Description
The webmatic tool pack is a small and inexpensive package of tools that run under DOS. These tools are small console programs that can be run from a command line or from within scripts. When these tools are combined into batch scripts many useful kinds of web functions can be performed. For example you can run batch scripts to produce your web pages. Some of the tools in this package are useful for other functions besides web pages.
Why? Webmatic allows scripting solutions for web pages. This means that you can save time and money using webmatic when you need to create many web pages. Repetitive tasks such as headers, footers, link bars, side columns, can be programmed once and used on many web pages, and there can be a time and efficiency advantage. Other items such as tables or other html patterns can be done once and used often using webmatic.
Webmatic is a collection of some of the most useful tools that you will need for scripting web pages. It can be thought of as providing the basic kernel of abilities for automatically producing web pages. These few tools provide a strong basis for any web scripting solution.
These tools will also run under Win3.1 and under Windows95 and higher.
The following items and tools are in this pack.
Command Summary
REMBK. There is a program to remove extra blank lines. Sometimes HTML files have too many blank lines. This tool nicely cleans up extra blank lines.
COMBFL. This program combines the input files to produce the output file. This allows several files to be combined to produce an HTML page. For example, you might combine a header, a content file, a copyright statement, and a trailer file to produce an html file. This lets you use one file for the header and trailer files, and then all you have to do is work on the content of the document. This can save much time in producing web pages. This webpage itself is produced using COMBFL.
Ever spent a lot of time changing the copyright (or something else) on all of your pages? Putting this into its own file and then using COMBFL makes it easy to change the copyright on all your pages by editing one file.
This tool is similar to the COPY command on some WIN32 systems in that it combines several files into one.
ARGSUB. This allows arguments to be substituted in place of special symbols like <<1>> in the file. This allows things (such as background colors, files, etc.) to be substituted into files. This essentially allows the file to be used as a template with the arguments then substituted in. Files can then be reused many times.
WEBMSSI. This tool does a file include. Including this comment
<-- webmatic--include FILE1.INC -->
in your HTML file will insert the file FILE1.INC at this spot. The file to include can also be a program argument, as in
<-- webmatic--include ARG3 -->
Here the third argument to the program will be the name of the file to include.
This is an excellent and very useful ability. This include tool makes it much easier to build tables, even two or three column tables.
File inclusion can get complicated especially when files include files that include files. We are not implying that this is easy in all cases.
ADDP. This is a tool for adding paragraph symbols (those little <p> 's in HTML files. A <p> will be added in front of every blank line. Using this tool, you can then just type a regular file with no HTML, and this tool will add the necessary <p> paragraph control.
The commands can be put into script files called batch files. Some examples are given below. It is even easier to just type the command when you need it. If you are just creating a quick web page, it might just be easiest to use notepad, save the file, and just hand type the commands you need. This can be really fast and save much time. You don't have to be a script guru to use these tools effectively.
Very small - itty bitty. These tools are small in size. The file sizes are typically around 8k to 20k in size. Because of their small size, the tools are reasonably fast and efficient. (The Win32 exe's are larger.)
Some Examples
These tools can be run from a script file which you can create by typing commands using notepad. You can create a file called doit.bat which contains the following commands.
rem rem Script file example for removing extra rem blank lines from HTML files. rem REMBK IND.HTML INDEX.HTML REMBK 1.HTML ALL.HTML
Each line in this script file is a command that you could type into a DOS window.
When this runs (you can just click on the batch file) it removes blank lines from the file IND.HTML and puts the trimmed result into the file INDEX.HTML. Similarly the file ALL.HTML is created from 1.HTML.
Another example uses two tools to combine html files.
rem rem Script file example for combining files rem COMBFL HEAD.INC BODY1.INC TAIL.INC X REMBK X INDEX.HTML
This example combines the files HEAD.INC BODY1.INC and TAIL.INC to produce the file X, and then the file X is stripped of extra blank lines to produce the file INDEX.HTML. The file HEAD.INC contains stuff that you want to put on the top of every web page, and TAIL.INC contains things to put at the end of every web page. Then all you have to do is edit the BODY1.INC file. Once you get the hang of it, this can save very much time.
This can get fancy, and the HEAD.INC file can even contain things such as a left column and top link bar. Then BODY1.INC contains the right column. You can do some really fancy things with the scripts doing most of the work.
The idea in building tables is that you want to specify the table characteristics just once, and then use this over and over.
Let's specify a table in this file, which we call TABLE1.INC.
<table bgcolor="#aaaaaa" border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="2"> <tr> <td bgcolor="#cccccc"> <!-- webmatic--include ARG1 --> </td> </tr> </table>
Then say we want to use this formatting for a file IN.INC. We then use this script.
rem rem Script file example for building a table rem WEBMSSI TABLE1.INC BODY1.INC IN.INC COMBFL HEAD.INC BODY1.INC TAIL.INC X REMBK X INDEX.HTML
This example is much more complicated than the previous examples. This example takes the file IN.INC and puts it into the table in place of the ARG1 symbol. This table is put into the file BODY1.INC. Then the COMBFL command combines the header HEAD.INC, the body we just generated which is in a table in the file BODY1.INC, with the trailer file to produce the file X. And finally this file is stripped of extra blank lines to produce the file INDEX.HTML. With a few commands we have put the body of this file into a table automatically.
These same scripts will work on Windows95 and greater. You may have to add an extra line to rename the final file to a longer name or to a lowercase name. Otherwise everything else is the same.
It also comes with a manual in HTML which was generated using webmatic itself. You can study how we used webmatic to produce the manual.
The manual is generated by executing a script which runs various webmatic commands. By studying this you can get a nice example of how to automatically generate web pages.
The manual contains six examples starting from very simple and ending with a complex example of computing the webmatic manual itself. The manual also contains a detailed discussion of each webmatic command, including an explanation of each argument. The manual is full but is not excessively long. It does not take much time to learn webmatic.
You agree to personal use of this software. You may run it on any machine as long as it is you. In other words you are buying a license to use the software.
Common problems and questions will be addressed by FAQ pages (which we supply when you buy the software.) We think that webmatic is easy enough that no help will be required. Support, teaching, help writing scripts, and related services are available but cost extra hourly rates.
Webmatic for DOS costs $49. Webmatic for Win32 (native Win32 build) costs $90.
Webmatic for Win32 has the same functions as webmatic for DOS but is built for a Win32 platform. This is more modern technology.
Use the order form. Specify either a product of "webmatic for DOS" or "Webmatic for Win32" and use a price of either $49 or $90. This is shipped on a floppy disk. Follow the further instructions in this order form.
When you buy webmatic, you get this software delivered on a floppy disk.
Webmatic can be used for advanced things like generating XML. It has both simple and complex uses. Some of FEREGO's technical magazines have some articles pertaining to webmatic. Some of these articles discuss advanced uses.
FEREGO is researching more advanced tools to extend the webmatic toolset.
The magazine Mashed Potatoes discusses elements related to automating web pages. A number of tips and insights, from beginning to advanced, can (or will) be found here.
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