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Koala HTML (v1.01)
by Brigitte Lord
There are a
number of programs available to the webmaster to
help him design and maintain a website. The
simplest of these is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is
What You Get) type of program that lets you place
text, images, and other elements graphically on a
page.
As you work, you see
almost exactly how the page will look in a browser. The
most difficult way to create a web page is to work in a
basic text editor such as Notepad or WordPad and type all
the HTML tags manually. Not only do you not see what the
page looks like as you work, but you must know many
common HTML tags and how to use them. Because HTML tags
are usually repeated many times on any web page, this
becomes tedious and can lead to typos that will make the
tags ineffective. The result is a web page with elements
that may not be rendered correctly or at all.
Koala HTML
by AVANTRIX Inc. falls in between WYSIWYG and manual HTML
text editing. The HTML tags are all pre-formatted for you
and you merely have to click them with your mouse to
insert them in the built-in text editor. This eliminates
HTML typos and greatly reduces keystrokes. The interface
of the program is laid out with a narrower window on the
left containing an extensive list of HTML tags, and a
wider window on the right containing a text editor for
inserting the tags and composing HTML “freehand”.
The progress of the web page can be previewed at any time
by clicking the Preview tab. This shows the web page in
an Internet Explorer-type browser window. Alternatively,
the web page can be quickly launched in a browser of your
choice (provided you already have it installed on your
system) from the Tools button on the menu bar. All HTML
elements are colour-coded in the text editor, but a word
wrap feature is not available, forcing one to scroll
horizontally. To make matters worse, the left window
containing the tags is not resizable. Although it can be
closed completely, this is not practical for beginners.
Koala HTML
offers three templates from which to build your
web page. The Basic template contains some sample
text, a block quote section, a bulleted list, and
a hyperlinked e-mail address. The Table template
contains some of the above with a preformatted
table. These two templates offer a frame onto
which a less experienced user can build his web
page. The more experienced user will most likely
use the Blank template containing the bare-minimum
in HTML tags.
The
program offers a number of GIF and JPEG web images for
buttons, lines, bullets, and backgrounds. As well, many
animated GIF’s are bundled with the program. Several
scripts are available in DHTML and Java such as Browser
Redirect, Add to Favourites, Slide In Menu Bar, Mouse
Pointer Effect, and Lottery Number Picker. I especially
liked the Rain Effect and the Chinese Zodiac. Much
appreciated is the extensive list of tag items that
includes even the most mundane elements like   (non-breaking
space), and <!— —> which lets you insert
an internal comment on the page that will not display in
a browser.
Unlike HTML code
generated by some WYSIWYG programs, the code in Koala
HTML is clean and non-proprietary due to its list of
standard tags. A web page created in an upscale word
processor, for example, may contain a great deal of
extraneous code that some browsers may ignore or
interpret incorrectly. Koala even tells you which tags
work strictly in either Internet Explorer or Netscape
Navigator (such as the infamous BLINKING tag created by
Netscape). Of course, it would be easy to add all kinds
of unnecessary code with this type of program, after all,
it’s so easy to click-and-insert all those tags. For
this reason, it would be nice if Koala HTML had a proof-reading
feature for beginners to clean-up their code if necessary.
Koala
HTML also gives you the ability to publish your
web page. The built-in FTP client is basic but
functional. It can automatically upload any
images or other web items (called Dependencies)
that you have included in your web page. If it
cannot find these items, it will prompt you to
browse for them on your hard drive. Advanced
users can turn this feature off, but this is a
nice touch for beginners.
After working with Koala
HTML, I found the program easy to use and effortless.
Insertion of HTML tags, images, and scripts was a breeze.
The experienced user will truly appreciate the reduction
in repetitive keystrokes and typos. However, an
inexperienced user with little knowledge of HTML would
have difficulty assembling anything but a basic web page.
In future versions, I would like to see an entire help
section devoted to defining each tag (as I have seen in
another program). Although AVANTRIX recommends Koala HTML
to users who do not have any experience in creating a web
page, I feel the user needs to be somewhat familiar with
HTML in order to use this program comfortably.
For those who would like
to try Koala HTML, there is a fully functional 15-day
demo version available for download at http://www.avantrix.com/download.htm
Bottom Line:
Koala HTML (v1.0)
Avantrix
http://www.avantrix.com
Originally published: November, 2001
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