The TSW Blog

In a user comment to a previous episode, sijandi requested a screenshot of the new HTML outlining tree. First of all, it's not completely finished, but I have made some changes in this area, that I wish to tell you a little bit about. In WebCoder 2007, we had a Tool window for both the CSS and the PHP tree, and with the addition of a HTML tree, this would require yet another Tool window, and since I'm also hoping to add a JavaScript tree, things would start to get just a tad bit crowded. I therefore decided to look into combining these trees, and so far, I think the result has turned out pretty well.

As you can see from the image, the new "Document" Tool window consists of toolbar with a dropdown list of the possible outlining trees, a "Filter" textbox for quickly searching the active tree, and then the actual tree. The button on the top toolbar, next to the dropdown list, controls whether the Document Tool window should be context sensitive or not. When it is, WebCoder will automatically show the proper tree, depending on which kind of code you're editing. For instance, as soon as you go from HTML code to a <style> block, the HTML tree will be replaced with the CSS tree and so on. You can manually change between the trees from the dropdown list, of course. As I said, the combining of the outlining trees seems to be working out fairly well, and it will help make the interface less bloated.

Now back to the HTML tree. As you can see, it has a popup menu attached, which will give you access to some extra functionality. Navigate to will move the cursor to the start of the tag in the editor and focus it. Edit tag will activate the HTML Inspector, allowing you to quickly edit the tag with the mouse. Select tag and Select content will select either the entire tag, from start to end tag (if any), or just the stuff within the tag (child tags, text etc.). The Edit #content is pretty interesting as well. Once you click it, the CSS Inspector will be brought up, and you can edit the clicked selector, no matter where it's currently located (inline style block or external CSS file). If the tag has one or several classes attached to it, through the class attribute, you will of course get access to editing those from this menu as well.

I think that's all for now. Questions and comments are very welcome, as usual :)

So, in the last episode, we talked a bit about the new realtime validation functionality in WebCoder 2009, but you only saw a small part of it. The realtime validation checks for a wide range of problems, currently 15 different issues, and reports them back to you, by underlining the problem areas directly in the editor, as shown in the previous episode, but also by keeping a newly added list of issues in the main WebCoder window. This allows you to sort out most of the problems that can prevent your document from passing the W3 validation test, without having to manually validate the document over and over again. Here is an example of the error view, to show what I'm talking about:

As you can see, there is a piece of text for each error, telling the user what's wrong, but in fact, WebCoder 2009 will do more than just that. It will also help you fix the problem:

As you can see, a solution is proposed here, but if WebCoder knows how to fix a problem, then why do it manually? Press the quick fix shortcut, or activate it from the error view, and WebCoder can fix most of the errors for you. Some solutions are obviously more elegant than others, for instance, there's pretty much only one way to fix an "unknown attribute" error: Remove the attribute. Deprecated tags and attributes are fixed more elegantly though: WebCoder 2009 comes with a conversion map, which can be user modified, that tells the application how to convert deprecated tags and attributes into something that will validate and still work as intended. For instance, <font> tags are converted to <span> tags, and the deprecated attributes of it, like "face", "size" and "color", are converted to the CSS alternatives and placed in the style attribute. This allows WebCoder to convert most legacy HTML code into modern HTML and CSS code, with minimal user interaction. Letting WebCoder fix the most obvious validation errors is a real time saver, when compared to manually validating and manually fixing each and every error. Just wait and see :)

In the last episode, I talked about the new HTML parser in WebCoder 2009. The next couple of episodes, including this one, will be dedicated to highlighting some of the cool, extra functionality made possible by the HTML parser. For instance, since WebCoder knows the structure of your document, it can match start tags with end tags and let you know if you have forgotten either one of them. It will use the active HTML definition to decide whether or not a tag needs an ending tag. The realtime validator, which I will write much more about in the next episode, helps highlight this problem:

Errors are highlighted just like a spelling error in your favorite word processor, and you can get more information about the problem, as shown on the image, by hovering the mouse over the highlighted word.

The active HTML definition is used and you will be reminded to close your tags in the correct way. Here it is the img tag, which needs the self-closing forward slash instead of a regular end tag.

WebCoder can help you close the tags you have open, and in the correct order of course, as required by XHTML. This also lets you turn off the HTML AutoComplete feature, where WebCoder automatically inserts the ending tag as soon as you write the starting tag, and then write the ending tag when you actually need it, while still getting help. When you need to end a tag, simply type the < character and press Enter, since WebCoder automatically highlights the appropriate end tag.

Since WebCoder keeps track of begin and end tags, highlighting matching tags is just a benefit! Place the cursor in either the start tag or the end tag, and WebCoder will highlight the matching opposite!

That's all for now, but I have a lot more to tell you about these features. In the next episode, we will take a deeper look at the realtime validation and how it can help you much more than what we've seen today. As always, stay tuned for more :)

As you may have realized from my last blog entry, WebCoder 2009 won't just be a couple of new features and some bugfixes. I have already made a bunch of interface changes, most of them which you will hear more about, and a list of very cool new features are either planned or already implemented. The first thing I actually created for WebCoder 2009, was even more code for parsing and handling HTML tags. Even though WebCoder is an HTML editor, I think you would be amazed to find out how much code is actually written for parsing, handling, formatting and outputting these simple HTML tags.

In WebCoder 2009, I wanted an HTML outlining tree, to show the structure of a document, so I needed a complete HTML parser. Parsing HTML is some what trivial, but building a tree of it's structure is a bit more complicated. Doing it for XML would be a piece of cake, but HTML has so many exceptions and weird ways you can use it, that it becomes quite a job. Fortunately, it's all worth it, because this code has already been used several places in WebCoder 2009, to provide some interesting features. Generally speaking, WebCoder will now know much more about your documents, and it will use this information to help you write better code, with greater ease. I know that sounds a bit like something from the marketing department of a big company, but it's actually true :). In the next couple of posts, I will be much more concrete and tell you exactly how WebCoder 2009 will make your life easier with this information. Once again, stay tuned :)

I'm very happy to announce that the final version of TSW SiteSync 2.0 has just been released. You can download it from the SiteSync product page, where you can also find all the usual cool screenshots and a complete feature list. As promised, this is a free upgrade for all those of you who have purchased the first version of SiteSync. You can simply install version 2 and it will use the same license key as version 1. Have a look at this blog post for more information on all the new things in SiteSync 2.0.

I wish to thank the betatesters for their effort. Especially Mobleman and iosoftgame, who I would like to offer a free license to either WebCoder or phpCoder together with SiteSync 2.0, for their extensive help in testing this release. amews_aj gets a free SiteSync 2.0 license for doing such a nice Danish translation - I hope all of you will help localize SiteSync into other languages :)

Enjoy SiteSync 2.0 :)

Ahh, just writing the title of this blog entry makes me excited :). I have been thinking a lot about WebCoder ever since phpCoder was released, about new features of course, but mostly about the direction that I wanted to take WebCoder. Should WebCoder continue to be the big brother for WebPad.NET and phpCoder, and if so, should it have all of the PHP functions found in phpCoder, to be as all-round as possible? You may think that it's an easy question to answer, but it really isn't. A lot of people are depending on WebCoder, and I'm sure that everyone has different wishes for how the next version should look. That's all great, but since a lot of these wishes will obviously be mutually exclusive, I will have to make a general decision on how to proceed. I have to think long and hard about which features should be implemented in which editors, and each time, they have to fit in with the general direction that I wish to take. Some of you will probably say something like "Don't decide, just make one huge, SuperCoder, that does it all", but it's not that easy. The thing will get bloated, with heavy load times and an interface that is difficult to use.

I believe more in specialized applications, but WebCoder 2007 isn't that specialized. It's pretty good at a bunch of things, and overall a very pleasant editor to work with, if you ask me, but I want to do more with it. WebCoder 2009 should hopefully prove this, with it's very strong focus on being the absolutely best place to work with HTML and CSS. In the upcoming blog posts, I will show you just exactly what I mean by that, and I'm pretty sure that you won't be disappointed.

This was just an introduction. The first part of this "making of WebCoder 2009" series will be posted shortly. Stay tuned! :)

Hello all,

Ever since the first release of WebPad, and especially after the release of phpCoder, people have been asking what the difference between these applications and WebCoder are. I've had the explanation ready each time, but some people seem to prefer a nice chart with X's on it - at least that's the impression I've gotten after receiving several requests for it. So, without further ado, here it is:

TSW Product Comparison Chart

I just made it last night, so it might not be completely done by now, but I wanted to see if you guys had any feedback on it. So far, I've mostly listed things that are left out in at least one application, or where there's more than a slight difference between how good it works in the different applications. For instance, I haven't included Extended search & replace, because it works equally well in all three current applications. This should make it easier to get a good overview of the applications. So, what do you think? Is this what you guys want? Have I missed something obvious? :)

The first final beta release of SiteSync 2.0 now comes with real documentation. Any feedback on this is appreciated as well :). The amount of bugs discovered in the last couple of versions has been pretty minimal, so I have focused a lot on improving the localization process, in preparation of implementing in it phpCoder 2008 next. The localization editor has been improved, SiteSync should now make all of it's controls available for translation, and a new localization area at tswusers.net has been prepared. I hope that you will all share your localization work as much as possible. Also, a new menu item in SiteSync makes it possible to easily browse and download language files. If there are any problems with all the new stuff I've added, then be sure to let me know. I would like to mention once again, that new language files will be rewarded with a free TSW SiteSync commercial license.

Download TSW SiteSync 2.0 final beta 1 - please provide feedback in the beta forum

Download TSW Localization Editor - more information here, please provide feedback in the beta forum

As mentioned in the first beta post, free licenses will be given to the best betatesters for either TSW WebCoder 2007 or TSW phpCoder 2008 as well as SiteSync 2.0, once the final version has been released.

Please be aware that this is beta software. It's meant for testing only, and if you don't feel comfortable using software with known bugs and quirks, you should wait for the final version.

During the last couple of weeks, I have been working on implementing localization in SiteSync 2.0. I built the localization system from scratch, so it fits the TSW applications the best, and may later be implemented in TSW phpCoder and TSW WebCoder. This means that SiteSync can be easily translated into other languages, and I hope that you will all help me by doing just that. This whole localization thing is still very much beta, but I have tested it quite a bit, and it should be stable enough for you to do the same. Once SiteSync goes into final, I will be happy to give away free licenses in exchange for proper language files, so this is your chance to get a head start on it :)

First of all, you need the latest beta version of SiteSync from the link below. Besides the new localization system, it includes a range of bug fixes, found in beta 2. You also need the new TSW Localization Editor, which can be found below as well. The editor includes a README file which explains how to localize the application. To test it, SiteSync 2.0 beta 3 comes with a new Settings button in the main interface, which lets you change the language. It simply lists the files found in the new "languages" folder, so please put your test language file in there. Right now, it's all very simple - you can change the language, but only for the current session. The next time you start SiteSync, the language will be English, but you can't change back to the default language in the middle of a session. This will all be a bit more polished for the final version, but it will do for testing purposes :)

As mentioned, the localization part is still very much beta, so feel free to suggest improvements to the Localization Editor and the localization process as well.

Download TSW SiteSync 2.0 beta 3 - please provide feedback in the beta forum

Download TSW Localization Editor - please provide feedback in the beta forum

As mentioned in the first beta post, free licenses will be given to the best betatesters for either TSW WebCoder 2007 or TSW phpCoder 2008 as well as SiteSync 2.0, once the final version has been released.

Please be aware that this is beta software. It's meant for testing only, and if you don't feel comfortable using software with known bugs and quirks, you should wait for the final version.

I'm happy to announce a new maintenance release of TSW WebCoder 2007, version 7.07. This release of WebCoder comes with the following changes:

• A minor bug in the settings dialog, related to preview browsers, was fixed
• When auto completing the end tag, WebCoder will now respect case settings as defined in the default HTML tag configuration
• Fixed a bug in the CSS Code Inspector, related to the background property
• Improved the CSS Code Inspector to make it work better with style attributes on tags within a block of PHP code
• Fixed a minor bug in the Image Explorer thumbnail dialog, and improved on the aspect ratio formula used, to make it work better
• Changed the Save As dialog to work more logical
• Fixed a problem where scripts would be read with a wrong encoding, causing special characters to disappear - scripts will now be loaded with the user defined encoding, as selected in the Settings dialog
• Added the same application for easy access to application and settings directory as introduced in phpCoder 2008 version 1.01
• Added the same technology for logging errors as introduced in phpCoder 2008 version 1.02

To upgrade, simply go to the WebCoder product page and download the application. Install it on top of the previous version, that should cause no problems. If you have any questions or comments, please contact us.