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Other user actions
Editing the Mapping window
The earlier screen-shot of the Mappings window showed a straightforward case with some Styles left un-mapped and only one HTML code per Style.
It is allowable to set more than one HTML code against any Style. To do this, hold down <shift> whilst selecting the additional HTML code(s): the codes will then appear in the mapping entry (in Red, of course) as a comma-separated list. A typical use for this might be to make a heading both large and centred. (Using more than one HTML code for a Style needs to be used with care: it can, for instance, cause problems when setting HTML markers - see below.)
If you wish to clear an individual mapping entry you can select the (Clear) item in the HTML codes menu or, more simply, by pressing <adjust> over the entry itself. There is a Clear all button for clearing all mapping entries.
Note that any editing of the mapping list or new mapping file loading will disable the Start processing button, which will only be enabled/re-enabled when the Confirm mapping button is pressed. The Red prompt text will also change correspondingly.
(Note that, for user-convenience, the ‘Ignores’ window is also accessible from the Mapping window - via the button at the top right of the window.)
Saving mappings
!meDDLe
allows any set of confirmed mappings to be saved and easily retrieved for subsequent re-loading. Pressing the Save mapping... button in the Mappings window brings up a normal save window containing a suggested complete path which will save the mappings as a text-file directly to the Res directory within the application folder - from whence they can be retrieved at any time using the menu icon to the right of the Pale Yellow icon at the top of the Mappings window. (Alternatively, of course, the mappings can be saved anywhere else by normal save window dragging action, but the resulting file will then not be available on the above-mentioned menu, but rather will need to be dragged in.)
Headers/Footers and ‘Ignore’ lists
Many source Impression/OvationPro documents contain Headers and/or Footers e.g. to show page numbering. A corresponding HTML document would probably not wish to have these and !meDDLe
takes specific steps to allow them to be ignored.
Firstly, if a Header/Footer contains only insert codes e.g. {pageno}
rather than text (with or without insert codes), then nothing needs to be done: the Header/Footer will be ignored in these cases.
However, if the Header/Footer contains text e.g. Page {pageno}
then there would be unwanted occurrences of such text in the output HTML document. !meDDLe
overcomes this problem by allowing the user to specify a list of text-to-be-ignored. Access to the list is by using the Show ‘ignores’ button in the main window. This opens the following window:
This window has 12 writable icons (not all shown in the above screen-shot) - each of which can be used to enter text that is to be ignored if encountered on its own in a text frame.
Compiling a suitable ‘ignore’ list for a particular DDL file derived from a source document with Headers and/or Footers may take a little trial and error (a good case for using thr Ignore pics choice) but it is not a difficult task. One thing to watch is that leading and/or trailing spaces in text may well be important to capture in the ‘ignore’ list. For example, a Footer of the form:
Page {chapterno}.{pageno}
- i.e. to show as “Page 3.6”
would need to have both the strings “Page ”
(note trailing space) and “.”
included as separate ‘ignore’ strings.
As with mappings, sets of ‘ignore’ strings can be saved as text files to the Res directory and retrieved from there via the menu icon at the top of the ‘Ignore’ window.
Graphics in repeated headers/footers are a problem because currently !meDDLe
cannot ignore them. This means that numerous unused and probably unwanted graphics files might be generated. It is strongly recommended that graphics in repeating headers/footers are eliminated in the source OvationPro document before saving as a DDL document file.
(Note that, for user-convenience, the ‘mapping’ window is also accessible from the Ignores window - via the button at the top right of the window.)
HTML codes
The list of HTML codes which are available on the mapping menu is contained in the Messages formatted text-file Res.Messages.htmlcodes. As can be seen, this is restricted to those which modify the text in simple ways in a browser.
Provided you preserve the format, you can add to this list to explore the effects of other HTML codes - but you are on your own...
User-changeable system variables
!meDDLe
uses four system variables to set certain limits. They are:
meDDLe$MaxPages
- (initially set to 50) maximum number of HTML output ‘pages’ allowed.
meDDLe$MaxStyles
- (initially set to 50) maximum number of Styles allowed in input DDL document file.
meDDLe$MaxPics
- (initially set to 100) maximum number of pictures allowed in input DDL document file.
meDDLe$MaxMarkers
- (initially set to 100) maximum number of ‘name markers’ (see earlier) allowed in output HTML documents.
meDDLe$MaxContentsLength
- (initially set to 80) maximum length of text for links in Contents page. (Any curtailed text is reported at end of processing.)
These system variables are, as usual, set in the application’s !Run file and their values can be changed by the user if required. (Specific error messages will indicate when any one of these system variables needs increasing. Note that increasing any value might mean that the WimpSlot value - in the same !Run file - will also need to be increased.)
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