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CHP Keeps Messing Up My Code

Disappearing Code

Changing Fonts

Problems with Site Files

CHP Keeps Messing Up My Code

Most of the time, CHP knows what it is doing, and writes the underlying code for your page nicely and cleanly. However, sometimes its idea of nice and clean ends up breaking the code. This can happen under several circumstances:

If you are adding JavaScript code, or code used by your web server to implement special features.
If you use aliases to simulate the pathname situation on a server, CHP will resolve the aliases. This is BAD. Once you upload, the link will not work.
If the whitespace which CHP adds to your code messes up the way the page displays in a web browser.

So, how do you keep Claris Home Page from getting its greedy little hands on your HTML code?

Easy ---> In HTML mode, place your insertion point in front of block of code you want unchanged. Type . Move your insertion point to the end of the block of code, and type .

When you switch to Edit mode, you will see both of these comment tags, plus the code in between them, in red font. If the protected code is a kind CHP understands, it still displays it in red, and does not WYSIWYG it. In Preview Mode, it all dissappears.

An Example :

Here is the code for a link on this page:

<P><A HREF="#CHP_mess_code">CHP Keeps Messing Up My Code</A></P>

Here's how it looks in HTML mode after the NOEDIT tags are added:

Here's how it looks in Edit mode after the NOEDIT tags are added:

Here's how it looks in Preview mode after the NOEDIT tags are added:

These NOEDIT tags seem to be an undocumented feature; a feature that would not be needed if CHP was able to figure out when its mangling was not wanted. Until Claris fixes the "mangling" bug, the NOEDIT tags are an acceptable solution.

Disappearing Code

Links which includes the character "&"

Because certain common characters are used in coding HTML, the standard sets a special way to represent those characters if you just want to display them. So, if I want a "<" to appear, in the code I actually type "<" . The ampersand (&) character is a restricted html symbol which identifies the beginning of such a special character.

Of course, CHP encodes the characters for you automatically, so you don't even notice it. But there is one problem you might encounter. If one of your links includes an "&", which may occur in calls to CGI scripts and the like, CHP, upon analyzing the link, will look for one of the codes for the special characters after the "&", and finding what to it looks like garbage, IT WILL DELETE EVERYTHING AFTER THE AMPERSAND. Therefore, it will mess up your link.

The only solution to this, besides not having ampersands in your links, is to fix the link right before you save the file. Then you can upload the file in its correct form. But once you open it again with CHP, the link will once again be mutilated, and so once again you'll have to fix it before uploading the file, and ... Look for this to be fixed soon.

Changing Fonts

You can change the HTML mode font Claris Home Page uses for editing in Preferences:HTML Editing.

In Edit and Preview modes, CHP uses Times with a default of 12 points (on the Mac). There is no preference to change this font. For Macintosh users, below is a fix. I have it on good authority that CHP 2.0 has a preference setting for changing the font used in Edit and Preview modes.

The following "fixes" involve the use of ResEdit, a Macintosh file utility distributed by Apple. You should not use ResEdit unless you have some experience with the Macintosh file format (forks, resources, etc.) and the Macintosh system software (extensions, fonts, suitcases, etc.).

The first fix allows you to choose a different font for Edit and Preview modes. This requires that you have a TrueType version of the font you wish to use. (If you only have screen fonts, see below)

To change the font used from Times to a different font, such as New York or Helvetica.

1. Go to your Fonts folder in the System folder and find the suitcase for the font you want and open it. (As an example, I will use Helvetica)

3. Find the TrueType font file for the size you want. The icon is the letter A in several sizes.

4. Holding down the Option key, move it to the desktop. (This makes a copy)

5. Open the TrueType font (Helvetica in this case) with ResEdit.

6. Make a copy of CHP and open the copy with ResEdit.

7. In the Helvetica (or other font) window, select the "FOND" and "sfnt" resource icons and copy them.

8. Close the Helvetica window, click in the CHP window, and paste the resources.

9. Find the FOND resource icon and double-click it. Now select the "Helvetica" resource and press Command-I (Get Info...). In the field titled Name, change Helvetica (or other name) to Times and close the Info window and the FOND window.

10. Find the sfnt resource icon and double-click it. Now select the "Helvetica" resource and press Command-I (Get Info...). In the field titled Name, change Helvetica (or other name) to Times and close the Info window and the sfnt window.

11. Quit ResEdit, saving changes.

12. Now open your CHP copy. Try typing something. It should now appear in the other font.

The font change will affect all font sizes and heading types.

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To change the size of the font used (for those who want bigger fonts)

If you only want the font a little bigger, consider just changing to New York, which is really just a larger version of Times. (The advantages are that it is relatively simple) Follow the instructions above to do this. (There are many fonts whose "12 point" size is much larger than Times 12 point, you can also use them.)

The procedure to completely "pump up" the Times font is long and repetitive. If you only want to change the font size for the normal size (Times 12 point), and either don't use the Heading and A+/A- formatting, or don't care about the size when that formatting is used, then just follow the following direction for Times 12. If, however, you have a lot of time on your hands, and really must have larger fonts always, you should repeat the following for font sizes: 9, 10, 12, 14, 18, 24, and 36. In my opinion, stick with changing to New York, or wait for CHP 2.0.

1. Go to your Fonts folder in the System folder.

2. Find the suitcase named Times and open it.

3. Find the screen font file for the size you want. Times 18 is probably fine.

4. Holding down the Option key, move it to the desktop. (This makes a copy)

5. Make a copy of CHP and open the copy with ResEdit.

6. Open the Times screen font (Times 18 in this case) with ResEdit.

7. In the Times 18 (or other size) window, select the FOND and NFNT resource icons and copy them.

8. Close the Times 18 window and click in the CHP window.

9. Paste the resources.

10. Find the FOND resource icon and double-click it. Now double-click the "Times" resource.

11. Scroll down until you get to the field titled Font Size and change that number to 12 (or whatever font size you want to increase).

12. Quit ResEdit, saving changes.

13. Now open your CHP copy. Try typing something. It should now appear in the larger font size.

The standard ResEdit disclaimer and warning apply. Always keep an original copy of the file. Never use ResEdit on an active file, especially the system. Tampering with a file in ResEdit can potentially cause problems, including crashes (though in this case this is unlikely, since we are just dealing with fonts). Use ResEdit and these instructions at your own risk.

Created by: Marcin Jeske (jeskem@ee.pdx.edu)