Building an HTML macro toolbox

Nobody in their right mind writes in raw troff or TEX. Instead, a higher level of control is attained through the use of troff ms (or mm) macros, or LTEX, respectively. In the same way, HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is crude and cumbersome. Work on HTML macros (Peel, 1996) by the author has already demonstrated their value in creating complex web texts for publication on the World-Wide Web. The Tiler macro processor can be used to provide navigation and a consistent look and feel with very little effort. This is done by using standard HTML tags as building blocks for more more intricate and sophisticated components. The reduction in the amount of manual HTML markup required by the developer also results in a more robust and maintainable end product. The paper discusses problems found with the macro processor software (Tiler v1.1) which expands macros in requested documents on-the-fly. The solution was to build a macro pre-processor (Tiler v2.0), complete with its own Macro Definition Language. The paper finishes with a description of Rummage, a tool for inserting structure-related macros into collections of web nodes based on information gleaned from a framework file which holds the structure of the web text. Themes: User-centred methods and tools for designing Web structures and browsers User-centred requirements for next generation Web authoring/navigation