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Miscellaneous WWW Software Tools and Resources

This page contains information on miscellaneous WWW software and HTML authoring tools which may or may not yet be included in large indices such as Yahoo. Some were found in posts to the comp.infosystems.www.[...] hierarchy; some were included as per users' suggestions; and others were even stumbled upon while wandering the Web.

Included are PC, Mac, and UNIX utilities for making interlaced and transparent GIFs; image mapping software; specialized HTML converters; and links to information on CGI and Perl, and other programming resources.

This page is in a state of perpetual development. Suggestions to ian.graham@utoronto.ca are therefore encouraged.

Page Design Resources

For everything you could possible need to create and work with transparent and interlaced GIFs, see Adam Bernstein's page at http://dragon.jpl.nasa.gov/~adam/transparent.html.

Eskimo North Inc. On Line also has a good collection of links to HTML tools, including information on CGI and Perl.

The HTML Developer's Tool Library has a number of useful PC, Mac, and UNIX utilities for making and using transparent / interlaced GIFs and image maps, among other things.

Yahoo's collection of page design tips also includes links to information on how to use backgrounds, forms, icons, imagemaps (clickable images), Perl scripts and CGI, and transparent images.

Tutorials

The CGI Resources web site has a large collection of CGI resources, plus an area listing many online tutorials. This is a good place to start.

Nik Silver's Perl and CGI tutorials are other excellent resources, and can be found at http://agora.leeds.ac.uk/Perl/start.html and http://agora.leeds.ac.uk/Perl/Cgi/start.html respectively. The Perl tutorial assumes a basic knowledge of UNIX, although high-level programming experience is not required. Topics covered include variable types, file handling, control structures, string matching (regular expressions), substitution and translation, and subroutines. The lessons are well-organized, clearly written, and each includes a supplementary exercise that expands on and tests understanding of the lesson's contents. The GZIPped text of the Perl tutorial is available at ftp://agora.leeds.ac.uk/scs/doc/whole-perl-tutorial.txt.gz . The CGI tutorial includes discussion of environment variables, information packaging, and forms processing, and is geared more strongly towards WWW applications. Both include a number of links to other relevant sources of information on the Internet.

Programming Resources

Perl

Due to its ease of use, Perl (Practical Extraction and Reporting Language) has become extremely popular for writing CGI programs to handle information related to HTML documents, such as those involved in processing forms. Online resources include a FAQ in both ASCII and hypertext form, and the PERL man page. A good starting point for finding additional information is the University of Florida Perl Archive.

Python

A number of users have recommended this language as an attractive alternative to PERL or shell scripts. Python is an object-oriented scripting language incorporating modules, exceptions, dynamic typing, very high level dynamic data types, and classes. It also has interfaces to many system calls and libraries as well to various window systems, and is extensible in C or C++. Python runs on many flavours of UNIX, on the Mac, and on PCs under DOS, Windows, Windows NT, and OS/2. The comprehensive Python home page includes Python news, links to the mailing list and newsgroup archive, a Python tutorial, sources, pre-built binaries, documentation, the Python FAQ, and a library of contributed source.

Browser Test Page

The Browser Test Page at http://www-dsed.llnl.gov/documents/WWWtest.html allows you to test your browser and its associated helper applications which handle text, graphics, sound, video, and archive files. Some of the common WWW file formats that have links on this page are GIF, JPEG, TIFF, AU, AIFF, MPEG, QT, PS, and GZ. Some of the less common ones include PDF, VRML, V5D, XBM, and SGML.

C++ to HTML Converter

This program is derived from Norbert Kiesel's c++2latex . Please read README.c++2latex for information about how to compile the program . NOTE : there is version 3.2 or more of C++2LaTeX , so you probably will prefer it for c++->latex conversion . I started with recent version because the last one defines .l file for each language ( c c++ ...) , but I actually needed only c++. The shar archive is available for download at ftp://tochna.technion.ac.il/pub/staff/dimka/c++2html/C++2HTML.shar.gz.

GIFTOOL (I cannot find it -- please see note below!)

This is a handy utility, available on a number of platforms (except Mac), that creates interlaced and transparent GIFs, among other things. The GIFTOOL home page can be found at http://www.homepages.com/tools/, and contains links to download binaries for many flavours of UNIX and MS-DOS, as well as the source. This page also contains some information on a utility called Animate, written in Perl, that allows you to incorporate server-push animation into your Web page.
The home site for this software, http://www.homepages.com/tools/, has disappeared (the above links are inactive). However, the software is avaiablel from the FreeBSD software archive. One possible source for this software is in Russia, at http://www.cronyx.ru/pub/pub/FreeBSD/distfiles/giftool.tar.gz

htmltoc

htmltoc is a Perl program to generate a Table of Contents (ToC) for HTML documents. htmltoc can create a ToC for a single HTML file or multiple HTML files. htmltoc also has the ability to inline a ToC for an HTML file. The htmltoc home page can be found at http://www.oac.uci.edu/indiv/ehood/htmltoc.doc.html, and contains links to an example of the output as well as a documentation page.

htxp

htxp is a preprocessor that provides time-saving features for writing HTML files, such as built-in user-definable abbreviations and macros. Not only does this make marked-up text easier to read, it also reduces the chance of typos. For more information, see the htxp home page at http://www.mcs.anl.gov/home/kwong/htxp1.html, which contains links to the appropriate source code and installation instructions.

The Leaky Tree Compiler

The Leaky Tree Compiler (LTC) is a DOS utility that converts .QDL (Quick and Dirty Language) files into HTML. Developed by Steve Walton, QDL is an simple but versatile outline building language which supports image placement, indentation control, cross-referencing, and "jump back" lines using the HTML <a href=#pointer> and <a name="pointer"> tags. The marked-up result is an easily navigable, index card-like data structure. For more information, including examples of a cookbook created with the LTC, and the QDL spec, see the Leaky Tree Compiler home page at http://www.eskimo.com/~stevew/leak.htm. You can also download the package directly from http://www.eskimo.com/~stevew/leaky.exe.

Map THIS!

This capable imagemap editor runs under 32-bit flavours of Windows, and nothing less, so if you're using Windows 3.1, you'll need to download and install the Win32s package from the above URL. Features include polygon reshaping and dragging; multiple GIF sessions, each up to 1280x1024 pixels; a floating area list box; and, of course, 32-bit performance. For more information, visit the Map THIS! home page at http://galadriel.ecaetc.ohio-state.edu/tc/mt/ which includes links to download the package.

Mapedit

If you were to walk up to a total stranger and ask about imagemap editing software, chances are that person would either give you a blank stare, or immediately mention Mapedit. Small, easy to use, and vastly superior to counting pixels, Mapedit has undoubtedly made many a web author's life easier. For more information about Mapedit, including its developer Thomas Boutell who maintains the WWW FAQ, and links to download the package, see the Mapedit home page at http://www.boutell.com/boutell/.

MediaWrangler

Billed as a "multimedia design tool for Windows," MediaWrangler by AltaVista Technology Inc. is actually several tools in one: a point-and-click imagemap creator; a design tool for catalogs, brochures, presentations, etc.; a searchable multimedia database; a viewer for AVI, MPEG, WAV, and MIDI files; and and a multi-format image conversion utility. For more information on features and reviews, check out the AltaVista home page at http://www.altavista.com/altavista/. Downloading the demo version is as simple as submitting this form. The MediaWrangler Player for Windows is also available from this site.

Netscape Bookmark Editor for Windows (demo)

The title of this package is pretty self-explanatory. Features include drag-and-drop bookmark rearranging; folder, bookmark, and separator creation and management; sorting; deletion; and more. Registration removes the 30 bookmark limit imposed by the free demo. The NBEW home page can be found at http://www.lamplight.com/lamplight/editor.html, and contains a link to download the demo version of the software, as well as instructions to upgrade to the registered version.

TreeLink

Written in Tcl, TreeLink analyzes a WWW page's hyperlinks to a given depth and represents them graphically, making it possible to see a page's link structure at a glance. It is also possible to make connections to remote servers and build trees for remote documents as well. The generated "hypergraphs" are not linked to your browser, however, so it's not possible to click on a part of the hypergraph to go to that URL. The TreeLink home page can be found at http://aorta.tat.physik.uni-tuebingen.de/~gaier/treelink/, and includes a link to download the archive, as well as an example of the screen output. Note: you need Tcl7.x / TclX7.x / Tk3.x to analyze the information and generate the tree display.
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Comments and suggestions to ian.graham@utoronto.ca are encouraged.

Original documents by Ian Graham.
Last updated by Ian Graham: 13 September 1999.