Overview
The HTML Editor is a dedicated window for editing HTML in a "what you see is what you get" (WYSIWYG) environment. The HTML Editor makes it easy to edit HTML text. You can use the HTML Editor with any text property that allows HTML content.
The most convenient way to open the HTML Editor is to press [F7] when the text cursor is in a textbox.
If you hold the [Shift] key down and press [F7], GedSite will open the Text Editor rather than the HTML Editor.
Editors for HTML are not as well-developed as similar editors for general word-processing use, and you cannot use a visual HTML editor to create all possible HTML. The HTML Editor in GedSite is mostly intended for editing formatted paragraphs of text, lists, and simple tables. For images, it's best to use GedSite's Image User Item, and specify text before or after the image using a Text User Item. The Text property in the Text User Item may be edited with the HTML Editor.
When you are done editing, you can save the changes and close the HTML Editor by clicking the [OK] button.
The contents of the HTML Editor window look different than the contents of other GedSite windows. The HTML Editor uses an embedded web browser in order to provide the editing environment and show the text as formatted HTML.
If you press [F7] and GedSite opens the Text Editor rather than the HTML Editor, the text property you are editing is not intended to hold HTML and should contain text only.
Editing the HTML
The HTML Editor provides a menubar and toolbar with a variety of formatting commands. As in most other editors, some commands alter paragraphs or other blocks of text, some commands alter phrases, words, or characters.
if you cannot achieve the results you want using the HTML Editor, there are two other methods to edit the HTML:
- Use the Text Editor by pressing [Shift]+[F7] rather than [F7] to open the editor.
- Use the HTML Editor, but adjust the HTML using the <> (View source) button in the HTML Editor.
Pasting from Word
The HTML Editor's Edit > Paste command (or [Ctrl]-V) removes unnecessary HTML elements that Microsoft Word adds to the text and this will usually produce much better results than copying the HTML some other way.
Limitations
Styles
Due to technical limitations, GedSite does not attempt to use the styles that accompany the site's chosen Theme, and so the content as shown in the HTML Editor will not match the style of the resulting site. The HTML will show the general structure of the content, including headings, paragraphs, bold and italic text, lists, tables, etc.
HTML Errors
If the source HTML contains errors, the HTML Editor may fail to show the content properly. In that case, you should use the Text Editor and correct the error.
Editor Window
As mentioned above, the HTML Editor window looks different from other GedSite windows because it uses an embedded browser for most of the content. The embedded browser reduces the control that GedSite has over the user interface, and some functionality is lost. For example, the [F1] key will not open a help page. Similarly, some web browser functions are available that aren't useful for editing HTML, but GedSite cannot prevent, such as the ability to open a remote web page. GedSite hides those features the best it can, but a user might discover how to execute them anyway.