Photo shows PMStripper running on @Macarlo's Warp 3.0
PMStripper Update
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Photo shows PMStripper running on @Macarlo's Warp 3.0 PMStripper Update |
Programmer Don
Hawkinson, author of CCA,
DH-Grep-PM,PMStripper, Pastry Box, and DH_ClipSave/2 just updates PMStripper
to version 1.22.
PMStripper 1.21 may be
downloaded from Don web page, by registered users.
The URL is: http://www2.southwind.net/~dwhawk
Be careful not to add any
whitespaces before or after the name or password.
If you are not registered user, download the shareware file (pms_122.zip, 374,337Kb) from Don website or from BMT Micro, Inc, the World's largest OS/2 apps reseller, where you can register it (costs $9.95). I, @Macarlo, am PMStripper registered user and recommend it!
New in PMStripper 1.21
Fixed bug that prevented the font selection made from the menu from being saved as the new default font.
Added support for saving drag and
drop color and font changes made to the information area below the
main window. This should make PMStripper easier to use for OS/2 users
with vision problems.
Added a "Save Marked Text To
File" option under "File" on the menubar.
Due to a problem with the IBM
Open Class Library and the way PMStipper was designed, using drag and
drop to select a new font for the main window may not work correctly.
The font is changed, but the incorrect font size may be saved when
the user selects "Save Settings". The correct font
information is saved when the 'Font' option from the menu is used to
select a new font. This problem only effects the main window font
selection made via drag and drop.
New in PMStripper 1.20
Added support for saving drag
& drop color and font changes made to the menubar. This should
make the utility easer to use for OS/2 users with vision problems.
Also fixed a bug in the saving of the font selection for the main window.
Fixed a bug in the naming of the profile file when the environment variable in the config.sys file is used to specify the location of the file.
Installing PMStripper
1) Unzip the archive.
2) If REXX is installed: Run the
INSTALL.CMD script from an OS/2
command prompt, or by double
clicking on the install file's icon.
The script will create a
destination directory and transfer program files to it. Optionally,
you may use the unzip directory as the working directory. In either
case the script will create a PMStripper program object on the
desktop and set file associations for .HTM and .HTML files. Setting
associations this way allows
instant loading, and stripping,
of saved Web pages by double clicking their icons.
If the install program cannot
create the desired directory, just move all unzipped files to the
working directory before running the install program.
3) If REXX is not installed:
Unzip the archive in the desired working directory and manually: a)
Create a desktop program object, and b) Set .HTM and HTML
associations. (See OS/2 documentation for instructions, if needed.)
Files
PMStripper is distributed as a
compressed archive. The registered version is PMSR_xxx.zip and the
shareware version 1s PMS_xxx.zip, where xxx is the version number.
The contents of the archive is detailed in the file named FILES.
Uninstalling PMStripper
If you find it necessary to
remove PMStripper, simply delete the unzipped files, program object,
associations and directory. PMStripper makes no entries in
configuration or initialization files.
Using PMStripper
PMStripper is a simple program
with only five menu bar items:
1. 'File' offers seven pull-down
menu items: 'Open File', 'Reload Source File', 'Reload Source File As
Raw HTML', 'Save As', 'Save - No Prompt', 'Print On Default Printer'
and 'Exit'. All except the Reload, Save - No Prompt, and Print
selections perform in a standard OS/2 manner.
The 'Reload Source File' menu
item reloads the current HTML file and is a handy way to make changes
in the stripp options and then view the same HTML, processed differently.
The 'Reload Source File As Raw
HTML' menu item reloads the current HTML file without stripping the
HTML codes. This was added so that installing PMStripper as the raw
HTML viewer in Web Explorer doesnot rob the user of a way to view the
raw HTML code.
Picking a file name for the
'Save As' is easy: Highlight some text for the name and then click on
'Save As', or simply highlight and then press Alt+S. If you have not
highlighted text for the file name, the original file's name (with
the extension .htm or .html replaced by .txt) is offered as the
default. The option to use highlighted text is only available in the
registered version. A check has been added to warn the user if he is
about to overwrite an existing file. If the file is write protected
an error message is displayed. If the file is not write protected,
the user is prompted for an 'Ok' or 'Cancel' response.
The 'Save - No Prompt' menu item
saves the stripped file without opening a file dialog box. It uses
the file name that would have been offered in the file dialog box
that is used in the normal 'Save As' menu selection.
The 'Print On Default Printer'
menu item sends the stripped file to the default printer without any
special formatting. This method bypasses the WPS print manager and
uses the printer's default font.Additionally, since word wrap in the
PMStripper display window does not reformat the text, line lengths
must be user adjusted to fit the printer. The user can select a
printer as the file's destination by selecting the "Save As'
menu selection and entering 'lpt1' or 'lpt2' as the file name.
If the INSTALL.CMD file is used
to install PMStripper, the association for .htm and .html is set so
that a double click will load files with those extensions into PMStripper.
The utility will also load HTML
coded files for stripping via drag and drop of the file's icon onto
that of the PMStripper. However, the capability to load files by drag
and drop onto an open edit window does not exist.
2. 'Edit' has five sub-menu
items which also operate as expected. They are 'Cut', 'Copy',
'Paste', 'Select All' and 'Undo Change'. The 'Undo Change' selection
will undo the last change made to the text in the window and is only
one level deep.
3. 'Options' has seven sub-menu
items. They are 'Display Options', 'URL Settings', 'Strip Options',
'External Editor Settings', 'Filename Settings', 'Use idle time
priority' and 'Save Settings'.
'Display Options' has three
sub-menu items. They are 'Font', 'Reset to default colors' and 'Word
Wrap'. 'Font' brings up a standard OS/2 font dialog box and will
allow the selection of any of the installed fonts. The font that is
active when
'Save Settings' is selected will
be made the default font. 'Reset to default colors' restores the
original light yellow background and black foreground colors. The
active foreground and background colores are now saved when 'Save
Settings' is
selected. 'Word Wrap' is a
toggle setting that turns word wrap on or off. The wrap function does
not actually reformat the text, instead it effects only the way text
is displayed.
'URL Settings' has three
sub-menu items. They are 'Add URLs, 'Leave URLs'and 'Only http type'.
These options effect how the HTML file is processed and the file must
be reloaded for these changes to effect the current file. 'Add URLs'
appends the URLs found in the HTML file to the end of the stripped
text. 'Leave URLs' leaves the URLs found in the HTML file in the
stripped text. The 'Only http type' limits the URLs to those links
containing a http reference. The "normal" URL detection
looks for htlm code containing href and will find gopher, ftp,
mailto, and relative links to other web pages as well as complete URLs.
'Strip Options' has three
sub-menu items: 'Ignore <BR>' and 'Ignore cr-lf', and
'Translate quotes'. The first two selections are mutually exclusive.
These options are useful when the stripped output has excessive blank
lines. This often occurs in Web published poetry since many are
formatted with both carriage return - line feed (cr-lf) pairs and the
HTML code <BR> which prevents text reformatting by the browser.
PMStripper normally translates <BR> into a cr-lf pair thereby
producing unnecessary blank lines. These two menu items strip either
the cr-lf pairs OR the <BR> codes from the text before any
other actions are performed. The results of using either option
should be similar, but one method may produce better results
depending on how the text was originally formatted.
The 'Translate quotes' option
translates the "smart quotes" used on some web pages into
the standard ascii values (0x93 and 0x94 are changed to 0x22). The
"smart apostrophes" are translated to standard ascii (0x91
and 0x92 are changed to 0x22). The two "special hyphen"
characters are translated to standard ascii (0x96 and 0x97 are
changed to 0x2d). The 0x85 character is translated into 3 periods
(0x2e) to approximate an elipsis character. In addition the 0xA0 and
the 0x99 characters are each translated to a space. The translation
is done before any html character enties are translated, so this
option should not effect
languages that use those
characters as part of their normal text.
These options effect how the
HTML file is processed and the file must be reloaded for these
changes to effect the current file.
'External Editor Settings' has
two sub-menu items. They are 'Use__TMP2__ File' and 'Use Clipboard'.
'Use __TMP2__ File' causes the temporary file __TMP2__ to be left in
the current working directory for use by an external editor. 'Use
Clipboard' causes the stripped file to be copied to the OS/2
clipboard when the user selects 'Exit to Word Processor'. These
option settings are only effective in the registered version.
'Filename Settings' has seven
sub-menu items. They are 'Replace Space with Underscore Character',
'Leave Space in Filename', 'Enter Default Save Path', 'Enable Use of
Default Save Path', 'Enter Default Load Path', 'Enable Use of Default
Load Path', and 'Enter Default Save Extent'. The first two items are
toggles and only one setting is
active. They determine how the highlighted text is converted to a
destination file name for the stripped HTML file. The following
option settings are only effective in the registered version. 'Enter
Default Save Path' and'Enter Default Load Path' bring up a dialog
boxes that allow the user
to enter paths for saving and
loading files. 'Enable Use of Default Save Path' and 'Enable Use of
Default Load Path' are toggles that enable the use of the default
paths. These toggles allow the user to disable the default paths
without clearing out the path information. 'Enter Default Save
Extent' brings up a dialog box
that allows the user to specify
a default extent for the stripped HTML file when it is saved to disk.
Note: A period is not part of
the extent.
'Use idle time priority' reduces
the priority of the thread that processes the source file. Using this
option reduces the impact PMStripper has on other tasks that are
active. Users with faster CPUs may not notice any difference when
this option is selected.
'Save Settings' saves all of the
option settings to an INI file named PMSTRIP.INI. The file will only
be created when 'Save Settings' is selected. The utility reverts to
word wrap on when loaded.
For PMStripper users who wish to
add an environment variable to their config.sys file, PMStripper will
use that environment variable to
determine where the PMSTRIP.INI
is located if it is not found in the
working directory.
The environment variable is
specified in your config.sys file.
SET PMSTRIPPER=C:\YOURPATH
The C:\YOURPATH should be
changed to the location of PMStripper or the drive and directory that
you want to locate the PMSTRIP.INI file
The install routine does not add
the line to your config.sys.
NOTE: When PMStripper is
activated by dropping the icon of a HTML file onto that of
PMStripper, the location of the HTML file becomes the current working
directory. PMStripper will look for its INI file in that directory
before checking the location specified in the config.sys file. This
is convenient for those who may want several INI files, each with
different attributes, according to the location
of the source HTML file.
4. 'Exit' has two sub-menu
items. They are 'Exit' and 'Exit to Word Processor'. 'Exit' causes
the stripped file to be discarded and PMStripper to close. 'Exit to
Word Processor' causes the OS/2 CMD file PMS_CMD.CMD to be executed
and PMStripper to close. The 'Exit to Word Processor' option is only
effective in the registered version.
5. 'About' displays copyright
and contact information.
The active keyboard accelerators
(short cut keys) are:
Exit Alt+X
Copy Ctrl+Insert
Cut Shift+Delete
Paste Shift+Insert
Select All Ctrl+/
Open File Alt+F
Print On Default Printer Alt+P
Reload File Alt+R
Reload Source File As Raw HTML Ctrl+R
Save As Alt+S
Save - No Prompt Ctrl+S
Undo Change Alt+U
Word Processor Alt+W
The keyboard accelerators are
not case sensitive.
Miscellaneous Notes
When dragging a file from Web
Explorer the file must be dropped on the
desktop (or in a folder) before
it can be dropped on the PMStripper
program object.
This utility will only run on
OS/2 Warp and later releases.
One useful feature is the
ability to mark text in the stripped file and use the highlighted
text as the file's 'Save As' name. This is very useful if you have
HPFS formatted drives. NOTE: Spaces and some punctuation characters
are converted to "_" characters in the file name unless the
option to use spaces is selected. Then any converted characters are
converted to spaces. The "/" and "\" characters
are deleted and not replaced. This feature is only activated in the
registered version of PMStripper.
The HTML specification defines
"Character Entity Sets" or tags to represent particular
graphic characters which have special meanings in the markup
language, or may not be part of the character set available to the
writer. PMStripper does not scan for all possible tags, but does try
to resolve the most common.
This version of PMStripper has
support for code pages 437 and 850 and if code page 850 is in use,
the 850 character set is used. The code pages only make a difference
when &xxxx; tags are present in the file If the correct character
or an acceptable alternate is not available a space character is
used. If the tag is unknown to PMStripper, then the &xxxx; tag
will be left in the file.
Registered users who frequently
encounter particular &xxxx and &#nnn tags should contact the
author for consideration of the tags inclusion in the next release.
Why & How to Register
Registered users feel good about
supporting OS/2 developers and enjoy
these additional benefits:
Registered users of PMStripper
will have access to two additional executable files that were
compiled with the 486 and 586 compiler options. These versions will
offer some performance improvement for users with 468 , Pentium, or
equivalent CPUs.
The Word Processor option runs
the PMS_CMD.CMD file located in the
working directory specified in
the Program Object. This file is used to start the word processor or
editor of your choice to edit the stripped text file named __TMP2__
or to allow you to paste the stripped file into your editor.
PMStripper will close after the executing the PMS_CMD.CMD file.
NOTE: The TMP2__ file is
discarded if PMStripper is closed via the
the 'Exit' menu item. Double
clicking the PMStripper's upper left corner, using Alt+F4 or
selecting that menu's 'Close' may cause the temporary stripped file
(named TMP2__ ) to remain in the working directory.
This menu item is disabled in
the unregistered version. Instead of invoking the command script an
unregistered message requiring a user response will be shown.
Example PMS_CMD.CMD files:
To use the system editor E.EXE,
the PMS_CMD.CMD file would contain:
E __TMP2__
To use a word processor or
editor whose executable is not in the path, the command script must
copy the __TMP2__ file to the desired program's data directory,
change to that directory and then launch the word processor/editor.
An example PMS_CMD.CMD file to use DeScribe is shown below.
copy __TMP2__ g:\describe\__TMP2__
g:
cd \describe
describe __TMP2__
In addition to the activation of
the Word Processor option, the
opening unregistered message
requiring a user response is eliminated
along with the unregistered line
that is inserted at the top of the stripped file.
Registered users are supported
via e-mail. Send help requests and good ideas to me at dwhawk@southwind.net
There are two places to register
PMStripper. Through BMT Micro and
directly with the author.
Registration through BMT Micro:
BMT Micro will accept credit
cards and will be more convenient for OS/2 users outside the United
States. BMT Micro's price to register PMStripper is $9.95 (US
Dollars). BMT Micro also has an FTP area where the registered version
can be obtained after registration.
Direct registration:
Stuff small bills, gold coins,
diamonds or even checks (US banks only, please) valued at $9.00 (US
dollars) into an envelope and mail to:
Don Hawkinson
4555 N Hillcrest
Wichita KS, 67220-3832
USA
CONTACT AUTHOR
Don Hawkinson
dwhawk@southwind.net
http://www2.southwind.net/~dwhawk
@Macarlo, Inc.
@Macarlo's Shareware & Web
OS/2
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Java Site Accredited