h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Bruce sent me over because he thinks that you might have some software in the pipeline for writing guideml pages - a sort of automated thing

is this true?

Adam

I have an application for helping with GuideML, yes. It's called GuidePost. It's not particularly sophisticated, no WYSIWYG or anything like that. At the moment I'm not making any versions available because it needs some work doing to it to match up with the modifications to GuideML, and also I've been advised to steer clear of using the h2g2 logo offsite for the time being, so I need to eliminate that from the program as well.

Keep an eye on my Space though, as I'll announce it here when I do have a suitable version ready (shouldn't be too long now), or if you prefer you can pop along to Yahoo! Groups and subscribe to guidepost-announce. The next version will be pretty unchanged from the old ones - just changes to reflect the changes in GuideML. After that I plan on a few more sophisticated features, although whether they'll work or not I have no idea...

great, thanks, subscribing now -------->>>>>>> whizzzzzzzzzzz

Actually, when I looked for that group, Yahoo couldn't find it (groups.yahoo.com)

Perhaps you could try at egroups, the uk version.

I've put a link to it on my Space... and yes, as you can see it's really, really low traffic

Yep, thanks - got it through the link - well, I'll look forward to receiving very few updates thanks (sarcasm).

The next version _might_ be out within the next three weeks as I'm on my easter holidays after this week so I'll have more time to work on it.

In case you're still interested, the new version of GuidePost with fancy toolbars and so forth is now out, link from my Space.

Its very cool.

It is good - makes writing an entry so much more bearable - thanks for all your hard work - it doesn't seem long ago since I made the original post.

I think the toolbars in this version make it a bit easier... and they can of course be turned off or moved around to accomodate your screen size

New features I want to add include:
- syntax checker
- syntax highlighting
- spell checking
- some kind of preview

All except spell checking are fairly well linked, especially syntax checking and previewing, because unless I can find someone else's code I can use for it, I'm gonna have to do it with a pushdown automaton I think. Oh well, it'll be interesting if nothing else...

I make no guarentees on these features, by the way, they're just ideas.

But they are very good ideas.

I downloaded the new version yesterday, Great Job!!

The 'some kind of preview' thing would be very high on my wish list (just to see whether the GuideML is working properly).

But don't worry, MaW, your tool is an immensely useful thing as it is right now.

Jeremy

Yeah, previewing would be good, but it's also one of the things I have very little idea how to do. I suppose I could translate it into rudimentary HTML and then throw it at an HTML-displaying component or a web browser, but that strikes me as cheating...

We'll see.

It would also be a quick way to give the function while you develop something more techy.

The translation into HTML is basically what the h2g2 Preview button does.

If you want to know what HTML a GuideML tag produces have a look at http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A184835 for a way to get h2g2 to tell you.

In that example the 1st textarea contains the GuideML tag escaped (eg &lt;HEADER^gt; ) - the 2nd (HTML) textarea contains the GuideML tag entered normally (eg <HEADER&gt. As you can see from the PICTURE SRC example on that page - you can even see the error comments delivered by the site for illegal code & the extra good thing is that it is self updating - if h2g2 change the way the GuideML tag works the new HTML is delivered fresh & sparkling to the textarea.

;^)#
the only problem is that h2g2 doesn't always deliver the same HTML to every browser

Uuuurrrghhhh! - the other probelm is that the HTML varies according to the skin it's being displayed in

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A184835?skin=classic & http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A184835?skin=alabaster

;^)#

I was only planning on a simple preview anyway - no graphics or anything. I don't want to end up causing copyright problems, and it would bloat GuidePost too much for my liking. However, it would be a simple way of getting syntax checking in there by simple visual inspection, although I am going to put in a proper syntax checker in the near future (I hope) based on a context-free grammar.

Have I been paying too much attention to my Computer Science lectures?

MaW,

if you say 'Syntax Checker', do you mean checking the (English) content or just the consistency of the GuideML Syntax?

I'd love to have the latter one. (And I'm ready to pay for a lifetime's supply of drinks in any of the h2g2 'etablissements')