HTML PLAIN Readme
----------------- 

Program Name ... :  HTML PLAIN
Current Version  :  1.1
Date ........... :  10/01/1999
Author ......... :  Cyrille Artho (cartho@mordor.ch)


What is HTML PLAIN?

	HTML PLAIN is an extremely powerful HTML preprocessor. Basically it will make it *much* easier to build large web pages, doing most of the "grunt work" such as updating links automatically. For more information about HTML PLAIN, go to
	http://artho.com/webtools/plain/

How do I install it?

	There is no Makefile. Simply untar the directory to /usr/local/. The subdirectory 'htmlplain' will automatically be created. The configuration file, the template and the variable file should be copied into the document root, e. g. with
	cp config.pl template.html variables.txt ~/webpages
	Then, change to the document root, e. g. with
	cd ~/webpages
	and run the main program with
	wish main.tcl
	The first program you need to run is the configurator (see below) to set up the document root in the configuration file.

... or use the Installer

	There is a new installation program, install.tcl, which will guide you through the installation. It will create all required directories and set all references to them in the programs. It also sets up a user account, which has to be world readable if it is in the root account, so other users can copy the default settings.

Make sure that the location of the program is in your $PATH variable, e. g. by editing .bash_profile and adding PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/htmlplain

Which programs need to be run?

	The programs you need to run are:
	main.tcl	A frontend for all configuration tools (and also the main programs). Run the configurator (config.tcl) first in order to set up the program; from then on, you will need the following tools:
	config.tcl	Update the configuration
	template.tcl	Template editor
	variables.tcl	Variable file editor
	plainfiles	Updates the file table; run this program every time you add a new file (or delete one).
	htmlplain	The actual precompiler. It has to be run every time a page is updated (before uploading).
	If you are not sure, just run main.tcl, which brings up an overview of all programs.

Which files belong where?

	All program files, including macros.pl, should be installed under /usr/local/. The configuration file should either be moved to ~/.htmlplain/ or into the document root (recommended when using multiple pages).
	The example template and variable file can be used; they should be copied to the document root as well.

What do I need?

	Perl 5.0 or newer; you can get it at http://perl.com/
	Tcl/tk 8.0 or newer; you can get it at http://scriptics.com/

Can I run this program directly on the web server?

	Sure, if Perl and Tcl/Tk is installed. However, you have to move your documents to a new directory, and then set up the "real" directory (e. g. public_html) as the destination directory such that the output of the precompiler will appear on the web, not the input.

Which platforms are supported?

	Any platform Perl supports (currently any UNIX variant, MacOS and Windows)

A note for Windows users

	Because no Windows file system has symbolic links, binaries and images have to be uploaded from the source directory. You can use the command line switch --copy to allow the binaries and images to be copied to the destination directory. This is more convenient, but wastes HD space. If you do not use that switch, the file names to be copied will be printed to the log.

Where can I find updates?

	http://artho.com/webtools/plain/

Why is the HTML manual broken?

	Some lyx commands do not work well together with latex2html. Therefore I recommend using the postscript version rather than the HTML version. You can still download the HTML version at http://artho.com/webtools/plain/
