World Scripture WORLD SCRIPTURE THEME HTML TEMPLATE
9/5/96
With the use of word processing "macros" -- a sequence of keystrokes that can be entered into a document with a single key -- the conversion into HTML of the approximately 200 World Scripture ASCII files becomes a relatively simple if somewhat massive job. This file defines the HTML template for the 160+ World Scripture "themes" ("topics"), showing exactly how the existing ASCII theme files can be rapidly converted into HTML.In this file, so that it will be readable in HTML, the "<" and ">" HTML escape characters are shown as "[" and "]".
1. Each theme begins with the following macro:
[html]
[head]
[title]Title Goes Here {in title case}[/title]
[/head]
[body bgcolor = "#ffffff"]
[center]
[font size = 4][i][a href = ".wscon.html"]World Scripture[/a][/i][/font][p]
[font size = 5]TITLE GOES HERE {in upper case}[/font]
[/center]
[p][br]
This macro configures the file for HTML, and creates the heading. The title has to be entered by hand into the above slots. I use cut and paste.
2. Any text in the theme is then separated into paragraphs with the use of
[p]
between paragraphs.
3. At the conclusion of the introductory text, the beginning of the scriptural passages is marked by the dual HTML tags
[p][br]
which adds some extra "white space" to the standard [p] tag. Example:
Each scriptural passage is then formatted as follows:1. All indentation from the left margin is ignored.
2. The first line of each passage begins with a "name anchor", which we use to define a unique URL for each individual passage. The "00" is a dummy number which we change by hand, into 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. (not 01, 02, 03) I do this after I have done the HTML coding.
[a name = "00"][/a]
3. The text of the passage is then formatted as nearly reproducing the ASCII format as possible, using [br] to define line breaks where necessary (poetic sections often have short lines), and [p] to insert white space.
4. The passage ends with
[p][center][i][a href = "#00"]00. [/a]
which accomplishes several things. It creates a blank line, then italicizes and centers the attribution (citation) which follows, then creates a link (URL) for the passage, using the dummy number 00.
5. We can then number the passage. The "00" in the name anchor (step 2) is assigned its number (1, 2 3, 4...), and that same number is inserted in place of the "00" (in two places, one which shows in the HTML browser, one which is invisible) just prior to the citation. In this way, the anchor links to the beginning of the passage, but its number appears in the citation. This approach avoids placing a number in the actual text of the passage.
6. The attribution is then followed by
[/i][/center][p][br]
which closes the italics, and the centering, and creates the whitespace delimiting the next passage or set of footnotes.
7. Footnotes are demarked by a
[br]
at the end of the first "- - - - - - - - - - - -", by another
[br]
at the end of the text, and by
[p][br]
following the closing "- - - - - - - - - - - -".
8. Each file ends with
[/body]
[/html]9. I then spell-check the entire file, confirm that it is numbered correctly, and check for hyphenation errors.
10. The file is then saved with an .htm extension filename.
With these macros defined in my word processor, I can format and spell-check, number, upload, and test a medium-sized World Scripture theme file in about 20 minutes.