Q-HTML - Quick HTML (or "Cue HTML!")
====================================

Q-HTML (c). Current Version V1.11 (16 bit), V2.0 (32 bit)

Q-HTML is an advanced tool to convert text into HTML quickly and easily.
The tool created this page below the banner automatically from a plain 
text sourcefile which you can find at 
http://www.scot.demon.co.uk/q-html.txt.

The program is a mere 29K (help fight bloatware). The 32 bit version is
46K. Q-HTML performs the following operations: 

Q-HTML converts all http:, gopher:, ftp: etc references into properly 
formatted working WWW links and news: references into followable 
newsgroup references. Q-HTML also converts all mail addresses into 
followable mailto e-mail references. Paragraph markers are inserted 
between paragraphs and line break markers are inserted where Q-HTML 
encounters apparantly pre-formatted text. There are 3 algorithms for 
this, and is more complex than just looking at the line length. 

Any underlined text is converted into headers (level 2 or level 3 as 
appropriate). Special characters are also translated to ensure 
compliance to HTML standards.

The program can also handle structured files like FAQs, splitting them 
into smaller files for the WWW and crossindexing them automatically. 
This allows one version for both text and HTML to be maintained and the 
HTML to be generated automatically. 

As well as working with "plain" text, the program also handles text with 
embedded <URL: ...> markers. You can also process multiple files in one 
sweep. Q-HTML also adds a title, header and body markers and (optinally) 
date/time stamped footers to the text. This produces a WWW page which 
will work instantly and save you a lot of time and effort.

I originally wrote the program to convert the soc.culture.scottish
FAQ at http://www.scot.demon.co.uk/scotfaq.html quickly into HTML.
Q-HTML has allowed me to convert this one 360K+ file into 180+ HTML 
pages automatically in seconds and has saved me from hours of tedious 
and repetitive editing. I have put the HTML version of the FAQ, 
automatically sectioned and indexed by Q-HTML, at
http://www.scot.demon.co.uk/scotfaq/contents.html
the original text which was passed to Q-HTML is at
http://www.scot.demon.co.uk/scottish-faq.txt

User Comments
=============
Here's what some users have said about the product:

I just wanted to drop you a note to say thanks for making such an
excellent utility available. Q-HTML has given me the opportunity to
scrap that horrendously useless plug-in called Internet Assistant for
Word that I've been trying to use to auto-convert huge documents to
html. (Ewan McDonell <ewan@digitality.com>)

When I first read your post I thought you were re-inventing the wheel,
but I think you've come up with the pneumatic tyre. Well done!
I tried it succesfully with a 792 kB text file under Win 95.

Many thanks Craig - a really nifty piece of software.

Downloaded Q-HTML the other day, and I have to admit it's the best 
utility I've seen to convert text files to HTML. It's fast (even under 
16-bit Windows) and the resulting pages require little or no editing. 
It's saved me a lot of time converting a number of articles to HTML for 
later posting at my Web page.

Featured on
~~~~~~~~~~~
The Information Center : http://info.home.ml.org/
Listed in http://www.yahoo.com/. 
Featured on the CD-ROM for What PC, March 97. 
Kansas City's FREE Digital Magazine at http://www.infozine.com/ uses Q-HTML on 
all of their articles.

Q-HTML is also distributed as part of N.A.C.H.O.S., "The HTML editor that 
doesn't suck". This editor got "5 cows" from the Tucows software archive.
More information at http://www.exit109.com/~oz/nachos


Calling the program
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you run the program and don't give it any parameters, the user 
interface will appear. The user interface supports three algorithms for 
dealing with newlines in the source document and also allows many files 
to be selected for conversion.

Alternatively, the program can be run in command line only mode, 
this is especially useful if you are running the program from a script 
to convert many files automatically. 

To run Q-HTML in command line mode from the DOS prompt (Win95 or NT) or 
the "run" line in 16 bit windows (Program or File manager), just enter
q-html inputfilename outputfilename pagetitle

e.g. c:\q-html myfile.txt myfile.htm "Q-HTML homepage"

If the output file name is omitted it defaults to c:\output.htm
If you miss off the output file name then don't specify a title!!


Optional file sectioning
========================
If you have a large FAQ or similar document which you want broken into
seperate files and indexed, then please note the following:

You need to already have an index in plain text at the start of your 
document, the section headers must have numbers enclosed in square 
brackets, and within the main body of the FAQ any such number at the 
start of a line is taken to be a section header. Numbers in the middle of
lines (e.g. see section [2.5]) are converted to working links. To use 
this functionality within Q-HTML, use the following command line syntax:

q-html yourinputfilename FAQ "optional FAQ title here"

The "output filename" FAQ indicates to Q-HTML to perform sectioning and 
cross-indexing processing. 

From the user interface, just click the "Split and cross reference output"
checkbox to use this functionality.

The files generated are as follows:
contents.html
a_b.html where [a.b] is the name of a section in the original document.
Sections can be in various forms ([4], [4.1], [4.2.3]) etc.
THESE FILES WILL BE DELETED IF THEY ALREADY EXIST
For an example of this structure, see 
http://www.scot.demon.co.uk/scottish-faq.txt


Locations
~~~~~~~~~

The latest version of the program may be obtained from
    http://www.scot.demon.co.uk/q-html.exe (UK) (16 bit)
    http://www.scot.demon.co.uk/q-html2.exe (UK) (32 bit)
    ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/ibmpc/win95/apps/html/q-html2.zip (fully installable 
32 bit version)
 
The 16 bit version of the program can also be downloaded from: 
    ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/ibmpc/win3/apps/html/q-html.exe (UK)
    http://www.exit109.com/~oz/nachos/q-html.exe (USA) 
    http://www.ozemail.com.au/~krisp/nachos/q-html.exe (AUS)
    http://www.sonnet.co.uk/pj/nachos/q-html.exe (UK) 
    http://www.infoweb.co.za/nachos/q-html.exe (South Africa)

    http://www.winsite.com/info/pc/win3/winsock/q-html.zip/ (Winsite and mirrors)
    ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/win3/html/qhtml110.zip (Simtel and mirrors)

Note this is the actual executable, not a zipfile. 
              
The software is written in Visual Basic, and has both a screen based 
interface and a command line only interface. The command line only 
interface will run from the DOS prompt in both Windows NT and Windows 95.
The 16 bit version of the program also runs under 16 bit windows but 
the DOS window under 16 bit windows doesn't allow the same command line 
features, so you'll need to execute the command from the run option in 
program manager or file manager, or set up an icon with the parameters. 

For the 16 bit version, you'll need a copy of vbrun300.dll, cmdialog.vbx and msafinx.dll in your c:\windows\system (or equivalent) directory. Most systems already have most of these files, so I don't ship them by default. If you 
encounter a "file not found" error when trying to convert a file, then
this means the msafinx.dll file is missing. The 32 bit version requires
vb40032.dll, comdlg32.ocx and mfc40.dll (all below)

Support files
=============
Most machines will already have the necessary vbx and dll files for 
Q-HTML, but incase you don't I've put them here:

The 16 bit version REQUIRES the following files:

http://www.scot.demon.co.uk/vbrun300.zip (vbrun300.dll) and
http://www.scot.demon.co.uk/cmdialog.zip (cmdialog.vbx) and
http://www.scot.demon.co.uk/msafinx.zip (msafinx.dll - fixes 'file not
found' messages)

The 32 bit version REQUIRES the following files
http://www.scot.demon.co.uk/vb40032.zip (vb40032.dll)
http://www.scot.demon.co.uk/comdlg32.zip (comdlg32.ocx)
http://www.scot.demon.co.uk/mfc40.zip (mfc40.dll)

Registration
============

The software is shareware and has an unlimited lifetime but will start
nagging you after a while if you don't register. To register your software
and buy licences, please visit
https://ssl.pair.com/scotweb/cgi-bin/s-ordering.pl?order=qhtml
(for secure orders)   
or http://www.clan.com/cgi/s-ordering.pl?order=qhtml (not secure)

Finally, enjoy!
This tool saved me a lot of time and hopefully will help you too.
 
Please mail me at craig@scot.demon.co.uk if you have any questions.
