[no subject]

<snip>
>BTW, does anyone else out there find that marking html directly into a text
>file the easiest way to make web pages? Am I just a mutant? I find that all
>these Word based program macros only get in my way (particularly having to
>take the file from dos to unix and back again to do it), although I'm no
>purist when it comes to these sorts of things.
<snip>

I was wondering if I was the only one who preferred doing HTML pages
directly! I must admit that I do them in Word for Windows, but I open and
save my .HTM as raw ASCII.

I tried HoTMetaL, Word's Internet Assistant, and a few others and got rid of
each of them after less than half a day.

Part of the reason is that I'm writing for a new Internet program that does
all of Netscape's tricks and more, so I need the flexibility that I can only
get working directly on the ASCII files. It seems to me that any HTML
program that hard codes what is and isn't allowed, or that forces a
particular format, is going to be out of date as each new version and
varient of HTML comes out.

Another reason, I suspect, is that I did typesetting a decade or so ago and
HTML feels like an elementary version of that. I feel comfortable with <B>
</B> and that sort of thing.

Possibly related: I use RoboHELP but do the jump terms using Word's
abilities rather than RoboHELPs, using RoboHELP principally for file
management and basic testing. How do you do help files? Close to the metal
as Scot and I do with HTML, or using an intermediary?

If many of us are doing HTML and Help files directly, that implies to me
that the programs that are supposed to help us are not as helpful as they
might be. In word processing, for example, I suspect we all use a program
rather than a typewriter (which I guess would be the equivalent of editing
ASCII HTML). Perhaps when other programs get as sophisticated as the word
processors now available, I will use them.

Of course, there's lots of money in creating and selling a good word
processor. How much money is there in HTML or Help assistants?

Regards,
Bob
---
Robert Whitsitt (bob -dot- whitsitt -at- teachersoft -dot- com)
Member: Society for Technical Communication