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Software for Windows PCs

This document contains information about WWW browsers and associated viewers, HTML editors and document-to-HTML converters. The areas covered are:

TCP/IP

There are many commercial packages you can buy to add TCP/IP functionality to Windows PCs -- for example Novell Workplace for DOS. There is also a public domain package called the Trumpet WinSockets package. You can find it using an archie server (look for trumpet). (This section last revised June 8 1994)

WWW BROWSERS

There are several Windows-based browsers for Windows-PCs, the most popular being Netscape. Other popular browsers are WinMosaic and Cello. You can find them via archie, by searching for netscape, winmosaic and cello, respectively.
Netscape for Windows
Developed by Netscape Communications, this is a fast and full-featured browser, and is the most popular Web browser currently in use. There are equivalent versions for Macintosh, PC/Windows and various UNIX platforms. You can get copies at the Netscape Anonymous FTP server, or by doing an archie search for the word netscape. Netscape is free for academic use only, and moderately priced (<$40US, I believe) otherwise.
Mosaic for Windows (WinMosaic)
This package is developed by NCSA, and is quite full featured. NCSA maintains a WinMosaic Status page. It is available via anonymous ftp from ftp.NCSA.uiuc.edu in the PC/Mosaic directory, or just use archie and look for WinMosaic. There is also a WinMosaic Developers home page. The latter is very useful for getting WinMosaic up and running. (This section last revised June 8 1994)
SAM - Stand Alone Mosaic
This is a hacked version of WinMosaic that can be run on a PC independent of any TCP/IP software, or of a network connection. It contains some demo documents, and is ideal for demonstrations of the WWW. It can be obtained from the sites: http://www.cis.ufl.edu/~bcs/sam/ or via anonymous ftp from ftp://ftp.cis.ufl.edu/pub/sam/. (This section last revised June 8 1994)
Cello for Windows
A descriptive home page for information about Cello is found at the Cornell Law Faculty. This gives a description of system requirements and help with installation. This site has ftp pointers to Cello itself, and also to the Trumpet sockets package. So, you can get it all here. There is also a Cello FAQ document. There is also a Cello listserv. Look at the Cello Law School home page for more information. Remember, you can always find this stuff with archie. (This section last revised June 8 1994)

HTML Editors

It would be lovely to have an editor that allowed you to create WYSWYG HTML documents. Fortunately several programs do exist -- but their utility varies significantly. Here is a list of what does exist, and some pointers to where to find it.
HTML Writer
HTML Writer is a Windows-based HTML editor with a number of nice features. Additional information can be found at http://wwf.et.byu.edu/~nosackk/html-writer/index.html.
(This entry accurate as of 17 Nov 1994).

HoTMetaL for Windows
HoTMetaL is a commercial HTML editor, but a still very effective implementation is available, for free, via anonymous FTP. There are also versions for Sun computers, and Mac (and other) versions should be soon available. SoftQuad (who makes HoTMetaL) has their own Web server with up-to-date information on HoTMetaL. There are several anonymous ftp sources of the HoTMetaL executable. One is in gatekeeper.dec.com, while another is the NCSA ftp archive -- but this site is so busy you had best try elsewhere. Alternatively there is a site in Norway (see the MS-WINDOWS subdirectory).
(This entry accurate as of 27 June 1994).
PC-Write HTML Editing Macros This is a package of editor macros for editing HTML documents with the PC-Write editor. PC-Write is a shareware editor for MS-DOS (also runs in Windows as a DOS task) and is included in the distributed .zip file. The package is available at: ftp://www.ucc.ie/pub/pcw4.zip.
(This entry accurate as of 17 Nov 1994).
HTML Assistant
HTML Assistant is a MS Windows text editor with extensions to assist in the creation of HTML hypertext documents to be viewed by World Wide Web browsers like Cello and Mosaic. Features of HTML Assistant are:
  1. Point and click application of HTML Markings
  2. The ability to test your work with a WWW browser of your choice without leaving the editor
  3. A facility to quickly retrieve, combine and edit URLs from Mosaic.ini, Cello Bookmark and HTML Assistant's .URL files
  4. Conversion of URLs from these sources to Cello Bookmark or text files
  5. A user defined toolbox
The FTP address for downloading is: ftp.cs.dal.ca The directory name is /htmlasst/ The complete program suite (excluding VBRUN300.DLL) is in the file HTMLASST.ZIP(approximately 167K bytes.) Try this URL: ftp://ftp.cs.dal.ca/htmlasst/ . You should also find the VBRUN300.DLL there, in compressed form as VBRUN300.ZIP (229,920 bytes).
The author is Howard Harawitz, Bedford, Nova Scotia, Canada (harawitz@fox.nstn.ns.ca)
(This entry accurate as of 17 July 1994).
HyperEdit
HTML HyperEdit is a facility designed for MS-Windows(tm) users to aid and assist in the creation of HTML documents. It also comes with an introduction to Hypermedia. This version (v0.2a) is largely based on "A Beginners Guide to HTML" produced by NCSA. Author: Steve Hancock, s.hancock@info.curtin.edu.au.
Entry up-to-date as of 15 July 1994
cu_html.zip
CU_HTML.DOT CU_HTML.DOT is a Microsoft Word for Windows 2.0 document template that allows users to create HTML documents inside Word in a WYSIWYG manner and generate a corresponding HTML file. You can assign different formatting tags to the paragraphs by simply pointing and clicking. You can also insert inline GIF images and specify hyperlinks by choosing the target file from a dialog box. The inline GIF images will also appear in the Word document. By using the template, you can create HTML documents with little knowledge on the HTML syntax. Existing word processor features such as spell checking, printing, cut & paste, macro automation, etc. can be used.
The documentation in HTML format (also generated by CU_HTML.DOT) is available at http://www.cuhk.hk/csc/cu_html/cu_html.htm. The ZIP file is at ftp.cuhk.hk, in /pub/www/windows/util/CU_HTML.ZIP
(This entry accurate as of 17 July 1994).
GT_HTML.DOT
GT_HTML.DOT is an alpha release by Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) of a set of Microsoft Word for Windows macros to facilitate HTML document authoring. The macros are contained in a document template which provides a pseudo WYSIWYG authoring environment. Contact: gt_html@gtri.gatch.edu (Jeffrey L.Grover and John H.Davis III)
HTML for Word 2.0
'HTML for Word 2.0' by NICE technologies, France, creates a structured document environment for Word 2.0. It has a simple user interface and preserves the Word environment as much as possible. It creates document instances that conform to ISO 8879 (SGML), and is available from the ftp.cica.indiana.edu FTP site (see the above URL) or from it's mirrors.
This software is an extended prototype of the production version which will be based on Word 6. Enough SGML functions have been implemented to ensure the creation of correct HTML instances. Performance of most functions will be grealy enhanced in the production vesion.
For additional information contact Eric van Herwijnen, NICE technologies, chemin des Hutins, Veraz, 01170 Gex, France. Tel (33)-50424940
(This entry accurate as of 17 July 1994).
HTMLed, Version 1.2
HTMLed is a customizable HTML editor with nice toolbars, etc. The current version is 1.2. It can be obtained from the above link, or directly via anonymous ftp at pringle.mta.ca in the directory /pub/HTMLed. The file is htmed12.zip. A Pro version will be released early in 1995 (unlike Window95!).
(This entry accurate as of 2 Jan 1995).

SOUND PLAYERS

PC Speaker driver
This product is a sound drive for the basic PC Speaker. It was developed by Microsoft for licensed users of Windows 3.1. Please the read the license agreement for the terms of the products use and the link to speak.exe. After you have installed the driver you can use wplany to hear most audio files. Get WPLANY.EXE from ftp.cica.indiana.edu. The filename is WPLNY09B.ZIP. It plays .AU, .WAV, .VOC and some others. It works with WinMosaic, over the standard PC speaker. You can also get it from the NCSA ftp archives.
There have been a couple of threads in comp.infosystems.www regarding how to set up MOSAIC.INI to play .AU files. The following is an excerpt: 
[Viewers]
    (deleted)
type8="audio/basic"
    (deleted)
audio/basic="p:\mosaic\wplany.exe %ls"

[Suffixes]
    (deleted)
audio/basic=.au,.AU,.aud,.AUD
WHAM
Wham (Waveform Hold and Modify) Version 1.31, is freeware and will play .au and .aiff sound files for people with windows supported sound cards. The size of this file is 138,130 bytes. You can get it by the above URL, or use archie.

IMAGE VIEWERS

There are several image viewers that you can use with Cello or WinMosaic to view Jpeg images, PostScript images, mpeg movies, etc. Here are most of them:
GhostScript v2.6
This product will allow you to view Post Script files. You can get it by the above URL, or use archie. GhostScript is part of the Gnu software system.
Lview
Lview is a freeware Gif/Jpeg viewer that works well with Mosaic. It is available from the NCSA FTP site, or It can be found via archie -- two sites I know of are: 
Host ajk.tele.fi
    Location: /PublicBinaries/msdos/mosaic/gif-jpg/lview
Host world.std.com
    Location: /src/pc/graphics/lview
MPEGPLAY (Mpeg Move Player)
Mpegplay V1.50 (c) 1993 Michael Simmons is Shareware and is the first viewer which seems to work well with NCSA's Mosaic. The size of this file is 921,020 bytes.

DOCUMENT TRANSLATORS

There are several filters available for converting documents from one format to another. Here is a summary of the ones available for PCs.
Rtftohtml
Rtftohtml converts Microsoft RichText Format to HTML. The most recent version supports WORD 6.0 RTF files. Note that this program is most useful for MS-Word document, as these use RTF format as the document code. See the above link for more details, and for information on how to get it. This code can be used on Macintoshes, PC's or on Unix boxes. The installation package tells you how to do all these things.
wp2html
This is a WordPerfect to HTML translator, available via anonymous ftp from src.doc.ic.ac.uk in /computing/information-systems/www/tools/translators/wp2html-macro, as html.wpm.gz. There is also a readme file readme.wpm.
wptohtml
This is another macro package for converting WordPerfect 5.1 (or 6.0)- files to HTML. These macros work with the DOS versions of these programs only!. There are two packages, WPT60DOS.ZIP and WPT51DOS.ZIP, available via the above URL.
SGML to TeX Converter
SGML2TeX is a program for the IBM PC (only - at the moment) to convert the SGML tags in a document to control sequences using the conventions of TeX. Documentation is found via http at www.uc.ie in /info/net/sgml2tex.html . Note this is an SGML converter, so you will need the HTML DTD definition also. I believe this is included with the package.
Rtftohtml
Rtftohtml converts Microsoft RichText Format to HTML. The most recent version supports WORD 6.0 RTF files. Note that this program is most useful for MS-Word document, as these use RTF format as the document code. See the above link for more details, and for information on how to get it. This code can be used on Macintoshes, PC's or on Unix boxes. The installation package tells you how to do all these things. You can find out more about this package from a CERN based description file.
RTFTOHTM -- Tools
This distribution contains a conversion DLL and a document template for WinWord 2.0. RTFTOHTM.DLL survives with most of HTML features I use in 'plain' HTML documents. Additionally there is a HTML style in template allowing user to write markups him- or herself.
This sotware (rtftohtm.dll and html.dot) when used together, allows transparent conversion from WinWord to HTML, not only from RTF to HTML. DLL does the conversion and template is only an integration tool.
pstohtml PostScript-to-HTML Converter
This is a Perl-script package for converting postscript-to-html, and also for converting PostScript to plain text. If you have perl on you PC, then you can run this. Note, though, that the package comes as a UNIX tar file.
To use this code, you will also need a postscript interpreter, for example Ghostscript 2.6.1. You might find the accompanying fonts and Ghostview 1.5 handy too.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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