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Processing options in the main window
Output html ‘pages’
Instead of the default ‘1 page per chapter’ output, the user can choose either:
a) Single page - meaning that the whole DDL document file will be processed to give a single HTML page as output, irrespective of the number of ‘chapters’.
b) New page at Key Style - meaning that the user can designate a Style from the source document that will be used to trigger separate ‘pages’ for the HTML output. Typically, the Style used for major section headings would be chosen here and the output pages will follow accordingly - irrespective of any ‘chapter’ divisions.
The only restriction is that the chosen Key Style must have an HTML code mapped to it.
Title
This writable icon can be edited by the user to provide a title which will appear in the title-bar of each output HTML ‘page’ - in the form “Title - xxxx01”, “Title - xxxx02”, etc. (where “xxxx” is the user-chosen output file leafname - see next item).
If the output option to produce a Contents page is chosen (see earlier) this title will also be used as its heading.
Output leafname
The user can choose a leafname for the HTML output ‘pages’ by editing the writable icon in the usual way. The default is html - which will also be used if the writable icon is left blank.
As indicated above, this leafname will also appear in the title bar of each HTML
‘page’.
HTML links at Style
This option allows the user to specify a Style which will be used to create external HTML links in the output HTML document(s).
Typically, the original OvationPro document would include a Style intended to be applied exclusively to URLs within its normal text. For example, assume this Style is called ‘Link’ and the OvationPro document includes the text “.... on my website at http://www.rayfavre.me.uk ...”. The intention is that the URL (and only the URL i.e. the part in italics in the above example text extract) would have the Style ‘Link’ applied to it. Then, by choosing ‘Link’ from the Style menu available to the right of the ‘HTML links at Style’ icon, the URL will automatically appear as an HTML link in the output document.
If the designated link Style is applied to an email address instead of a URL then the HTML link will automatically be prefixed with “mailto:” and work in the usual way.
The designated link Style does not need to be mapped, but if it is the mapping will be ignored.
Note that the created output HTML link will comprise exactly the text spanned by the designated Style, so it is essential to apply the designated Style carefully in the original OvationPro document - and it is important not to use this Style for other purposes.
Finally please note that in order for URL links to work correctly from the output HTML pages it is important for full URLs to be used i.e. do not forget the http:// part (or equivalent).
(The HTML link facility does not affect any mapping that may be applied as a result of other surrounding Styles being in force - as long as the designated link Style is wholly nested within them.)
HTML markers at Style
This option allows the user to specify a Style which will be used to trigger the placing of HTML ‘name markers’ in the output document(s). The intention is that such markers will be used to navigate to specific parts within individual output HTML pages. Accordingly, if a Contents page is also chosen, it will also include links to each of these markers, arranged as indented links within each page link. (This facility does not affect any mapping that may be applied to the chosen Style: the mapping will still take place.)
Tabs?
If the author of the source OvationPro document has used the <Tab>
key at any time in its preparation, its DDL document will contain a specific DDL code at the appropriate places. This option - which is off by default - determines whether !meDDLe
automatically inserts a fixed number of spaces at those same places in the output HTML document. (This point is discussed further later.)
Contents page?
The state of this option button determines whether a Contents page is generated. As seen, it is ticked by default.
If chosen, the Contents page will contain a list of live links to each output ‘page’. The text for each link will normally be the text of the first paragraph of each ‘page’ - which normally would be (and !meDDLe hopes it to be!) simply the heading line of the new page.
However, if the source document does not contain a heading line at the start of each ‘page’, the first paragraph could be a null string or excessively long - and in these cases !meDDLe
takes special steps to present a neater output and to warn the user that something needs correcting (see ‘Comments on usage’).
Background colour
Clicking over this small square icon will display a simple menu of colours which can be used to select the background colour of both the output HTML ‘page’ and any unused background of a converted graphic file. The default is White, and this - or a light Grey - is normally the best choice.
Picture options
There are three choices concerning pictures:
Process pics & insert refs
This is the normal situation - and is the default setting. With this choice, all picturs in the DDL document are extracted and converted to an ‘html-friendly’ format - as described earlier. Further, any picture which is ‘embedded’ (Ovation-speak) will be referenced in the correct place in the output HTML so that the picture will display when the ‘page’ is viewed in a browser.
Insert refs, but don’t process
This choice will include the correct picture references in the output HTML ‘pages’ but will not extract/process the pictures themselves.
This choice is provided because picture extraction & processing is the time-consuming part of !meDDLe’s work and there are often occasions - after processing the pictures - when the user may wish to modify the text without altering the pictures.
This choice then allows the picture references to be updated and the text to be re-processed whilst keeping the originally-processed pictures untouched in the Pics folder. This can be a significant time saver when finalising an output HTML document.
Ignore pics
This choice simply ignores the prescence of pictures altogether; merely processing the text into an HTML output without any picture references.
Sprite compression
If a picture is in sprite format !meDDLe offers three choices for compressing the output PNG conversion. Similarly, pictures in drawfile or Artworks format are always converted first to sprite format and then into PNG for the final output.
For these cases, the three compression choices are High, Medium and None - which are largely self-explanatory.
None is chosen as default because it gives the quickest processing time. Also, users may be using pictures which are not particularly large and therefore do not need compression to help browsers to load quickly an HTML page in which they appear.
However, some sprite/drawfile/Artworks pictures can be very large and compression then becomes highly desirable. You will probably find that the Medium choice gives a high degree of compression without significantly lengthening meDDLe’s processing time. The High choice will produce the best compression but it will usually take significantly longer to do so.
It is not possible to give hard and fast guidance on which choice is best: it will depend entirely on your particular pictures.
Please remember that JPEG files will be extracted output without any further conversion, so it makes sense for the user to make these ‘html-friendly’ before including them in the source OvationPro document.
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