HTML WalkerDownload: <htmlWalker.zip> (Zipped .D64) (Upd. Jan 2006 News)
Introduction
This program will display the text of a html file with much of the html formatting intact. HTML Walker was built on my program Text Walker.
Why this program?
Has the World Wide Web finally reached your vic20? Well, the main purpose of HTML Walker is not to display existing web pages on your vic (even though this is possible), it's a program for you who like to do some word processing on your Commodore 8 bit computer. Use your favourite Commodore 8bit text editor to write the text while using html codes to format the text. Then use HTML Walker to print it out, or to watch it with formatting on the screen, or to convert it to plain petasc without the html codes. There are several benefits with this:
You don't have to care about how the text looks while writing it. Focus on the contents instead. HTML Walker will format it for you later when you print it out.
The result looks rather nice with the headings and formatting on a Commodore printer. (Made for the MPS1250)
You can print on different paper formats without changing the document. Just change the print settings.
You can easily export your document with the formatting intact (after converting it to ascii). For example - load it into WORD on PC or put it on your homepage.
As a bonus, you will learn html! HTML Walker can use both petascii files as well as ascii (including all ascii dialects for PC, Unix, Amiga etc.). (Except for non-English characters). But it's faster on petascii (the standard charterset for Commodore's 8 bit computers).
HTML and compability
HTML codes are stated withing "greater and less than" brackets. I can't write them here as HTML Walker (as well as any web browser) would think that it's a HTML command. So look at this text in a text editor for examples. In the rest of this document, I will use "[" and "]" instead, just to display the codes in plain text.
You must have a [html] code in the beginning of your text file, as well as a [/html] at the end of the file. This is part of the html standard as well as it's helping HTML Walker to know where the start and end is. There is a big benefit from this: HTML Walker can use the file format from most text editors directly without any conversion. For example Notepad on The Final Cartridge saves two extra bytes at the beginning of the file and the rest is pure petascii. As HTML Walker first looks for the [html] code, then those extra bytes are skipped automatically. So texts written with most text editors will probably work. Later in this text there is a list of some editors that I have tested. There is no end of file checks (to increase the speed), so if you don't have [/html] at the end, then the program will end with a "string too long" error.
HTML support
Some HTML commands are one single word, for example [br] for a line break. Others are two commands, one to turn something ON and one to turn something OFF. Then they follow this pattern: [something] to turn it on and [/something] to turn it off. For example [h1]Big heading[/h1].
The following html codes are implemented:
[h1] [/h1] Headings
[h2] [/h2]
[h3] [/h3] Same as h2
[h4] [/h4] Same as h2
[b] [/b] Bold
[i] [/i] Italic
[li] list item
[br] break
[p] (new paragraph)
[hr] horizontal line
[ul] [/ul] indent/outdent
tables are displayed, but not great.
[html] [/html] MUST be used!!! Extra feautres:
[esc] For printer escape codes.
[n] For increased numbers, for example [n][n][n] will display 1. 2. 3. Useful for chapter numbers or CD tracks etc.
[n0] Reset the increasing numbers above. All other html commands are just skipped... But if a html tag is longer than 255 characters, then the execution will stop with a "string too long" error.
When you have written your text within the [html] and [/html] marks and used any of the additional html codes and saved it to disk. Then load and run HTML Walker. First you will be asked about the filename. All questions after that has a default value (that's displayed within brackets). So for most of the questions, you can just hit return. Here are some of the questions explained: File type SEQ or PRG (s/p) - This is the type of the actual file on the disk. When you show the directory of a disk, it says PRG after most files, but some programs saves text files as SEQ. If you load from tape, then this question is skipped (and the filename is ignored). Petascii, Ascii or WriteNow (p/a/w) - This is the charterset of the file. If the file was written on a Commodore 8bit computer, then it's most likely petascii, so this is the default value. (However, filenames ending with .html or .htm gets ascii as the default value and names ending with .wn gets WriteNow as the default value). Select Ascii for files that comes directly from the web or was written on a PC/Amiga/Unix or whatever. If you get the whole text in the wrong case, for examle everything in upper case letters, then you picked the wrong one. Petascii is faster by the way. Print Setup - The default values of this part will vary depending on if you are going to print or if you are going to display the file on the screen. If you for example have a C64, then the width for the screen will be 39 by default. If you select to print the text with a printer, then you will get futher questions regarding if you want to use NLQ etc... ## Swedish characterset and HtmlWalker The Swedish special characters (�� and �) are shown in petascii and WriteNow files, provided that your computer has them on the keyboard, but they are not shown in ascii files. All of the included converter programs however converts the Swedish characters. So if you for example use them in a WriteNow html file, they will show in HtmlWalker. If you then convert it to ascii, then they won't show in HtmlWalker but they will show on your PC. ## Files in the package
* H-MENU-20 - Automatic menu for the disk (vic-20 only) Vic Menu H20 Special version that autostarts html documents (by loading htmlwalker and inputing the name).
* H-WALKER - HtmlWalker; The basic version. Runs on any 8bit Commodore.
* H-WALKER-20 - Vic-20 compiled (Requires 8K expansion)
* H-WALKER-64 - C64 compiled
* H-WALKER-P4 - Plus/4 compiled
* HTMLWALKER.HTML - This document
* VICMENU.HTML Doc for vic-menu.
* WRITENOW.HTML - Instructions for the vic-20 editor: WriteNow
* WN2ASCII - Convert a WriteNow text to ascii.
* ASCII2WN - Convert an ascii text to WriteNow.
* TW12 - TextWalker, program for using the basic editor as your text editor. Instructions included.
* TW12EMPTY - TextWalker without the instructions, ready for your own text.
* LC2ASCII - Convert Petascii files to ascii
* LC2ASCII.HTML - Instructions for lc2ascii.
* 20SOURCE.BAS - Basic source optimized for Austro compiler Vic20. Won't run interpreted. ### Speed The vic-20 compiled version is the fastest (71 cps on ascii) followed by the c64 (61 cps) and Plus/4 (46 cps).
News in HTMLWALKER V1.3
(Jan 2006)
* HtmlWalker can now read files from tape.
* H-Menu (vic-20) is now better on recognizing html files. Filenames truncated by 64HDD (and the menu itself) is now recognized (.html .htm .wn .htm* .ht* .h* .w*) and also all combinations of mixed case letters (.Html, .HTm etc...)
* Compiled versions of HtmlWalker V1.3 added for C64, Plus/4 and of course the VIC-20. ## News in HTMLWALKER V1.2 (Dec 2005)
* Direct support for WriteNow files (Vic-20 editor).
* Filenames ending with .html or .htm sets the deafult characterset to "a"=ascii (but you can of course change it).
* Filenames ending with .wn sets the default characterset to WriteNow.
* All other files gets p=petascii as the default characterset. But as said, you can always change this.
* The screen does not get cleared on program start so that you will be able to see filenames etc on the screen while typing in the filename. The intro message is also shorter because of this.
* ASCII2WN bonus program added (converts from ascii to WriteNow).
* H-MENU-20 was added and support for it was added in htmlwalker. This is a special version of Vic Menu v20. (Vic-20 only) Works as a menu for the disk (and other disks) to start programs and to load files into htmlwalker: If you press return on a filename that ends with .html .htm or .wn then HtmlWalker is loaded with the selected filename and device number automatically inputed. Htmlwalker is loaded from the same disk drive unit that you loaded the menu from even if you changed unit with the menu. If you have expansion ram, then H-WALKER-20 is loaded, else H-WALKER is loaded.
* More instructions in html format was added.
* The compiled Vic-20 version is 43% faster than before (on ascii) as I now made an extra version optimized for the compiler. ## News in HTMLWALKER V1.1 (Nov 2005)
* You can now read files on other devices than 8.
* You can save an output file to other devices than 8.
* The default values are put by the cursor instead.
* Note that there is no change to the c64 compiled version - it's still V1.0! If you want a compiled version, you can easily do it yourself with PETSPEED64. The vic-20 version is updated to V1.1.
* The bonus program TextWalker was replaced with the latest version.
* LC2ASCII bonus program to convert from petascii to ascii was added.
* WN2ASCII bonus program to convert from WriteNow (vic-20) to ascii was added. Now you can easily write html on your vic-20. WriteNow instructions were also added.