Need an automation tool for creating HTML blocks

  • Thread starter Thread starter JoeSkrote
  • Start date Start date
J

JoeSkrote

I'm a web news editor who spends a lot of time creating HTML
enhancements for articles (photos, captions, links). What I'd love to
find is an automation tool that creates a form with blanks in it for
the various components of each of the standard blocks we use (that form
would have the boilerplate HTML embedded in it). I would simply fill in
the blanks of the form with the variable features (URLs, caption text,
photo credits, etc), and paste the entire completed HTML block
(boilerplate and variables) into a publishing tool.

I don't know the standard name for such a tool (if the tool actually
exists). Maybe it's an "HTML Publishing Automation Tool." Whatever it's
called it would make my life a lot easier. Freeware preferred of course
but would pay a nominal price for something really good. Thanks in
advance for any help.
 
JoeSkrote said:
I'm a web news editor who spends a lot of time creating HTML
enhancements for articles (photos, captions, links). What I'd love to
find is an automation tool that creates a form with blanks in it for
the various components of each of the standard blocks we use (that form
would have the boilerplate HTML embedded in it). I would simply fill in
the blanks of the form with the variable features (URLs, caption text,
photo credits, etc), and paste the entire completed HTML block
(boilerplate and variables) into a publishing tool.
Click to expand...

Not sure if I'm following you but...Have you checked out Wordpress or
content management systems such as Joomla (which has a plugin for
"magazine" style enhancements?

Or, if this ain't it...can you point us to an example?

-Craig
 
Sorry about the confusion Craig. I had a feeling I wouldn't make it
clear the first time around.

In my job I work with news wire stories that are automatically
formatted into Web pages. My job is to "enhance" that page of text by
adding photos, photo captions, links to other pages, the stuff you'd
normally see in an online newspaper.

The templates we use to create those enhancements are simply long
strings of HTML, and we paste in all the variables (URLs for
photos/links/message boards/opinion polls, as well as captions and
photo credits, metatext, etc). Then we plug that whole mess into a
publishing tool and it shows up on the news page (hopefully) as a nice
interactive block.

What I want to do is to replace that long string of boilerplate HTML
with a form that has blanks for all the variables I need to add, but
which has the boilerplate HTML embedded in it. The form would
automatically insert all the HTML I add in the right places, and then
by pressing a button I could paste the entire completed HTML string
into the field of our propietary publishing tool, hit "publish" and put
the enhancement on the news page as normal.

Joomla may contain in it the tool I'm looking for, but may be overkill
for the very specific function I'm seeking. Thanks for your help and
patience.
 
JoeSkrote said:
Joomla may contain in it the tool I'm looking for, but may be overkill
for the very specific function I'm seeking. Thanks for your help and
patience.
Click to expand...

Joe;

It's an intriguing problem. Please post when you find a solution.

tia,
-Craig
 
JoeSkrote said:
Sorry about the confusion Craig. I had a feeling I wouldn't make it
clear the first time around.

In my job I work with news wire stories that are automatically
formatted into Web pages. My job is to "enhance" that page of text by
adding photos, photo captions, links to other pages, the stuff you'd
normally see in an online newspaper.

The templates we use to create those enhancements are simply long
strings of HTML, and we paste in all the variables (URLs for
photos/links/message boards/opinion polls, as well as captions and
photo credits, metatext, etc). Then we plug that whole mess into a
publishing tool and it shows up on the news page (hopefully) as a nice
interactive block.

What I want to do is to replace that long string of boilerplate HTML
with a form that has blanks for all the variables I need to add, but
which has the boilerplate HTML embedded in it. The form would
automatically insert all the HTML I add in the right places, and then
by pressing a button I could paste the entire completed HTML string
into the field of our propietary publishing tool, hit "publish" and put
the enhancement on the news page as normal.
Click to expand...

You can automate that in a spreadsheet. Put the boilerplate in some
cells, the variables in others. Write a formula to combine (concatenate)
all the cells - say in cell "A1". Then copy cell "A1" and paste it into
your publishing tool (as plain text). Revise the variables as needed and
repeat. There are other ways to do it - some variation on the above
method may work better for you. . .

FWIW the spreadsheet I use let's you create input forms (I never bother
with them though - just input directly into the cells).

Susan
--
Posted to alt.comp.freeware
Search alt.comp.freeware (or read it online):
http://www.google.com/advanced_group_search?q=+group:alt.comp.freeware
Pricelessware & ACF: http://www.pricelesswarehome.org
Pricelessware: http://www.pricelessware.org (not maintained)
 
You can automate that in a spreadsheet. Put the boilerplate in some
cells, the variables in others. Write a formula to combine (concatenate)
all the cells - say in cell "A1". Then copy cell "A1" and paste it into
your publishing tool (as plain text). Revise the variables as needed and
repeat. There are other ways to do it - some variation on the above
method may work better for you. . .

FWIW the spreadsheet I use let's you create input forms (I never bother
with them though - just input directly into the cells).

Susan
Click to expand...

Extracting data from a spreadsheet onto an HTML document can be done
using a mail merge program such as OpenOffice www.openoffice.org
 
Back
Top