28 February 1998

WEB-O-RAMA, V. 4.0

AUTHOR'S NOTES

This program is free for personal and other non-commercial uses, although modest donations from frequent users would help with programming expenses. I will be unable to continue to make Web-O-Rama available free indefinitely without donations from users who can afford to make them (e-mail me for a postal address). People not in a financial position to contribute should continue to use the program guilt free. Commercial users should contact me for additional information. Credit on Web sites designed with Web-O-Rama or links to my home page appreciated.

PROGRAM

Web-O-Rama is an HTML editor written in Visual Basic 5. I would appreciate suggestions and bug reports from users. Please let me know about any additional features you would like to see implemented and notify me about program errors. Exact wording of error messages (i.e., "Object variable or with block not set") is extremely helpful.

If you don't look at anything else in this file, read the IMPORTANT section.

At present, there is no Help file for Web-O-Rama. If you have questions specific to Web-O-Rama, you're welcome to e-mail me. However, if you're unfamiliar with HTML and need basic coding questions answered, try doing an Internet search for "HTML." There are a large number of sites on the Web with detailed information about HTML coding. In particular, I don't have the time or knowledge to answer detailed questions about forms, frames, or tables---all rather difficult at first. Although I have tried to make Web-O-Rama simple to use, a basic understanding of HTML is needed to use some of the more complicated features of Web-O-Rama.

NEWEST FEATURES

Multiple files can be opened and saved. Multiple-file search and replace added.

When you first start Web-O-Rama, a blank editing window appears called "Untitled." If you don't type anything into the editing window and open a file, the "Untitled" window is replaced by the file you've opened. Additional new files ("Untitled:1," "Untitled:2," etc.) remain open whether changed or not. This is the way Microsoft Word and many other word-processing programs work. I thought it would be less confusing to handle the files this way.

IMPORTANT

NT Compatibility

Version 3.996 added full NT compatibility (NT 4.0). The only "glitch" I've detected to far is that the "About" dialog reports "0%" memory utilization in NT.

Installation Instructions

You MUST use an unzip program designed for Windows 95 in order to unzip weborama.zip correctly. Using other unzip programs, such as PKUNZIP, will make the program impossible to install. There are a number of unzip programs designed for Windows 95 available on the Web. Please try using one of them BEFORE contacting me about installation problems. Unzip to an empty directory (or Windows \ Temp) and double-click setup.exe to install the program. After installation, the setup files can be deleted.

To install an .exe-only update, find the Web-O-Rama program directory and rename "weborama.exe" to something like "weborama.ex0" (if you have any problems with the update, you can always name it back to "weborama.exe"). Copy the new "weborama.exe" into the Web-O-Rama directory. If, for some reason, the new version won't run, you most likely will need to download and install the most recent full version.

Some programs that are designed to load with Windows 95 and run in the background (such as Quarterdeck's CleanSweep) will prevent Web-O-Rama from installing correctly. This is because some programs use Visual Basic support files that have to be updated by the Web-O-Rama installation program. Closing all open programs may not solve the problem. If the installation fails, turn off the options in those programs to load on startup and reboot. After Web-O-Rama has been installed, the options can be turned back on. Web-O-Rama can be completely deleted using "Add/Remove Programs" in the Control Panel.

Warning about Quarterdeck's CleanSweep

For reasons known only to Quarterdeck's programmers, recent versions of CleanSweep replace newer .dll and .ocx files with older versions. This may render certain programs (such as Web-O-Rama) inoperable (the most recent version of CleanSweep rendered my entire computer inoperable). Any program that doesn't work after installation of CleanSweep will need to be reinstalled with CleanSweep turned off. CleanSweep is not affected by reinstalling Web-O-Rama.

Warning about Iomega's FindIt

Iomega's catalog program, FindIt, replaces newer .dll and .ocx files with older versions. If you install it after installing Web-O-Rama, Web-O-Rama will crash when you try and open it (it also causes serious problems with Visual Basic 5 and Visual C++ 5). You will have to reinstall Web-O-Rama if you install FindIt. Reinstalling Web-O-Rama will not affect FindIt.

For Visual Basic Programmers Only

Programmers using Visual Basic should be aware that I'm using VB5 with Service Pack 3 installed. The setup program for Web-O-Rama will alter some of the .ocx and .dll files. If you're using VB4 and don't intend to upgrade in the near future or are using VB5 and don't want to bother with SP3, you may not want to install Web-O-Rama. It certainly won't harm your system, but you will be unable to make .exe-only files available and rely on users to download the standard runtime files elsewhere. This has ABSOLUTELY NO EFFECT on anyone except Visual Basic programmers. 

SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS

Web View

Select up to two browsers to display the HTML files you are working on under the "Browser" menu item. Selecting "Default Browser" means that the browser you choose will start when you push the "Web View" toolbar button. The program will expect you to navigate to "netscape.exe" or "iexplore.exe" and then click on the .exe file, so it helps to know in advance where these files are located on your system. Netscape is normally in "Program Files \ Netscape \ Program." Early versions of Internet Explorer may be located in "Program Files \ Plus!" Later versions should be in "Program Files \ Internet Explorer." Note that the drop-down menu at the bottom of the navigation box allows you to select "netscape.exe," "iexplore.exe," or "All Files" to display in the window.

If you select "Autosave Files on Viewing," the file you are working on will (obviously) be saved before the browser loads. If you don't, Web-O-Rama creates a temporary file (TMP0000.htm) for you to view. You will still be reminded to save your edited file before closing it.

If you already have a browser open and minimized, selecting "View in . . . Browser" will start another instance of the browser. This is currently unavoidable as long as the browsers themselves are user-defined. Instead, save the file (there's a "Save" icon up by the "Print" icon on the toolbar), then maximize and refresh the browser. I always close the browser when I'm finished viewing a file, which also prevents the problem. If you have NOT selected "Autosave on Viewing," you will have to close and restart your browser to see the changes (creates a new temporary file).

Displaying Graphics in Web Browser

In order to correctly display any graphics you have added to your HTML document, the document and graphics need to be in the same directory. Web-O-Rama can save image names as relative links ("myimage.gif") or absolute links ("C:\mygraphics\myimage.gif"), but using absolute links to other places on your hard drive may not allow the graphics to display.

Using "Web-safe" Colors

You can choose to use non-dithered colors from the "Options" menu. This allows you to select colors using a limited set of hex values (216 total colors). These colors will display correctly in all Web browsers and on systems capable of only 256 colors. The Hex Value dialog now displays the RGB (red / green / blue) values for selected colors. You can use these values when creating graphics with other programs.

NOTE ABOUT SERVICE PACK 3

V. 3.70 was the last version compiled before I installed Microsoft's Service Pack 3, which fixed a number of bugs, some of them quite serious, in Visual Basic 5. Users of previous versions of Web-O-Rama won't be able to run future .exe-only versions without downloading and installing a new, full version of Web-O-Rama (v. 3.71 or above).

KNOWN OR REPORTED PROBLEMS

Several users have reported that the editing window appears black, making the text invisible. Under the "Options" menu item you can select background and foreground colors.

I performed a long search and replace for odd word-processing codes (in a text file that had been created in Wordstar) and Web-O-Rama locked up. I had previously replaced two spaces with one space and the program reported 642 replacements, so the number of items doesn't seem to cause the problem. I would suggest saving files before doing an extensive search and replace (always a good idea, anyway).

Several users have reported that Cybermedia's First Aid detects a problem that sets off the crash guard when accessing some of Web-O-Rama's forms. This is a "bogus crash" and not a flaw in Web-O-Rama. Disable Guardian to prevent the problem. Newer versions of Web-O-Rama do not generate the error.

If, for some reason, Web-O-Rama starts displaying error messages when you attempt to open it, try reinstalling Web-O-Rama. As noted above, installing some programs after installing Web-O-Rama may make Web-O-Rama inoperable. Problems with Web-O-Rama can almost always be traced to a system problem rather than a problem with the program itself. You can also use RegEdit to navigate to "HKEY_USERS \ .Default \ Software \ VB and VBA Programs \ weborama" and delete the entire "weborama" directory. It's possible that if you have set up Web-O-Rama to start in a specific directory and then deleted or renamed the directory, you'll have problems (although the built-in error handling should take care of this under normal circumstances). The only thing deleting the directory will do is erase the configuration options you've chosen in Web-O-Rama.

Exporting data from one form to another will not always work as expected, because, under normal circumstances, you have to select an option (a specific "User Button" or "Template Number," for example) BEFORE exporting the data. To export successfully, use the "Import Data" function from the forms that support it rather than the "Export Data" function.

Versions of Web-O-Rama compiled before I installed SP3 have a bug caused by a serious error in Visual Basic itself. Trying to color the tags in files larger than 32 kilobytes doesn't work (the files load fine if you haven't selected "Color Tags on Opening"). Although the Rich Text Box (the "editing window") supports files of virtually unlimited size, an attribute called ".SelText" that keeps track of the cursor position is limited to 32 kb. The subroutine that's used to color the tags relies on .SelText to scroll through the file, and it "crashes" when it hits the 32-kb barrier. There's an error-handling mechanism that kicks the program out of the subroutine, so the program itself doesn't fail, but the entire file may not load. Newer versions of Web-O-Rama don't have this problem. A minor bug in some of the later beta versions could cause a crash when using "Replace" to replace text in files. Later versions don't have this problem.  

DISCLAIMERS AND DISAVOWALS

Visual Basic is a pretty benign programming language. Any time you install a program, however, you are taking a certain amount of risk. It is always a good idea to back up critical data before installing new software or hardware. I take no responsibility for any damages, either physical or mental (to you OR your computer), done by my programs.

___

Kevin Gunn
kgunn@cjnetworks.com
http://people.delphi.com/krgunn/index.html
