
NAME

  hsc - HTML Sucks Completely

VERSION 

  1.0

AUTHOR

  Matthias Bethke <Matthias.Bethke@gmx.net> (since V0.918)
  Thomas Aglassinger <agi@giga.or.at>

DESCRIPTION

  Hsc is a developer tool for HTML projects.

  It can be used on any HTML file and creates a new HTML file as
  output. In the input file, you may use an extended syntax based on
  HTML, which allows for things like macros, conditionals, variables,
  expressions etc.

  It is mainly intended for creating and maintaining larger HTML projects.
  As a commandline tool, it can be used together with `make', and a
  dependency generator is included.

  Hsc is not a tool to make HTML easier for beginners; it's a tool
  to make HTML a bit less painful and brain-damaged for people who
  already know how to work with it.

FEATURES

  - macros (implemented as additional tags)
  - conditionals (if/else/elseif)
  - expressions, supporting
    - string concatenation and comparison
    - integer maths
    - import of environment variables
    - current time, file modification time
    - size of files
  - special tags to
    - include files (also verbatim text)
    - export data to files
    - execute external commands (and include output)
    - write comments in a reasonable way
  - checks both local and remote URIs
  - project relative URIs
  - replaces special characters with entities
  - translates arbitrary 8-bit charsets to UTF-8
  - adds attributes for image size (PNG/JFIF/GIF)
  - can strip useless whitespace, comments and tags
  - replaces icon entities by images
  - performs a basic syntax and structure check
  - error messages are easier to understand than the esoteric crap
    tools like sglms vomit
  - maintains a project file
  - includes hscpitt, a tool to examine/manipulate project files
  - includes hscdepp, a dependancy generator for makefiles

NEW FEATURES
  see CHANGES

REQUIREMENTS

  Unixoid: tested on Linux, and MacOS X; Makefile supports
           NeXTStep, should compile fine on other flavors, too.
  AmigaOS: OS2.04 or higher (tested: OS3.1), 2 MB RAM, 68020
           recommended: 4 MB RAM, 68060.
           Compilation requires unistd.h which comes (at least) with SAS/C
           and gcc
  Windows: Should be fine on any W32 system, as long as the file system
           supports long filenames (or what counted as "long" in the last
           millennium...)
  RiscOS : anybody without the latest version left? :) This hasn't been tested
           for quite a few releases and is likely to need fixing.

  For non-Unixoids, also see the README files in your respective OS'
  subdirectory!

  Unlike many other HTML tools, HSC requires a user IQ >50. You should
  also know how to work with the shell and how to write Makefiles. Some
  experience with macro processors and/or programming languages ([A]Rexx,
  Perl, Python or even a Real Language[tm]) facilitate things :)

AVAILABILITY

 - currently only from my homepage at
   http://www.linguistik.uni-erlangen.de/~msbethke/software.html
   This release consists of a source archive and an RPM for Linux/i386
   See the webpage or mail me (mb) for binaries for other platforms.

PRICE

  Freeware.

DISTRIBUTION

  Distributed under the GNU General Public License.

