COSMOCREATE(1) CosmoCreate COSMOCREATE(1)
NAME
cosmocreate - WYSIWYG HTML authoring tool
SYNOPSIS
cosmocreate [ X toolkitoption... ] [-defaultvisual]
[-emacs] [-help] [-runmany] [-warn]
[-sourceline ##] [HTML files...]
DESCRIPTION
cosmocreate is a WYSIWYG editor for creating HyperText Markup Language
(HTML) documents for publishing on the World Wide Web (WWW). Through its
WYSIWYG interface and its tight integration with the IRIX Interactive
Desktop, cosmocreate greatly simplifies the task of creating compelling
HTML documents.
The cosmocreate program contains extensive online help and users guide.
For this reason, this man page will not go into detail on the interactive
aspects of the program. Please read the Cosmo Create
online User's Guide available from the cosmocreate help menu.
This manual page supplements the online help by providing information on
the configuration and administration of cosmocreate.
Editor Key Bindings
The default cosmocreate key bindings are those used by the Motif XmText
widget. In addition, the menu accelerators obey the IRIX Interactive User
Interface Guidelines and use the Ctrl key. Specifying the -emacs
command-line option runs cosmocreate using a subset of the Emacs editor
key bindings. In Emacs mode, the menu accelerators use the Alt key
instead of the Ctrl key.
Reusing the Editor
Normally a single copy of the cosmocreate program runs and multiple
editing windows are opened from that single copy. If a copy of
cosmocreate is already running, attempting to execute a another copy of
the program will simply open a new editing window on the original copy of
the program. If a file was specified when attempting to run the
additional copy of the program, that file will be opened for editing in
the new editing window on the original copy of the program. This
behavior is called run once. Though it is discouraged, multiple copies of
cosmocreate can be run by specifying -runmany on the command-line of each
additional copy of the program. Note that each copy of the program will
display its own set of tool palettes.
Colormaps and Visuals
By default, cosmocreate tries to run in 24-bit mode. This mode provides
the best color reproduction for images and allocates a very small number
of colors from the default system colormap. If 24-bit mode is not
available on the system or the -defaultvisual command-line option is
specified, the default visual mode (typically 8-bit) will be used. The
use of this mode produces dithered images and may allocate a large number
of colors from the default system colormap.
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File Backup and Checkpointing
By default, cosmocreate creates a backup file of your original document
when you first save any changes to the document. This backup file has the
same name as the original file with .bak appended and is created in the
same directory as the original file.
In addition to backup files, cosmocreate creates a checkpoint file every
2 minutes by default. If the editor should exit unexpectedly before the
current document has been saved, the checkpoint file provides a recent
copy of the edited file and image maps, if any. The checkpoint interval
can be changed using the program preferences dialog. Checkpoint files
have a .sav suffix. If a new document has never been saved, the
checkpoint file is called CosmoCreate-username-id.sav. If the document
has been saved, the checkpoint file is called filename-username-id.sav.
Checkpoint files are normally created in the same directory as the
current file. If a checkpoint file cannot be saved in the current
directory, an attempt is made to save it in /var/tmp. Checkpoint files
are automatically deleted when cosmocreate terminates normally.
Fonts
In keeping with the spirit of a markup language, cosmocreate users do not
specify font names and sizes directly. Font name and size are determined
by the paragraph style and font style selected for a portion of text.
Paragraph and font styles are mapped to actual font names and sizes in
the application resource file /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/CosmoCreate. The
font names and sizes have been chosen to closely match those used by
common Web browsers such as Netscape. Users may choose among three font
set sizes: small, medium (default), and large. To select a font set size,
set the CosmoCreate*fontSizePreference resource to one of small, medium,
or large. You can specify individual font names and sizes within each
font set. However, doing this may compromise the WYSIWYG nature of
cosmocreate.
The Courier font is substituted for any font that is not available on the
system.
Configuration Files
cosmocreate places configuration files in a directory called
.cosmocreate. One of these configuration files, cosmocreate-preferences
contains user preference settings. The file is an ASCII text file and
contains comments describing its contents.
On startup, cosmocreate first checks the environment for the
COSMOCREATECONFIGDIR variable. If this variable is set, its value is the
full pathname of the configuration file directory. If the environment
variable is not set, cosmocreate next looks for a configuration file
directory called .cosmocreate in the current working directory. If the
directory is not found, the program looks for it in the user's home
directory. By placing a copy of the .cosmocreate directory in your
project root directory, you can customize the program preferences for
that project.
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If cosmocreate does not find a .cosmocreate directory but does find a
.webmagic-preferences file in a given directory, that file will be used
and renamed to .cosmocreate/cosmocreate-preferences.
Adding Web Browsers
The list of Web browsers available for previewing the current page is
user extensible. To edit the list of Web browsers select the Browsers
category on the Preferences dialog.
The Name is the common name of the browser (e.g. Netscape). The name
should not contain any whitespace. The Pathname is the absolute or
relative pathname of the browser. If a pathname is provided without a
leading path, the PATH will be searched to find the file. The browser can
be set to be the preferred browser using the toggle button. The
Communication Method specifies how cosmocreate is to tell the browser to
load a new file. Depending on the communication method specified, a
communication port number may be required. Consult your browser
documentation or your system administrator for the correct communication
port number. The control params depend on the control method selected.
The following communication methods are available:
None The browser cannot be remote controlled. Each time the
current page is previewed, a new copy of the browser will
be run.
Text Only The browser cannot be remote controlled and requires a TTY
terminal shell. The Lynx browser is a typical example of
this type of browser. Each time the current page is
previewed, a new window shell running the browser will be
run.
Netscape This method is used to control the Netscape Navigator
version 2.0 and higher. The method uses the -remote
command line argument to control the browser and provides
workarounds for bugs in remote control viewing with
FRAMESETs.
Netscape 1.1 This method is used to control the Netscape Navigator
version 1.1. The method uses the -remote command line
argument to control the browser.
Netscape 1.0 This method is used to control the Netscape Navigator
version 1.0. The method is identical to the NONE method
since the 1.0 version of the Netscape Navigator did not
support remote control.
Mosaic USR1 This method is used to control older versions of the NCSA
Mosaic browser. The method issues the signal SIGUSR1 to
control the browser.
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Mosaic CCI This method is used to control current versions of the
NCSA Mosaic browser. The method uses the Common Client
Interface protocol to control the browser. This method
requires one control parameter. The parameter is an
integer between 1024 and 65535 and is used as the TCP/IP
port number for communication between cosmocreate and the
Web browser.
Mosaic SDI This method is used to control the Spyglass version of the
Mosaic browser. The method uses the Software Development
Interface protocol to control the browser. This method
requires one control parameter. The parameter is an
integer between 1024 and 65535 and is used as the TCP/IP
port number for communication between cosmocreate and the
Web browser. NOTE: Certain versions of Spyglass' eMosaic
browser are actually launched from a shell script called
eMosaic. Due to a bug in that shell script the browser
cannot be launched from cosmocreate unless the following
line is added to the top of the script: #! /bin/sh.
Browsers that cannot be found will be displayed greyed out in
cosmocreate. The control methods tend to be browser specific. Check with
your browser vendor to determine which control method is applicable. At a
minimum the None method will always work at the cost of cluttering up the
screen with multiple copies of the browser.
Changing Source Editing Preferences
The tab stops and colors used in the View/Edit Source window can be
changed by editing the cosmocreate-preferences file (see Configuration
Files above). To create a preferences file select Save from the
Preferences dialog. The tab stop preference has the name sourceTabStop
and the color preferences have the name source<type>Color. Colors can be
specified as HTML color names (e.g. red, green, etc.) or as #RRGGBB
values.
HTML Parser Warnings
By default cosmocreate does not display warnings from the HTML parser.
There are two ways to configure cosmocreate to display parser warnings.
The first method is to turn on warnings using the program preferences
dialog. The second method is to specify -warn on the command-line.
Specifying -warn overrides any saved preference for warnings. Specifying
the Xt resource *showWarnings: True is equivalent to -warn.
Starting Source Line
The -sourceline option attempts to position the insertion point in the
WYSIWYG editing window on a line corresponding to the HTML source file
line number specified. The correspondence of the insertion point to the
HTML source line is approximate and can be off by a line under certain
circumstances. Specificying the Xt resource *sourceLine: ## is
equivalent to -sourceline.
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Link Generation Command Timeout
By default, the command used to generate a link must complete within 30
seconds or the command will timeout. If 30 seconds is insufficient, the
timeout can be changed using the Xt resource *cmdTimeout: ## where ## is
the number of seconds for the timeout.
FILES
/usr/sbin/CosmoCreate Program executable
/usr/sbin/cosmocreate Link to CosmoCreate
/usr/sbin/webmagic Link to CosmoCreate
/usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/CosmoCreate Program resource file
$HOME/.spelling Personal spelling dictionaries
$HOME/.cosmocreate Program configuration file
directory
./.cosmocreate Program configuration file
directory
.cosmocreate/cosmocreate-preferences User preferences file
.cosmocreate/cosmocreate-layout User layout preferences for
editing window, palettes,
toolbars, etc.
/usr/share/Cosmocreate/templates HTML template directory
/var/tmp Fallback location for checkpoint
files
*.bak Backup file
*.sav Checkpoint file
SEE ALSO
Cosmo Create online help and user's guide, netscape(1)
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