NoteTab Tips

---

About NoteTab

NoteTab is a text editor specifically designed to create and edit HTML pages. In addition to the standard editing commands, it provides shortcuts (called clips) for inserting HTML tags and color coding to distinguish between the text and HTML tags.

NoteTab is available in three versions: Light (free), Standard ($9.95), and Pro ($19.95) from Fookes Software.

 

---

Editing HTML

In addition to the usual editing commands -- Cut/Copy/Paste, Find/Replace, Select All, Undo, etc. -- NoteTab includes commands specifically for managing HTML.

Not all commands are included in the following lists, only those that are particularly useful for HTML.

 

Search Menu

• Go to Hyperlink — Test whether a URL is valid. When you select a URL and use this command, the target page (whether an Internet page or a local file) opens into your Internet browser.

• Match Brackets — Make sure all your brackets are correctly matched. When you position the cursor after any opening bracket, using this command selects all the text from the opening bracket to the next closing bracket of the same type. The match fails if no closing bracket is found before the next opening bracket of the same type. The command works for all bracket types: < >, { }, [ ], ( ).

 

Modify Menu

• Lines
  • Join Lines — If a paragraph has been split into separate lines with a Return at each line, select the text and use this command to remove the paragraph breaks, rejoining the text into a single paragraph.

  • Split Lines — Select a paragraph and use this command to insert a Return at the end of each line (as displayed on the screen).

• Text Case — Use commands on the cascading menu to change the case (upper, lower, etc.) of selected text.

• Change HTML Tags — Use the commands on this cascading menu to make sure your HTML code is typed consistently (upper case or lower case).

 

Document Menu

• Word Wrap — Toggle on/off wrapping lines (paragraphs( in the document window.

• Insert HTML Color — Display a dialog box from which you can choose a specific

• Insert HTML Link/Image — Insert the HTML tags and link text by selecting a file through the standard Windows Open-type dialog box.

 

Tools Menu

• Clipbook — Use commands on the cascading menu to create and edit clips and clip libraries. (These commands are also available through the popup menu.)

• Clipbook Properties — Specify the location and appearance of the Clipbook.

• Auto-replace Mode — Select this option to insert clips by typing the clip and a space or other activating character.

• Quick List — Display a list of files in a specified directory.

• View in Browser — Display the active file in your default browser program (i.e. to see how the HTML looks as a web page).

 

Help Menu

• Replace/Restore MS Notepad — Use NoteTab instead of the Windows Notepad to open files ending in .TXT, .INI, etc.; or restore Windows Notepad as the default editor for these file extensions.

 

---

Using Clips

Clipbooks (also called Libraries) contain frequently used HTML tags and blocks of text. You can speed up creation and editing of HTML pages by inserting clips instead of typing the text.

• To open or close the Clipbooks pane, toggle Tools > Open Clipbook (or press F4). By default, the pane appears on the left side of the NoteTab window.

• To select a specific Clipbook, click the tab at the bottom of the text pane, or select the name from the dropdown list at the top of the Clipbook pane.

You can rearrange, add, edit, and delete clips within a Clipbook. You can also create new Clipbooks.

Each Clipbook is a separate .CLB file in the Libraries subdirectory inside the NoteTab product directory. To delete unneeded Clipbooks from the NoteTab window, close the Clipbook pane and move the corresponding .CLB file out of the Libraries subdirectory.

 

Clip Types

Most commonly, clips are created to insert HTML tags in a document. You can, however, create clips to insert frequently occurring text of any length. Using these text clips can save much time and prevents typos. The procedure for creating a text clip is the same as for creating an HTML clip.

For example, if you are typing a list of addresses and need to type out the state names, you can create a clip for each state, using the two-letter abbreviation for the clip name. When you type the abbreviation and press F2, the spelled-out state name is inserted.

Some clips are designed so you can "surround" document text with the clip, for example, to insert opening and closing HTML tags such as <A HREF>...</A>.

If a clip contains the cursor-positioning code ^&:

• If you select document text first, selecting the clip name surrounds the selected text with the clip. For example:

Double-click clip Bold (the clip text is <B>^&</B>)

Result: <B>selected text</B>

• If you do not select document text first, the cursor is positioned within the clip where the ^& code specifies. For example:

  Double-click clip Bold (the clip text is <B>^&</B>)

  Result: <B>|</B>
  (When you begin to type the text it will appear between the HTML tags.)

If a clip contains the prompt code ^?[label], selecting the clip displays a dialog box so you can specify text to be included in the inserted clip. Each ^?[label] creates a field in the dialog box. A clip can contain any number of these fields. If you select document text before double-clicking a "dialog box" clip, the selected text populates one or more of the fields.

For example, this clip

<A HREF="mailto:^?[&Email address=^&]">

^?[&Link description text=^&]</A>

displays this dialog box.

If you select the phrase e-mail me in the document before double-clicking the clip name, the text is inserted in the field so you do not have to type it.

When you type the e-mail address in the first field and click OK, the following HTML is inserted into the document.

<A HREF="mailto:cowanme@yahoo.com">e-mail me</A>

 

Inserting Clips

You can use any of the following methods of inserting clips. For each method, the Clipbook containing the specific clip must be displayed in the left pane.

Double-click the name

In the Clipbook pane, double-click the clip name.

You can change the NoteTab option so you can insert a clip with only a single click. From the View menu, select Options; then in the Options dialog box select the Clipbook tab.

Drag-and-drop the clip

Drag-and-drop the clip name from the Clipbook pane to the desired position in the document window.

Type the clip name and press F2

When you use this method you do not have to type the entire clip, just enough to create a unique string. For example, the clipbook contains clips named

blockquote
bold
brackets

To insert each clip, you can type just bl, bo, or br, then press F2.

Use Auto-Replace

1. On the Tools menu, make sure the AutoReplace option has a check mark next to it.

2. Type the clip name.

3. Type a space, tab, Return (Enter), or one of the following punctuation marks:
   ! " , . : ; = > ? ] }

If the clip contains the cursor-positioning code ^&, the character you typed to activate the clip (space, tab, bracket, etc.) is automatically deleted when the clip is inserted.

 

Creating a Clip

You can create a new clip only when the Clipbook pane is open.

1. Right-click on the clip name below which you want to insert the new clip name. The popup menu appears.

2. Select Add New Clip. The Clip Name dialog box appears.

3. Type a name for the clip and choose OK. The name is added to the Clipbook, below the name you right-clicked in step 1, and the (Clips) window opens.

4. Type the HTML tag or text that you want this clip to insert. You can include paragraph returns and tabs; remember that HTML does not allow multiple spaces (e.g. if you type three spaces in a row only one will appear in the web page).

   See below for details on using special features in your clips.

5. Right-click in the Clipbook pane and select Save Now from the popup menu.

Special Clip Features

You can create clips that surround selected text with the clip text, for example to insert opening and closing HTML tags.

In the clip, type ^& as a "placeholder" for the text between the opening and closing tags; for example, <B>^&</B>.

• If you select text before using the clip, the tags are inserted before and after the selected text.

Double-click clip Bold.

Result: <B>selected text</B>

• If you insert the clip without first selecting any text, the cursor is positioned at the spot where text should be inserted.

  <B>|</B>

You can also create a dialog box for specifying embedded text before inserting the clip in the document. For each field in the dialog box, type

^?[fieldname]

in the clip, where fieldname is the label you want to appear above the field in the dialog box.

For example, you could create a clip, "Document Header," to insert the HTML tags and text for the document title, author's name, and search keywords:

1. Right-click in the Clipbook pane and choose Add New Clip from the popup menu.

2. When the Clip Name dialog box appears, type Document Header in the field and click OK.

3. Type the following text in the Clip Editor.

   <HEAD>
   

   <TITLE>^?[HTML Document Title]</TITLE>
   

   <META NAME="AUTHOR" CONTENT="^?[Author's Name]">
   

   <META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="^?[Keywords]">
   

   </HEAD>
   

4. Right-click in the Clipbook pane and select Save Now from the popup menu.

The new clip may not work if you do not save the Clipbook after creating the clip.

 

  To insert the clip into your document:

1. Position the cursor where you want the clip to appear.

2. Double-click the clip name Document Header in the Clipbook pane. The dialog box appears. (Note that the text strings inside brackets in the clip become the field labels.)

3. Type the appropriate information in each field.

4. Click OK. The HTML tags, with specified text, appear in the document.

   <HEAD>
   

   <TITLE>Home Page</TITLE>
   

   <META NAME="AUTHOR" CONTENT="Maia Cowan">
   

   <META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="Maia Cowan, Eclectic Synapse">
   

   </HEAD>
   

Organizing Clips

You can organize your clips by inserting descriptive headers and adding a new clip under the appropriate header. To create a header:

1. Right-click in the Clipbook pane at the point where you want to insert the new header.

2. Select Add New Clip from the popup menu. The Clip Name dialog box appears.

3. In the field, type a semicolon ( ; ) and then the header, for example
   

   ;Special Characters
   

   for a list of HTML tags that create such characters as angle brackets, "smart" quotation marks, en dashes, and em dashes. The semicolon indicates that the text is a header, not a clip name.

4. The header is inserted at the point where you right-clicked in the Clipbook pane.

   Special Characters

   By default, all headers are red to distinguish them from clip names (In NoteTab Pro, you can change the color by using the Options command on the View menu).

To rearrange clips in the list, you need to move each clip individually to the desired position:

1. Right-click the clip and select Copy to Clipboard from the popup menu (there is no Cut command for clips).

2. Right-click the same clip and select Delete Clip from the popup menu.

3. Right-click the clip below which you want to insert the copied clip, and select Add from Clipboard from the popup menu.

The popup menu contains a Sort command, but it sorts the entire Clipbook list, include the headers, and so is generally not useful for organizing the clips.

Creating a Clipbook

You can create your own Clipbooks to contain only the clips you need for a specific document or project.

Copy an Existing Clipbook

If an existing Clipbook contains some of the clips you want to include in the new Clipbook:

1. In Windows Explorer, make a copy of the .CLB file of the existing Clipbook (.CLB files are stored in the \Libraries subdirectory of the NoteTab product directory) and rename the copy as needed.

2. Open NoteTab, then open the Clipbook pane if necessary.

3. At the bottom of the NoteTab window, select the tab for the new Clipbook.

4. Add, delete, and rearrange the clips as needed.

5. To save the changes, right-click in the Clipbook pane and select Save Now from the popup menu.

Create a New Clipbook

To create a new (empty) Clipbook:

1. From the Tools menu, choose Clipbook > New Library. A new Clip Editor appears, named Clip01.clb.

2. Press Ctrl+S. When the Save As dialog box appears, assign a name and save the library. A new tab appears at the bottom of the window, with the new Clipbook name.

3. Add clips as needed to the new library. You can create new clips or copy clips from other Clipbooks.

Copy Clips Between Clipbooks

To copy a clip from one Clipbook to another:

1. Display the Clipbook from which you want to copy the clip.

2. Right-click the clip and select Copy to Clipboard from the popup menu.

3. Display the new Clipbook.

4. Right-click in the Clipbook pane, at the spot where you want to insert the clip, and select Add from Clipboard from the popup menu.

 

---

Customizing NoteTab

Through the Options command on the View menu, you can specify:

• Default directories for opening and saving files.

• The Internet browser(s) for reviewing documents.

• The location and other options for the Clipbook and Quick List.

• The commands that appear on the toolbar and popup menus.

• (NoteTab Pro only) The colors for tabs, panes, and highlighted text.

This topic does not cover all NoteTab options, just the "Most Frequently Used." For complete information, see the NoteTab online help.

General Options

• Reload Open Documents — Any document that is open when you quit NoteTab will re-open automatically the next time you start the application.

• Bullet Character — When you press Ctrl+B, the selected paragraph is formatted as a bulleted item, which the specified character as the bullet.

• Number Separator — This field defines the number format for autonumbering paragraphs.

Files Options

• Make Backups — Automatically create a backup when you save a document.

• Save Files on Close — When you quit NoteTab, automatically save any open file, without prompting.

• Automatic Save Every: — Save the file every [specified] minutes as a precaution against crashes. (Selecting this option may slow the application.)

• Undo after Save — Undo actions that you took before saving the document.

• Open Directory — By default, display this directory's contents in the Open dialog box.

• Save Directory — By default, save new files to this directory (Save As dialog box). Existing files will be saved to their current directory.

Internet Options

• Main Browser — The default Browser for opening an HTML document from the NoteTab window.

• Other Browser — A secondary Browser for open an HTML document.

Tools Options

• Find Word at Cursor — When you open the Find or Replace dialog box, automatically insert the word containing the cursor into the Find what field.

• HTML Convert Blanks — When you convert a plain-text document to HTML, automatically convert any leading spaces to the nonbreaking-space HTML tag, so the spaces are displayed in the HTML page.

File Filters Options

• Filters — List all the extensions for files that open by default into NoteTab.

Toolbar Options

• Show in Toolbar — Select the commands to include in 10:52 06/26/00 the Toolbar, and arrange the buttons in the desired order.

• Other options — Specify the toolbar appearance.

Shortcut Menu Options

• Show in Shortcut Menu — Select the commands you want to include on the popup (Shortcut) menu in the main document window. This option does not affect the popup menu that appears when you clip a document tab (top of window), Clipbook tab (bottom of window), Clipbook pane, or Quick List pane.

 

---

Color Highlighting

Color highlighting is available only in NoteTab Pro.

 

Color highlighting indicates different elements in the HTML code. The default colors are as follows:

• HTML tags are blue.

• File names within HTML tags are red.

• Comments (<!— ... —>) are gray.

• Normal text (text that appears in the web page) is black.

The text usually changes color as you type an HTML tag. You can sometimes tell whether you've made an error by whether the text is the appropriate color: for example, as you insert a tag, the "normal text" following it changes to the same color as the tag, then changes back when you complete the tag — but if you do not correctly complete the tag, the normal text remains color-highlighted.

You can use the Options command on the View menu to change the defaults. When the Options dialog box appears, select the Colors tab.

 

---

Adding NoteTab to the Windows Explorer Popup Menu

After you install NoteTab, you can add a command to the popup menu in Windows Explorer so you can open a file into the application by right-clicking the file.

1. In Windows Explorer, select View menu > Options. The Options dialog box appears.

2. Select the File Types tab, then scroll down to select Microsoft HTML Document 4.0.

3. Click Edit. The Edit File Type dialog box appears.

4. Click New to add a command. The New Action dialog box appears.

5. In the Action field, type Edit with NoteTab.

To create a shortcut key for the command, insert an ampersand (&) before the desired letter, for example Edit &with NoteTab. This letter is underlined on the popup menu. Make sure you do not choose a letter that is a shortcut key for an existing command.

6. Click Browse to enter the full pathname for NoteTab in the Application field.

7. When the Open With dialog box appears, navigate to the directory, select NoteTab.exe, and click Open. The dialog box closes and the pathname is entered in New Action dialog box.

8. Click OK. The dialog box closes and the command is added to the list in the Edit File Type dialog box.

9. Click Close in the Edit File Type and Option dialog boxes. Right-click any HTML file to see the new command on the popup menu. If you select the command after right-clicking, the file opens into NoteTab.