** PD/Shareware / 585 words **
** On reader disk logo **
HomePage-Penguin v1.65
87%
Comms
Denesh Bhabuta
Shareware
All Ataris

HomePage-Penguin (HP-Penguin) is a remarkably compact utility which semi-automates the creation of World Wide Web pages. These "web page wizards" have sprung up recently on other platforms but HP-Penguin is the first available for the Atari platform - yippee! Wizards take care of the technical details leaving the user to make straightforward choices in answer to questions. Even if you've never seen an HTML command before you'll be able to knock up your own web pages in minutes!

HP-Penguin works by asking you various questions at each stage of page development. The program itself includes plenty of useful hints and there's also context-sensitive ST-Guide hypertext help available at every stage so there's no need to panic if you didn't understand the question.

All the body text and images displayed in HP-Penguin are imported which means they either have to be prepared beforehand or created on the fly (see boxout). I found the best way to understand the process was to perform a "dummy run" loading any images and texts. I then created my desired image and text files and, in true Blue Peter tradition, created my pages live.

Since early releases less than year ago, HP-Penguin has undergone quite a number of enhancements yet still requires less than 100Kb memory. Despite this low overhead on system resources HP-Penguin is a powerful utility. With so many text and image editors to choose between it makes sense for HP-Penguin to concentrate on taking the HTML out of the creation equation.

HP-Penguin isn't just for beginners. The project file feature is the ideal way to maintain webpages which require frequent updates. In addition to generating the HTML format files the paths to all the component image and text files along with colour, layout and other settings can all be stored in a single project file which can be loaded and edited in HP-Penguin as desired - a very powerful feature!

HP-Penguin, as its implies, is one cute program. It runs as either an application or desktop accessory and currently includes English, German and French documentation, RSC files and ST-Guide format hypertext help. Spanish support is underway.

Registration costs £10, via CyberSTrider, which gets you a key to remove a five second delay during some operations. Matthias Jaap, the author, is currently working on implementing frames and tables along with some other internet utilities which makes Matthias an author well worth supporting!

** boxout **
WYSIWYG working

If you're running a multitasking environment and have OLGA (Object Linking for GEM Applications) installed you can use HP-Penguin in semi-WYSIWYG mode together with CAB. After every HP-Penguin Save operation OLGA informs CAB which automatically updates its display.
OLGA is the Atari implementation of OLE, Object Linking and Embedding, originally introduced in Windows and is also used since System 7 on the Mac. OLGA works under MagiC, Geneva, MiNT/MultiTOS and other AES replacements.
** end boxout **

** BC on **
Contact:
Author: Matthias Jaap
Email: mjaap@hsw.ifl.uni-hamburg.de
URL: http://www.hh.schule.de/hhs/mjaap/programe.htm
CyberSTrider: PO Box 2023, Wickford, SS12 9RX, England
Email: dbhabuta@cix.co.uk
URL: http://www.cyberstrider.org
** BC off **

** Captions **
** HPPING1.GIF **
HomePage Penguin doesn't claim to make professional looking pages but it's an excellent launch pad
** HPPING2.GIF **
Comments can optionally be added to the HTML source file to help you understand how the the source was put together
** HPPING3.GIF **
This shows a project file (top) and HTML file (below) displayed in a text editor - this file can be displayed in any web browser