
where I read and read but have no example to go by. >>
Please tell me how the current (admittedly single) example does not help: is
teh problem that it's just a single example, or is is something wrong
with the example itself (if so: what)?
<< So far everyone seems to agree that a tutorial is needed for VTML. In
addition, we agree that this is an excellent and powerful addition to
HomeSite. But I fear that Macromedia is going to take the same approach
as Allaire and just shove this off as "who cares". >>
I agree (I told you already) but note that Allaire's approach was to
provide a tutorial (Allaire did care!) - but this was killed by Macromedia's takeover.
Since I agree a tutorial is badly needed, I want to write it - but I
need more input than what you've provided so far. Be specific!
<< Second, Macromedia people tell us that they agree that the topic
deserves better explanation and a tutorial. >>
If you mean me - I'm NOT Macromedia!
<< I'm sorry but I have no idea what the heck is 474? >>
That's 474 working examples of VTML. They come with HomeSite.
Look up an example; load the VTML
code. Then look at Tag Chooser and choose the corresponding tag - see
what the editor looks like; enter some values for some attributes (not
all) and press OK. Switch to Tag Inspector and observe how attributes
are supported. Make sure you have Tag Insight enabled, and type a space
before the closing '>' of the start tag and observe how Tag Insight
is supported. Etc.
I'll still readily admit a tutorial is needed (as
I stated before!) - but don't complain about lack of working examples -
I think 474 are plenty. In other words: there is certainly NO lack of
working examples to study (you said working examples would help, so I
pointed you to what's there!).
What is needed is indeed a Tutorial - to get you started with those examples, right?
Again, please let me know what exactly the problems are with the current
documentation so I can do better!
<< Please, please, please make a tutorial. >>
Sure, I want to! But I need you - and other users - to help me understand
what you need other than what is already there. So please give me some
input other than "Not working so far" since that doesn't tell me anything at all.
-------------------------
Marjolein Katsma
Member of Authoring Tool Guidelines Working Group (invited expert)
More help at HomeSite Help
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HShelp
Member
Posts: 150
Joined: 04/12/2001 |
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11/06/2001 03:36:25 PM |
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Han,
<< HShelp,I know who you are. >>
So please address me by name! I consider it very impolite to address
people by their (forced by this stupid software!) nickname when they
provide a real name in their sig. I always make a point of using a real
name if it is provided. There are real persons taking part in this
forum, not just anonymous entities.
<< What I can do is bring those feature requests up again next week
with development. >>
You misunderstand. These are not mere "feature requests" - they refer to
major items (AKA "themes") that were up for discussion before MM took
over. Each of those themes consists of many
features. My MRD outlined them. Don't bother to bring these themes up
as "feature requests" - just point the powers-that-be to my original
MRD (if they've "lost" it, let me know, I can email it to them - I'm in
the habit of making backups if they aren't).
<< I said the next homesite release will be a "big" one, because it might be
a big structural change in visual tool products, which I can not
provide too much information to the public right now. All I can say is
the idea of next release of homesite might be larger than just adding
new features or fixing existing bugs. >>
That sounds EXTREMELY discouraging! Will Macromedia never understand what
they bought??? Or even make an effort?
Let HomeSite live!!
-------------------------
Marjolein Katsma
Member of Authoring Tool Guidelines Working Group (invited expert)
More help at HomeSite Help
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JeffW
Senior Member
Posts: 985
Joined: 04/10/2001 |
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11/06/2001 03:58:40 PM |
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Han, you said: And I am working with the forum manager right now to try to enhance the
forum, and soon customer will be able to input bug reports and feature
requests directly to QA and development's mail boxes throught "wish
list" webpage, instead of posting them on the forum and waiting for
engineers to come to the forum and look at them.
One of the
important functions of the forum as a place for bug reports and feature
requests is that other users can contribute to any discussion. This is
very important since they can either provide support or additional
information and description or sometimes denial (such as when one
person requests something that would screw up everyone else if
implemented)
Having a separate, private means to enter bug
reports and feature requests would take away that benefit unless it
also has general, public visibility and a means to add discussion posts
to the original note. If you're going to do that, why not just stick
with the forums?
If you want to improve the forums, then get
them to assign more support people and to give us a forum that shows
threading properly (subthreading within each thread)
-------------------------
Jeff Wilkinson, Team Macromedia Volunteer for HomeSite
Asp4Hs
and PHP4Hs: HomeSite/ASP/PHP/.Net Add-on's and Resources
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JeffW
Senior Member
Posts: 985
Joined: 04/10/2001 |
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11/06/2001 04:06:43 PM |
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Han, you said "Just
pass this idea again with development and QA, they promise to do
something in next version release, but no plan for any upgarde tutorial
soon"
The tutorial doesn't have to be installed in homesite.
This sounds more like one of the things that could be done by Marlana
Patton and folk. They have been writing articles for the HS developer's
center and having outside authors write articles. They might be the
best to approach, even if they end up paying Marjolein to write one for
them...
This is important. Please don't let it drop.
Marjolein,
are you seriously considering writing this? Any time soon? It's
probably something that could be written in chunks, with 'chapters'
added periodically...
(fwiw, I emailed Marlana to draw her attention to this thread)
-------------------------
Jeff Wilkinson, Team Macromedia Volunteer for HomeSite
Asp4Hs
and PHP4Hs: HomeSite/ASP/PHP/.Net Add-on's and Resources
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HShelp
Member
Posts: 150
Joined: 04/12/2001 |
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11/06/2001 05:10:36 PM |
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Han,
Jeff quoted: "you said: And I am working with the forum manager right now to try to enhance the forum, ..."
I find this hard to believe, since none of the "recent" (as in "a month
and a half old" posts in the "new forum" section of this site ever got
a reply.
Is anyone REALLY paying attention?
-------------------------
Marjolein Katsma
Member of Authoring Tool Guidelines Working Group (invited expert)
More help at HomeSite Help
Edited: 11/06/2001 at 05:12:50 PM by HShelp
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HShelp
Member
Posts: 150
Joined: 04/12/2001 |
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11/06/2001 05:27:44 PM |
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Jeff,
<< This is important. Please don't let it drop.
Marjolein, are you seriously considering writing this? Any time soon?
It's probably something that could be written in chunks, with
'chapters' added periodically... >>
Of course I am! - like I said, this was already planned for version 5
before MM took over so I consider it a "missing piece".
But don't be mistaken: although I'm planning to provide all the "missing
pieces" that I can (i.e., anything that isn't dependent on Delphi .exe
code but can be encoded in external files) that isn't a small job. The
list of missing pieces is already too long to let me sleep quietly at
night... (really).
Although I have my own priorities for some of the features, I'm already
considering how to implement a voting system on what to tackle first (other
than what I consider needs to be done anyway)... the list is long (which means
much is missing in HS 5 that should NOT be!).
-------------------------
Marjolein Katsma
Member of Authoring Tool Guidelines Working Group (invited expert)
More help at HomeSite Help
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JeffW
Senior Member
Posts: 985
Joined: 04/10/2001 |
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11/06/2001 09:42:00 PM |
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Marjolein, I only asked if you were serious because I know you have a
lot of things on your plate right now... no offense was intended of
course...
-------------------------
Jeff Wilkinson, Team Macromedia Volunteer for HomeSite
Asp4Hs
and PHP4Hs: HomeSite/ASP/PHP/.Net Add-on's and Resources
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Cy_Jobes
Member
Posts: 62
Joined: 10/04/2001 |
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11/07/2001 10:43:29 AM |
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Marjolein,
I appreciate your willingness to help, and will try to explain where the
current documentation falls short. At least from my point of view.
I read through some of the "Building Tag Editors" in the "Customizing the
Development Environment" section as you suggested in an email to me
about a month ago. I waited for 5.0 to do so, with hopes it would be
written a lot clearer. Not so sure if it was, but I have matured in my
own knowledge and found that it began to make some sense to me. The
example on the page either was incomplete, incorrect or just the
starter of the whole thing and I did not know it. It seemed to take
forever figuring out what did what. There was no example of what it
should be in the end. Eventually I began to change some values to see
what I would get. Overall, the documentation did not help me understand
what I was doing or how to do it. There are just so many holes.
You want to figure out how to write the tutorial? Take the elementary approach.
Don't explain it all away in some drawn out text document. That type of
documentation already exists in HomeSite, and we still aren't getting
it. Instead, pick a tag to embellish upon and step us through the process.
Show us what we will see as we create each step.
It's
hard to be specific about what is needed when I'm lost in the first
place. That is why I suggest the elementary approach. This needs to be
explained as though no one knows what you are talking about, because
most of us don't. Sure, we see it's tag based, but:
- What do we do with them?
- Where do they go?
- What order?
- When do I use this here?
- Why would I use this tag instead of that one?
You could read all of the documentation that is in HomeSite and gain some
knowledge, but who has the time to decipher it? Teach me from the beginning.
Point is that this is a functionality that is sold with HomeSite. If a person
buys this product with hopes of being able to build tag editors to make
life easier they will soon be very disappointed. And learning from the
documentation supplied with HomeSite is far from easy.
I'm sorry, I find it hard to be specific. The documentation does not teach
you from beginning to end. It's like opening an HTML source from a
browser to a person who does not HTML and saying "learn html from this
example. That's all the help you get." Does not sound too bad to us,
huh. But to that individual you just placed a mountain in front of them
with no other knowledge to climb it.
I agree wholeheartedly that Macromedia does not realize what it bought in HomeSite.
I fear that their WYSYWIG type of programs are more important to them
than HomeSite. I also feel that ColdFusion gets more attention than
HomeSite. It seemed that way even with Allaire. My only hope is that if
Macromedia shoves HomeSite in a corner that the original creator of
HomeSite (forgot his name) will come out with another editor.
Marjolein, I'm sorry if this letter in not much help. But if I understood VTML,
and we able to work with it, I would not even be writing to this
thread. But I am excited about learning it and building tag editors. I
want to contribute too. And if I had the time I would dive in further
to discover VTML. But I'm going to have to wait on the tutorial before
my job can get any easier.
Cy
Edited: 11/07/2001 at 11:02:47 AM by Cy_Jobes
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HShelp
Member
Posts: 150
Joined: 04/12/2001 |
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11/07/2001 11:39:02 AM |
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Cy, Thanks for your long reply - don't worry, it does help, actually.
When I still worked at Allaire and we were looking at the VTML documentation
and discussing creating a tutorial, I had some ideas about how to go
about it (in a rough outline); while that was just my approach, I now
see echos of that in your post. That helps, since it tells me I'm on the right
track, at least.
You are correct that the current tutorial just gives some general ideas but
never builds up to an actual, working tag definition. That was my main
reservation, too.
I'd like to divide a tutorial in three or four main "chapters", each with several
sections, or pages, or what will you:
- Support for Tag Tips, Tag Insight and Tag Inspector (that's the easiest part
and can accomplish a lot)
- Extending that with support for a Tag Editor (layout of the dialog, WIZML,
how it all ties together)
- Wizards - how to design and build them, and how they differ from Tag Editors
- (maybe) some of the the finer points, like UI Usability, Accessibility, and
modularization (introduced with version 5); and other "subtypes" of
VTML (such as Tag Chooser and Expression Builder, Outline Profiles, and
more - some of this has never been documented!).
That's quite a lot, and in a book it would certainly be several chapters!
How's this sound (knowing what you already do, of course) - does it fit in with
what you're looking for?
Anyway, like I already pointed out to Jeff Wilkinson, I definitely have plans to
do this - but I do have a lot on my plate, and this won't have the highest
priority. Which doesn't prevent "the back of my mind" from thinking about how to
approach this!
<< My only hope is that if Macromedia shoves HomeSite in a corner that
the original creator of HomeSite (forgot his name) will come out with another editor. >>
I'm afraid Nick Bradbury isn't interested (he said so!) - and he has his
plate full with TopStyle. Meanwhile, hold on to your copy of HomeSite 5!
-------------------------
Marjolein Katsma
Member of Authoring Tool Guidelines Working Group (invited expert)
More help at HomeSite Help
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Cy_Jobes
Member
Posts: 62
Joined: 10/04/2001 |
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11/07/2001 11:59:50 AM |
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Marjolein,
I really don't know how to respond since most of what you said made sense,
yet left a draft from flying over my head.
There lies the problem. My limited experience allows me to grab a concept of
what you are talking about, but I really don't know how to do any of
what you are saying. Nor do I use all the devices you mention. Tag
Insight and Tag Inspector are a few I have rarely scratched the surface
of. I just forge on with HTML, PHP and JavaScript without using those
tools. The biggest reason for not using these is that I have not been
educated in their benefits. I rarely even use the Insert Tag. I only
found it one day when a tag I needed was not readily available. I found
it there and now use it from time to time.
HomeSite is a glorious editor for the hard-core coder. But I know plenty of people
who don't know half of what I do about it, and I feel I know just
enough to get by. So imagine if these tools were well explained to each
user. I think that most users who discover these hidden treasures would
sing the HomeSite praises more loudly than before.
Problem is that we (or most importantly, you) can't do everything for MM.
I certainly appreciate all you do.
Cy
PS: I'm not ignorant, just ill informed. But that does not mean
it's the fault of HomeSite.
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HShelp
Member
Posts: 150
Joined: 04/12/2001 |
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11/07/2001 01:25:22 PM |
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Cy,
<< I really don't know how to respond since most of what you said
made sense, yet left a draft from flying over my head. >>
OK, that's good enough for now. Got your comb handy or did you already lose
too much hair over this? ;-)
<< Nor do I use all the devices you mention. >>
All of those are tools for hard-core coders - though we all have our
preferences. At least explore the tools and try them out - you're
short-changing yourself if you don't. (Search the Help for them!)
<< I just forge on with HTML, PHP and JavaScript without using those tools.
The biggest reason for not using these is that I have not been educated
in their benefits. >>
You'll save time by investing
some to explore them - before deciding what you like and what you
don't. Something is bound to save you some time. You don't need to be
"educated" - just try them out to see what they can do for you (and
don't give up too soon, either).
<< So imagine if these tools were well explained to each user. >>
Actually, I think they are - since basically all you need is how to activate them
- and then try them out. You don't need to know how to support them
(with VTML) to use them with all the VTML (those 474 files!) that's already there.
<< Problem is that we (or most importantly, you) can't do everything for MM. >>
True enough - but what I do is not for MM but for HomeSite users. Heck, I've
been doing that since 1997 or so (I've used HS since late 1996, but I
really dove in when version 3 was released with VTML), so I'm not
likely to stop any time soon. Working for Allaire (for a period) was part
of that, but not working for them (or MM) any more doesn't change my
commitment to my fellow HomeSite users - it merely changes the way I do
what I do.
-------------------------
Marjolein Katsma
Member of Authoring Tool Guidelines Working Group (invited expert)
More help at HomeSite Help
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JeffW
Senior Member
Posts: 985
Joined: 04/10/2001 |
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11/07/2001 10:06:32 PM |
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Marjolein, For my part, I'd like a tutorial sort of like
Collier's tutorial
one on writing parsers... start at the beginning and go through how to
create one, install it, some debugging/trouble-shooting, etc. Then
different chapters (in his case not yet written) can go into more
advanced features and techniques.
Maybe also include a use
section, detailing the different HS ways that the info in the VTM file
is used, (tag tips, tag insight, tag inspection, edit tag dialogs, etc)
-- could be a copy or point to existing user guide docs...
Write it as he did with code bits as you go through the process and build
your example dialog(s).
Maybe a resources page would then link to other docs and to particular vtm
files in the distribution that illustrate particular techniques...
Just my thoughts, maybe not new to the discussion... I haven't been keeping up
with this thread well enough ;-)
Lastly, structure it so it's posted on a website and downloadable and
installable in the HS help system for use there.
-------------------------
Jeff Wilkinson, Team Macromedia Volunteer for HomeSite
Asp4Hs
and PHP4Hs: HomeSite/ASP/PHP/.Net Add-on's and Resources
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HShelp
Member
Posts: 150
Joined: 04/12/2001 |
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11/08/2001 05:12:28 AM |
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Jeff,
<< There are a number of good articles and tutorials on scripting HS, but few on
VTML. See my articles page for a list of about every HS article I've
come across in the last few years. No VTML... >>
OK, not for beginners, but I have a whole VTML section on my site,
including several pages with (advanced) Tips and Techniques - why not list that?
-------------------------
Marjolein Katsma
Member of Authoring Tool Guidelines Working Group (invited expert)
More help at HomeSite Help
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Cy_Jobes
Member
Posts: 62
Joined: 10/04/2001 |
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11/09/2001 02:41:16 PM |
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HShelp,
Here is an example of the type of uses I would have. At the same time it is a question.
________________
I have been looking at the anchor tag VTML. Been trying to teach myself
how to make or edit the tags for my own use. Seems that I have some
time. (Have no idea how long it will last.)
This is all looking good and seems kind of straightforward. Problem is this:
If I want to change the anchor tag editor so that a certain value is
displayed other than the normal anchor tag, how would I do that?
Example:
NON developers using a template have an anchor tag like this:
<a href="http://SomeAddress.com">Mayan Architecture</a>
But I want to change the output using the editor and possibly a radio button to
switch the output to:
<a class="external" href="javascript: extwindow=openwindow2(extwindow, http://SomeAddress.com', '', 'toolbar=yes, location=yes, status=yes, menubar=yes, scrollbars=yes, resizable=yes, width=640, height=480');
void 0;">Mayan Architecture</a>
I don't see where the output is defined in the VTML. Should I be looking to
do this another way?
Currently I am selecting the first part of the tag, deleting it up to the
"HTTP:/..." and cutting off the (">) end of the open tag. Then I
highlight the address and use a snippet assigned to a keyboard shortcut
to add the rest of the open tag around the address.
Suggestions? Would customizing my tag editor work for me? I have lots of things like
these I would like to customize for. The simple switch of a radio
button would place a version of a customized tag in place of the
regular tag.
Make sense?
Thanks for your help. Scalp is wide open. Send me a breeze.
CYa
Edited: 11/09/2001 at 02:43:54 PM by Cy_Jobes
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HShelp
Member
Posts: 150
Joined: 04/12/2001 |
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11/09/2001 05:13:50 PM |
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Cy, Yes, it's pretty clear what you mean.
While I'm sure you realize I can't write a whole tutorial here off the cuff,
I'll try to give you some hints to (hopefully) get your started.
1. Decide whether you want HTML or XHTML. Go to the directory of your
choice [programpath]\Extensions\TagDefs\(X)HTML and rescue the existing
tagdef (A.vtm or a.vtm) either by renaming it or by moving it somewhere
else (for instance, one level up)
2. Go to the WML directory in
the same tree, and "steal" a.vtm from there. Of course a WML a tag
isn't exactly like an (X)HTML a tag - but it's simpler and will provide
you with a better starting point. (You can always later on apply the
same customizations to the (X)HTML a tagdef.) Copy the WML tagdef to
your target directory.
3. Open HomeSite (if you haven't already
done so), press Ctrl+E to bring up Tag Chooser, navigate to the WML
branch and choose the a tag. play around a bit with the Tag editor,
creating a new tag, and editing it (Ctrl+F4) to get a feel for what it
does. Keep your experimental scratch document open, you'll want to
return to it.
4. Load your copied a.vtm in the editor. You'll
see that on the outside you have a container tag TAG - it has the same
role as the html tag for an (X)HTML document. Inside that there are
several sections (each container tags): you'll see ATTRIBUTES,
EDITORLAYOUT and TAGLAYOUT sections (often several of the last type).
5. Look at the ATTRIBUTES section first: it's central and on its own does
a whole lot. Within it you see a list of ATTRIB tags; each ATTRIB tag
can have several attributes; the NAME attribute is the most important:
it defines an attribute of the tag. For instance, you'll find
<ATTRIB NAME="href" ...> which means your a tag has an attribute
called href.
Just by having a tag definition with (within TAG) an
ATTRIBUTES section and one ATTRIB with a NAME attribute for each
possible attribute a tag can have, you've already provided basic
support for Tag Tips, Tag Insight and Tag Inspector!
6. Go to
you scratch document, place the cursor inside an a tag, and press F2:
you'll see a Tag Tip pop up - and its content comes from the ATTRIBUTES
section. Enable Tag Insight, type a space after he tag name or an
attribute, and you'll get a drop-down list of possible attributes to
choose fro. That list also comes from the ATTRIBUTES section. Keep your
cursor in an a tag, and switch to the Tag Inspector resource pane.
You'll see a property sheet with all possible attributes (and more);
all those attributes, again, come from the ATTRIBUTES section. Compare
what you see here, with the code in a.vtm
7. Back to the a.vtm
in the editor. The EDITORLAYOUT section defines the layout of a Tag
Editor dialog. All user interface elements are CONTROLs (of various
types). Each CONTROL that needs to be referred to one way or another
also needs a NAME. Now comes the first bit of magic: an ATTRIB in the
ATTRIBUTES section can have a CONTROL attribute next to the NAME
attribute. Now, when you edit an existing tag, what happens is this:
- the code parser finds each attribute of your tag, and their values
- for each attribute it looks up the ATTRIB tag by its NAME attribute
- it then finds the CONTROL attribute in the ATTRIB tag
- then finds the corresponding CONTROL tag in the EDITORLAYOUT section,
and assigns the value of the attribute in your document to the control
in your Tag Editor dialog
8. By now, the name of each (input)
CONTROL has become a variable name, and the value of the attribute in
the document you're editing is assigned to that variable. When you're
done filling in or changing attribute values in the dialog and press
OK, it's the turn of the TAGLAYOUT section(s). You need one at least,
but you can have three types (defined by the TYPE attribute), StartTag,
TagBody and EndTag. StartTag is the default, so you do not need to
define that. What's inside each TAGLAYOUT container is statements in
the sublanguage WIZML; it's still tag-based, but basically it's a
simple procedural language, not a markup language. WIZML does all the
processing of your input, and writes the complete tag (back) to your
document. Note I said it writes the complete tag: even if you're
editing an existing tag, the whole tag is parsed, the result displayed
in the dialog, and WIZML uses your input to write the whole tag back -
it does not change anything. (One advantage is that you'll always get
all your attributes in a consitent order; that's a great help later
with maintenance if you need to do a lot of global S&R.)
9. Now look a bit closer at the copied WML a.vtm. It contains a tab page
labeled "Phone.com extensions". You don't want that. You'll see I lay
out my code with white space separating logical chunks, and I use a
fair amount of comments, too; you it will be easy to find the
corresponding code sections in ATTRIBUTES, EDITORLAYOUT and TAGLAYOUT
for the Phone.com stuff. Remove those sections of code, save, and press
Ctrl+Alt+Shift+C to clear the VTML cache so it will read your new
version. Test it with your scratch document. (You may want to repeat
this for the xml:lang atribute, to make your starting point even
simpler.)
10. At this point you may want to read through some of the VTML reference
pages for the VTML tags and attributes I've mentioned.
11. Time for a design decision: Does your "extended" tag always have the
same parameter values in the JavaScript bit or are they variable? If
it's always the same, your suggested radiobutton is a good choice; if
not, you may want to use tab pages instead, you can put extra controls
on the tab for the extended version.
At this point I should mention
you can use the controls in two ways: you've already seen controls that
correspond to tag attributes; but you can also have controls to
determine behavior (of the WIZML): those do not appear in the
ATTRIBUTES section, but they still become variables with values you can
query in the WIZML. The latter type is what you want here; good
controls to determine behavior are check boxes, radio buttons,
dropdowns, and tabs. From a design point of view it's usually a good
idea to visually separate the "attribute" controls from the "behavior
control" controls.
12. For examples you could look at the HTML
H1-H6 tagdef for an application of a radio button to make a decision;
the LI tagdef is a good example with tabs to decide (between the UL and
OL variant since they have different attributes); test their behavior
and compare with the code; neither is terribly complicated.
Phew - now my fingers hurt from typing - but I think this should give you
enough to get started and keep you busy over the weekend ;-) I hope
this works for you...
PS. a little schematic for how things tie together when editing an existing tag:
Parser -> attribute name+value -> ATTRIB NAME -> ATTRIB CONTROL ->
CONTROL in EDITORLAYOUT get attribute value -> CONTROL NAME =
variable -> variable used in WIZML to write tag
Have a nice weekend!
-------------------------
Marjolein Katsma
Member of Authoring Tool Guidelines Working Group (invited expert)
More help at HomeSite Help
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Cy_Jobes
Member
Posts: 62
Joined: 10/04/2001 |
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11/09/2001 05:39:05 PM |
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HShelp,
WOW! Thank you so much for that walk through. I'll be on it some of the time
over the weekend, maybe. Learning to play guitar right now, so I have
been leaving work at work. But I'll probably play around a bit. Can't
wait to get to Monday for sure.
I'm so humbled by your help.
Thanks so much for the valuable info. Will be in touch if I hit a snag.
One question, since the JavaScript has double and single quotes, will that
affect the way the WIZML works? By the way, I'm not using XHTML. Never
gave it much thought. JPS is very popular here, but I don't know BEANS
(pardon the pun) about it, yet. I'm just a HTML scrapper doing all the
code cleanup.
Woe is me.
Thanks,
CYa
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Cy_Jobes
Member
Posts: 62
Joined: 10/04/2001 |
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11/12/2001 11:35:14 AM |
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HShelp,
I did it! I did it!
I am so stoked. Your instructions placed me on a great path. I'm not sure
why some things do what they do, but they still make some sense. I'm
encouraged to go on and try some other techniques. This is going to
save me so much time when the brainless send me their HTML pages I need
to clean.
No doubt I will have some questions, but I am so encouraged top press on.
Thanks again,
Cy
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HShelp
Member
Posts: 150
Joined: 04/12/2001 |
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11/12/2001 03:15:33 PM |
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Cy,
<< I did it! I did it! >>
Hey that's great, glad to hear it.
A suggestion: I suspect that after this any questions you have will be
more specific; I'd suggest you start a new thread for that (this page
has become rather large anyway...).
And if I don't seem to notice, feel free to draw my attention to it (you'll
find my email on my website). I prefer to answer questions on the forum rather
than by email though, so more people can benefit than just the poster.
-------------------------
Marjolein Katsma
Member of Authoring Tool Guidelines Working Group (invited expert)
More help at HomeSite Help
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