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The Walrus says: Bookmark this page!!
- WebLord is a powerful new web site construction and maintenance tool. It is designed especially to enable creation and maintenance of large sites. WebLord excels at reducing the obscure clutter, repetitive references, and common typographical errors that are the lot of the designer who is stuck with less capable tools.
2 | What sets WebLord apart from other HTML editors? |
- Once and for all: WebLord is not an HTML editor¹.
- Many so-called website construction tools attempt to hold the designer's hand by hiding the HTML and presenting what they bill as a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) interface. WebLord elegantly side-steps this misguided mixing of markup (HTML) and layout (DTP) concepts, and transcends the usual focus on merely editing the HTML code rather than providing the needed tools to maintain an entire site.
- WebLord constructs pages from patterns of objects. Objects are built from other objects, and object properties are inherited through the chain of references, thus providing context-specific construction of output. An object can be as simple as a string literal, an image reference, a paragraph of text, or the contents of an entire file, dynamically generated through any program that WebLord is told to invoke.
3 | Can I get a demo of WebLord? |
- Yes, WebLord is now available for the Amiga computer. A demo² will be available on Aminet shortly, but you may also download the demo now (110K). WebLord costs $25(US) or DM45. To order WebLord, please read the online documentation!
More questions? Read on!
4 | What kind of pages does WebLord build? |
- Most of the pages starting at my home page are already constructed with WebLord (and take a look at the source to this page and others). The consistency of these pages is incredibly(!) easy to maintain, but do not deceive yourself into thinking that WebLord imposes a particular structure. The form I have chosen for these pages is just that: my choice. You can just as easily create frames-based pages with WebLord as you can build plain pages or ones that consist of dozens of complex tables.
- WebLord imposes no design constraints on your creativity.
- In fact, the greater the complexity of your pages and the more such pages you need to create and the more design elements that these pages share, the more you will benefit from WebLord's simple, powerful, unique and unlimited potential!
5 | What does WebLord's GUI look like? Any screen shots? |
- WebLord has no GUI. It acts as something of a "compiler" for your site, and as such can build your site off-line and can automatically invoke whichever software you prefer (e.g. FTPMount) to immediately upload the pages to your provider. You could also use WebLord as an HTTP/CGI tool to support live-creation of dynamic web pages, or have a cron daemon update your pages periodically.
Remember: WebLord is a power tool. It is not meant to help you maintain just one page or two. If you have dozens or more pages to maintain, however, WebLord definitely is for you!
- A GUI front-end to WebLord is under consideration An announcement will be made if/when the GUI for WebLord is ready for shipping.
5.1 | What Platforms does WebLord Support |
- WebLord is a multi-platform development tool. It was entirely developed on the Amiga computer, and only afterwards ported to Linux and to Windows NT (it will run under Windows 95) for testing and personal use. WebLord will always be primarily for the Amiga, but may be ported to other platforms as interest, opportunity and access to the required hardware allows. The following are the minimum requirements for the currently supported platforms:
- AmigaOS 2.04 (V37) or later,
- 68000 CPU or better; PowerPC support is planned,
- At least 512KB base memory (more may be required for very large and complex sites.)
- Approximately 150K diskspace
- Availability: Now!
- Any production release of Linux (any version you'll likely find installed)
- 80486 CPU or Pentium level processor,
- At least 4MB base memory (more may be required for a real production system.)
- Approximately 200K diskspace
- Availability: August 18, 1997.
5.2 | Why isn't WebLord available for my platform / operating system? |
- I am an individual software developer without the resources to obtain a platform of every available type. Through a trusted, long-term friend (hi Hoover!) I am able to offer a Linux version of WebLord; through my employer, I am able to support Win95/WinNT; through my own personal computing platform of choice, the Amiga, I have been and continue to be able to design and develop WebLord.
- I am more than willing to make WebLord available for any imaginable operating system and computer, from the obscure to the most popular. I would need to have access to such a system, of course, even if only for a relatively short duration. If you are interested to assist in this, I'd love to offer WebLord for your computer, too!
¹ WebLord is not bound to any particular language. You could just as easily build TeX documents with WebLord, or use it as some sort of document assembly system. Only time and the creativity of its users will show the myriad uses of WebLord.
² The demo is fully functional. It does, however, always insert a "created with..." HTML section into your pages that will be plainly visible in browsers.
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http://www.wam.umd.edu/~walrus/weblord.html (Amiga Plus Extra No. 5/97, 05/1997)
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