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News: HTMLcat slowly recovered after attacks by pirates, but now Microsoft has killed HTMLcat. They have abandoned critical technology required by HTMLcat, and that was more than it could survive, for now. After extensive development time using Microsoft tools, we are forced to change everything that makes the product unique and special, and to discard many months of development costs. When HTMLcat returns, it will never again depend on proprietary tools, which is a good lesson for Web and software developers.
Early tests of moving to Acrobat PDF format for the main book have resulted in an 8MB document with 1,900 pages, and that's without any graphics. Information is useless if you can't find it, and HTMLcat has always been about usability, so testing will continue until it again offers the performance and ease of use we have always expected.
Older News: HTMLcat 5 will be here soon. It's a big project and standards are quickly changing, but it's coming along fine, now more than 200,000 words and 60,000 lines of new code. It will use an automated setup program; get ASCIIcat to try the new setup. This major rewrite will make timely updates simpler. If you have registered after August 1, 1999, your upgrade to HTMLcat 5 is free! Release 5 supports Microsoft Windows 95 or later.
HTMLcat™ is your complete, all-in-one guide and tutorial about writing documents for the Internet. And it's even fun to use.
We live in interesting and accelerated times; some displays fill a billboard, while others are two inches wide, we have new browser versions from everybody, and new standards (that some actually follow!). HTMLcat 5 will help you work through the maze — as soon as we work through it.
Until recently, if you used any of the new Web features and tools in your documents, you were doing a disservice to your readers. Now we're shortchanging them if we don't use many of these new tools. Most of us see XML documents every day, whether we realize it or not. Ninety-six percent of visitors to your Web sites use browsers that support style sheets.
HTMLcat 5 helps you target Internet users who visit your Web site with the most popular browser — and the other 25-percent, too.
Read on, to learn more about HTMLcat, the new new standard HTML guide.
Click the link below to download your copy. (You may have to hold down the SHIFT while you click.)
Look it over. We believe you will know within ten minutes if it's right for you.
HTML is not all that hard, it's just that documentation is so cumbersome. And online documentation available so far hasn't helped much.
If we ask a browser company for information, we get their view of what HTML should be. If we go to the World Wide Web Consortium (at http://www.w3.org) we get standards — several megabytes of standards, spread around dozens of files, written in the lexicon of implementors, parsers, and acronyms.
HTMLcat is for the real-world, where not everybody supports (or even cares about) standards, and nothing ever seems to look like we had expected when we see it on our neighbor's computer.
HTMLcat is the coolest way to wend your way through this tenebrous task.
If you've used a help file, you know how to use HTMLcat. One difference is complexity... less of it. Topics are open, uncrowded and readable. It's a Windows help file, to be sure, but with new sophistication and flexibility. The first picture on the right is the main contents page.
Every object in the resizable window is a link. As you move the mouse, links turn into buttons, and a short description is displayed at the top of the window. HTMLcat uses one window; when you select a topic, it replaces the Contents. You will never get lost in layers of windows or dead-end links. Click the Contents button to return to the Contents page.
The Tags button opens or switches to the separate alphabetical Tags window. The example shows the pop-up Tags window.
Select a topic in the Tags window to see it displayed in the main window. It works how you would expect: simply, intuitively, and without jumping around the screen. The Tags window uses tabs. You are probably familiar with tabs in pop-up dialog boxes, or even filing cabinets; the idea is the same.
Wherever you are in HTMLcat, context-sensitive pop-up menus make it easy to find related information. You never have to return to the main Contents page or open the Tags window.
At the top of every page, icons are navigation aids, offering context-sensitive information. The gray area stays fixed as you scroll through the page.
Icons, like the rainbow paint can here, show relationships between topics. The paint can icon turns into a button when you move the mouse. Many topics use tabs; click a tab to move to another page within the topic.
Click the button to the left of the topic icon to open the context-sensitive search list. Select an item to jump to the topic. Tabs show additional topic categories; select a category, and the list instantly changes.
Context-sensitive menus offer instant access to Internet URLs, special HTML characters and colors, the Font Guesser, plus a unique boilerplate HTML list that you can use to paste HTML code in your documents.
HTMLcat is more than just clever navigational aids. It's serious information, presented in a modern, attractive, readable style.
I believe there are serious HTML authors ready to invest a couple of dollars in professional tools. Tools we use every day.
It's no small task. You must be fluent in HTML, help file development, documentation writing, illustration, programming, and the Windows API. That's a greater investment in learning than the project truly warrants. I believe HTML tools should be more accessible to professionals, and I believe it is worth the work.
The free download is the evaluation edition. While there is an enormous amount of information, a few features are missing. We hope that the quality of the book compels you to register to fill-in the missing pieces.
See HTMLCAT.TXT, furnished with your evaluation copy, for details.
You have the option of receiving the complete book on disk, or access to the registered version on the Internet.
After you register, we will E-mail you instructions for locating and downloading the software, and a password for reading the files.
Your registration entitles you to the complete, unlimited, unrestricted HTMLcat software package, sample HTML documents and pictures.
Visit the Secure order form to purchase HTMLcat! When the secure Web site notifies us that your order has been processed, we will e-mail instructions to get you started with the fully-licensed HTMLcat.
To cover the cost of processing your order, the price is just a little higher (but a couple of days faster).
If publishers do short runs to make it easier to update and to minimize up-front costs, the books are never in stock, and they'll be back ordered for months — or forever. If they have it in stock, it's probably outdated. With specialized books, nobody wins: the publisher is reluctant to commit, the writer is lucky to get a quarter an hour, and the reader is hard-pressed to find current, accurate information.
Writers cannot afford the time to do the job they would like. And, on the other side, publishers must widen the margins and pad the pages to make it look like it's worth $40. It's no wonder most books are oversized and under-written.
Paperless means the reader gets it faster, more complete, more accurate, and cheaper — without the up-front investment in trees and ink.
HTMLcat is priced for direct sale. No middle-man, no wholesaler, no retailer.
Click htmlcat.zip to download your copy. (You may have to hold down the SHIFT while you click.)
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