PB AE Multipage NOSCRIPT Webpages

Creating MultiPage PageBuilder NOSCRIPT Advanced Editor Webpages

INTRODUCTION

This is a very simplistic demo of a PageBuilder Advanced Editor webpage using the NOSCRIPT advanced editing procedure. The precisely detailed step-by-step instructions are for relatively new PageBuilders who have not yet tackled the PB AE procedure. This turorial will be boring and repetitous to advanced PageBuilders.

This tutorial uses the PB AE Noscript method; however, you can use all the PageBuilder Advanced Editor methods - the HTML comment, the Defeat, noscript, and script methods - with pagebreaks to create multipage webpage documents. This makes it possible to use a different background color or image for each webpage in the multipage document. I put a Thunderstone© WebTV Source Code Viewer at the bottom of each page so you could view and print out the source code for each page.

The following paragraphs are a brief summary of a few general rules you should be familiar with as you read the procedure. Basically; all you need to do is: put ONLY ONE BEGINNING NOSCRIPT () TAG FIRST in a TEXTBOX IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING EACH PAGEBREAK, then add a NEW BODY TAG FOR EACH PAGE after the closing noscript tag, for your bg's, text, links, etc for each individual page.

For all you PageBuilders who are familiar with either the regular comment method, or Paul Dutton's Defeat method for PageBuilder Advanced Editors, you can easily use the noscript editing method by simply using a beginning noscript tag in place of the beginning comment tag, and an ending noscript tag in place of the ending comment tag - that's the only difference between the comment and noscript advanced editing methods.

You also have to add a formatted heading (H4-H1) or a gif image for a custom title following your new body tag because you cannot "check" to have your title placed on your webpage because the noscript tags block out the HTML container tag that your title box entry is placed into on your webpage.

Remember when creating a new webpage, you should always first thing after selecting your background to open your basic editor, type a short title in the title text box, then publish your webpage to preserve the short title as part of your webpage URL. Then edit the title to a descriptive title you want to appear in our WebTV status bars and computer title bars. Make your webpage titles 35 characters or less so they will fit in our WebTV status bars without being cutoff with ellipses.

Then, remember to replace the blocked out beginning paragraph and table tags for each page. View the source code for each page to see exactly what PB formatting tags are blocked by the noscript tags so you can replace them in exactly the same sequence following the new body tag. This is very important with the new browsers, especially Netscape, that will not display pages correctly when table tags, or other formatting container tags are missing, or in improper sequence.

The multipage noscript Advanced Editor is just like the "comment tag" multipage AE that I demostrated in this tutorial. I repeat: all you need is one beginning noscript () tags at the beginning of each successive page following a pagebreak. Just be sure that you do not move the position of the text boxes containing your noscript tags and page body tags immediately following each pagebreak when you add content to each page and move items up and down on your pages.

This a simplistic demo consisting of only Four (4) pages which is sufficient to show different background colors for each page made possible by advanced editing procedures. Here I use both solid color bgcolor and background gifs; typically, we use a PB AE method to allow the use custom .gif's or .jpg's for backgrounds from a published PageBuilder webpage of images from our terminal's user scrapbooks. You can use your PB AE webpage body tag or a style sheet in an extended head tag to load your background image. You can also add scripts to an extended head tag. I show these procedures in my original noscript tutorial.

The next page shows the step-by-step procedure for creating a PageBuilder Noscript Advanced Editor multipage document. I briefly referred to multipage documents in the above tutorial, but it was unclear to some beginning PageBuilders because I referred back up to Step Five (5) that described how to start the textbox for the ending noscript tag at the top of each successive page in a multipage document. The steps published on the next page more clearly and specifically describe the complete procedure for creating multipage noscript Advanced Editor documents.

HISTORY OF THE NOSCRIPT ADVANCED EDITOR

When I originally created both the PageBuilder Noscript Advanced Editor tutorial and the PageBuilder Script Advanced Editor tutorial last December, I posted them in the NG's and had them listed in the Expert-HTML Newsletter; but, I got a somewhat cool response in the NG's and from my WebTV friends. Most of my expert PageBuilder friends, I emailed the webpage to, simply wouldn't take the time to comment on or test either of my new PB AE noscript or script methods or make suggestions for the tutorials.

The only PageBuilder who helped me test the procedures was my friend Angela, aka Angelaruth49@webtv.net, who tested this method and wrote a very easy to use tutorial for beginners! I really appreciate and thank Angela for her support, feedback and continued use of the noscript method. Also, my friend Richard, aka RFDowneyJr@webtv.net (Blue Fox), checked out my tutorials and listed them in his email signature box links and websites. And, my friend Jerry, aka WbWzrd@webtv.net, commented on my PB AE Noscript and Script methods in the JavaScript NG. And my friend Paul Dutton, aka PaulWayn@webtv.net, was also kind enough to compliment my Script method in the alt.pagebuilder.help NG.

And my friend Pwilliamandx@webtv.net, listed all three of my PageBulder Advanced Editor tutorials: Adding Meta Tags To PageBuilder, PageBuilder Noscript Method Advanced Editor, and PagBuilder Script Method Advanced Editor on his website. Also, my friend Art C, aka RTCamm@webtv.net, credits me with the Noscript and Script methods, and also links to my PB AE Script method in one of his tutorials.

Subsequently, many of our PageBuilder experts have published advanced editing method tutorials, including the noscript and script methods. I have no problem with other PB AE Noscript and Script tutorials, or what others include in their webpages about the methods - in fact, I find all the of the PB AE method tutorials to be very well written, and a great help to all PageBuilders! As my tutorials will attest, I believe in giving credit where due. I really appeciate, and sincerely thank others for testing and working with the method and adding their own personal touches for expanding the methods of use. But; I remind others, as a common courtesy, you should always acknowledge the works of others when you include their work in your tutorials!

All the latest PB AE tutorials are a great help to beginning PageBuilders; because, in fact, all the latest tutorals are easier to understand and use than my original tutorial. My original tutorial does contain some advanced features, such as an expanded head tag with style sheet loading background gifs, and scripts, which beginning PageBuilders have difficulty using.

But folks, I really do have a problem with MSN TV about having to resort to work-arounds like the PB Advanced Editor methods! Why after almost three years since the PageBuilder program was released, does MSN-TV engineering and programming staff still think that PageBuilders need such a dorky, limited program? Doesn't WebTV staff know that by now the majority of Webbers are far advanced in webpage construction? Why can't PageBuilders get a far more advanced webpage editing program? Why can't PageBuilder finally have an upgrade that will make the Advanced Editor work-arounds unnecessary? I wonder if our use of all the PB advanced editing work-around procedures has made us satisfied with the status quo; and, this lack of positive demands for an upgraded advanced editor option causes MSN-TV PageBuilder staff to assume we don't need or want more advanced PageBuilder options?

How about it, folks - isn't it about time we all start demanding a far more advanced webpage editing program? A simple blank screen text editor would allow PageBuilders to "hard code" a complete webpage, beginning with the statement and added meta tags, scripts and styles.

NOSCRIPT ADVANCED EDITOR IS NOW POPULAR

It appears that suddenly, with the release of WTV upgrade 2.6.1, the noscript editing method has become popular as a way to correct PageBuilder's custom background problems due to the use of additional body tags; which I attribute to Angela's and Barb's, aka libandme@webtv.net, support and promotion of the noscript method in their NG posts and PageBuilder tutorals. I am also thankful to all others who have posted additional information in the NG's and written tutorials about the many ways PageBuilders can use the noscript editing method to customize their PageBuilder webpages! All these posts and tutorials are a great help for PageBuilders and very much appreciated by all who use them! Thanks to all our dedicated PageBuilder experts and helpers!

NOSCRIPT ADVANCED EDITOR CAUTIONS

But, a word of caution here - the PageBuilder Noscript Advanced Editor is not an absolute "cure-all" for PageBuilder's custom background problems! It's OK for our WebTV browsers because we cannot disable our browser's JavaScript interpreters like computers can when surfing.

Our WebTV browsers and computers with JavaScript "Enabled" know to ignore the contents between the noscript tags. But; if a computer user surfs with javascript "disabled", their browsers do not know to ignore the content between the noscript tags; therefore, the browsers do not recognize the noscript tags and simply read and display the text between the noscipt tags as plain text, or links and images as the case may be.

If the Javascript "Disabled" computer browser sees another body tag, part of the webpage, or possibly none of the webpage may be displayed. This is why it's obvious that the "Noscript" AE method is not an absolute cure-all for MSN-TV PB Advanced Editing! The noscript tags makes it possible to provide alternate webpage content or links for script browsers, with javascript disabled, or non-script; but, when script is disabled while viewing a PB AE Noscript webpage, the browser will read two (2) body tags and may have problems displaying the webpage.

The custom PageBuilder background problems caused by the WebTV 2.6.1 browser upgrade is due to the fact that WebTV HTML DTD was "tightened-up," so that much of the "loose HTML" that WebTV previously accepted is no longer acceptable. As of the 2.6.1 upgrade, MSN-TV will no longer accept the addition of a second body tag in PageBuilder webpages for custom backgrounds, unless an Advanced Editor method is used to "block-out" the PageBulder built-in (original) body tag. All PB AE methods - the original (h17) HTML "Comment" method, Paul Dutton's "Defeat" method, my "Noscript" method, my "Script" method, and my new "Style" method - can all be used for PageBuilder custom background Advanced Editing for WebTV and computers with JavaScript "Enabled." But, only the PB AE (original) "Comment" method, my new "Style" method, and Paul Dutton's "Defeat" method will work correctly when adding new custom body background tags to a PB AE webpage when viewed with computers that have JavaScript disabled!

Another problem with the PB AE Noscript method is that it is strickly illegal according to the W3C HTML DTD! Why? Because the HTML DTD states that the tags are only legal within a body tag - ie, the noscript tag is illegal outside the body tag of a document! The PB AE Noscript method uses an illegally placed noscript tag inside the head tag following the title tag in the title text box; or following a closing head tag in the title text box, but before the new (added) custom body tag – either placement is illegal according to the HTML DTD! All current browsers accept the Noscript method at the present time, but future, more stricter browsers may not!

That said, consider my original premise for using this method - if it's an illegal tag in the head of a document, the browser should simply ignore the tag and all it's contents, even with javascript disabled - in this, case: the noscript tags surrounding the PageBuilder built-in body tag and beginning table template tags should be ignored by the browser! So; even though it's an illegal tag, it's still an effective PB AE method that blocks out the PageBuilder built-in body tag tag so a new custom body tag can be added to PB webpages when desired!

Using this same basic premise, I discovered seven more PB advanced editing methods using other HTML tags. I published these methods on December 17, 2001 and had them listed in the Expert-HTML Newsletter.

I also published a PageBuilder AE method using a true CSS style sheet PB AE to define ALL the body tag style attributes of a PageBuilder document. This method uses tags in an extended head tag to block-out the PageBuilder built-in body tag and define the webpage style. This method is completely in accordance with the HTML DTD!

Only h17's original PB AE Comment method, Paul Dutton's Defeat method, and my Script and Style Method advanced editors are unconditionally correct with the HTML DTD - the HTML DTD states that comment tags may be used anywhere between the beginning and ending ... tags! And, the Script and Style tags are only legal inside the head tag of a document.

But, then I wonder: if you place a PB AE script or style tag between the head and body tags where they're illegal, shouldn't an HTML DTD compliant browser ignore these editor tags, thus making this illegal placement of these tags an effective PB AE method; which as noted herein, may be the reason this noscript tag AE method is so effective?

But, remember: according to the online validators, the PB AE Script and Style methods are only legal if they are used within an extended head tag - ie, not closing the head tag in the title text box; but, instead closing the head tag in the first "Add text" box after the Script and Style method's script tags. The script and style tags are illegal when placed between the head tag and body tag of a document - they must be placd either inside the head tag or inside the body tag. But; both H17's original comment method, and Paul Dutton's "hybrid-comment-tag" Defeat method variation are legal between the head tag and body tag - the HTML DTD says the HTML comment tags may be used ANYWHERE within a document!

USE A JAVASCRIPT BUG WARNING SCRIPT ON YOUR PB AE NOSCRIPT WEBPAGES

Since the original introduction of the WebTV browser, our browsers are referred to as internet terminals (Classics) and Plus receivers, are now a part of the Microsoft Network, and known as MSN-TV Internet set-top receivers. Our browsers are designed to be very low-priced alternatives to computers, for websurfing, email, etc; and have limited ROM and RAM memory, and comparatively slow processors.

Due to limited ROM programming memory capacity, our browsers use "lean" programming code for all functions. This effects the way our MSN-TV browsers displays websites. Many functions of the latest browsers are not supported by our browsers. Our browsers have always been plagued with the infamous WebTV JavaScript Bug, that's due to a limited implementation of javascript's error checking procedures because of our terminal's limited amount of available ROM programming memory.

Our browsers convert frames and other webpage content to a basic table template layout for display on our TV screens. This table conversion uses javascript to build the table formatted webpages. The limited javascript error checking program code within our browsers sometimes allows javascript errors to prevent the correct display of webpages with javascript. This has become known as the infamous and regularly recurring "WebTV JavaScript Bug" we are all familiar with.

When the bug occurs, the table (re)formatting and javascript in a webpage will not function correctly, if at all, and the webpage title will not appear in our status bars! Early on, Webbers realized the necessity of using javascript bug alert scripts on our webpages to alert viewers to reload a webpage to clear the JS bug. Several versions of WebTV bug scripts have been devised and effectively used by Webbers for several years. The

The tag also supports the width (number of pixels wide) and size (number of characters wide) attributes if you desire to use them. Also, note: the tag is a singleton tag - no closing tag is required, because all the tag's content is within the single tag as an attribute value, which does not need a closing tag to enclose content like a font tag; but, some Webbers use a closing tag anyhow, which doesn't matter.

So, folks; I suggest you start using the proprietary WebTV tag inside your

Note: Here I use examples of both noframes and noscript alerts because MSN-TV responds to the noframes tags, and computers respond to the noscript tag. Also, the fact that computers can surf with either script, or frames, or both, disabled; you may want to devise different warnings for computers. If you have javascript on your webpage, and/or have a frameset website, you need to tell computer users to enable javascript and/or frames to see all features of your webpages.

I suggest that computers enable both script and frames so the alerts will not be visible, even though most of my pages are not framesets and may not have javascript on each page. Computer users must have "Script Enabled" so their computers will ignore the PageBuilder built-in body tags between the noscript tags of a PB AE Noscript document, and display the webpage with the added custom background stle.

Also, because Webbers frequently use the popular "noframes" tag WebTV JavaScript Bug Alert, the javascript bug warning must always be used inside the limittext tag so computers will not display the bug alert!

I have never seen the "noscript" tag work with an MSN-TV browser javascript bug - only the "noframes" part of the script works when the WTV javascript bug strikes my browser! I don't believe our browsers support the noscript tag? I cannot get my browser to display alternate content between noscript tags whenthe JS bug strikes my box! So; I suggest that you use the noframes tag with the limittext tag for your MSN-TV javascript bug alerts, and tell computers to "enable frames" in a separate noframes tag if you have a frameset webpage. Then, you can use the noscript tag to tell computer users to "enable script" if your have a javascript/dhtml webpage.

WARNING: Many bug scripts have been created by the expert PageBuilders - select your preference; but, don't fall for some of the so-called "auto-reload" scripts. Several of the auto-reload scripts use loops that count reloads, or have an auto-reload command that's supposed to only reload once. These scripts lock the viewer's browser into a continuous loop because each time a page reloads, the loop count(er) is reset to zero so the set number of reloads is never accumulated in the loop counter so the loop can be stopped; or a reload command that's supposed to occur once, occurs over and over each time a new page is loaded. Your "Back" key will not break out of the continous loops; But, you can break out by using one of your primary named "Hot" keys - Favs, Home, Search, or Mail.

ALL ADVANCED EDITOR PROCEDURES ARE SIMILIAR

Experienced PageBuilders will recognize that you can use all the PB AE methods with these step-by-step procedures to create single or multipage documents - ie; just use your favorite AE method, whether it be the Comment, Defeat, Noscript, Script, or style methods, by using each method's tags in place of the noscript tags I use here; ie: for H17's original Comment method, use: ; for Dutton's Defeat method, use: (these beginning comment tags also work with the Defeat method: , or ; or for the new Style method (JaxRed), use: ; as you prefer, in the same manner that the noscript tags are used in this tutorial - just substitute any other advanced editing method's tags for the noscript tags!

LEARN BY VIEWING SOURCE CODE

Use the source code viewer at the bottom of each page to see: how the noscript tags are used to block-out the PB built-in body tags on each page; how the head tag data from Page One is automatically transferred to each successive page by the PageBuilder program so that only ONE beginning noscript tag is required to be entered on Page One; how the page break navigation links are automatically added to each page by the PageBuilder program; how a text box with an ending noscript tag and new body tag immediately following each page break is required on each successive page; and, finally and very important, you must view the source code of your pages to be sure that the paragraph and table formatting tags automatically added by the PageBuilder program, which are blocked-out by the noscript tags, are properly replaced so that all the page formatting tags are properly nested and closed so that the new, stricter HTML DTD browsers (WebTV 2.6.1, Netscape 4.67-6.0, etc) will display your pages as you intended.

Always have your webpages viewed by all MSN-TV browser upgrade versions, and all the major computer browsers! This is the best way to "validate" your webpage - if it looks OK in the major browsers, the code is correct, period! If you have problems, you will have to check your webpage's source code, or submit your webpage to one of the online validators for an evaluation report on your webpage's compatibility with the various versions of HTML and browsers. MSN-TV users seem to favor the AnyBrowser and Dr. Watson online validators. To understand the use of validators and how to interpret and apply the validartor's critique report to your webpages, check Pwilliamandx"s comparisons webpage for samples of webpage validation.

One of the best ways to learn HTML and scripting is to view the source codes of as many webpages as you can. Beginning PageBuilders should always use an online validator, but experienced PageBuilders can use an online source code viewer, which shows just the pure code embed in the document. Complex documents should use validators with "parse tree" views of all the document's HTML tags. A parse tree view shows all the tags in a hierarchical order so incorrect, missing, and improperly nested tags can be easily spotted! The validator at http://validator.w3.og/ offers the parse tree option.

Some PageBuilder experts may suggest that you do not have to replace the blocked-out table template tags; because it doesn't matter to our "loose DTD" browsers, which usually displays our webpages even with some minor table tag errors. Just because some HTML errors and omissions are "permissible", doesn't mean it should be OK with competent webpage authors - tolerating HTML errors in our webpages is bad practice - period! Always construct your webpage formating HTML code in strict accordance with published standards and guidelines - then you should never have major validation problems or display problems in any of the major browsers; except for minor compatibility differences between some older MSIE and Netscape browsers, especially with javascript, style and DHTML!

SUMMARY OF CONTENTS

Page Two contains very precise step-by-step instructions for creating a PageBuilder Noscript Advanced Editor multipage document, which should help beginning PageBuilders get-up-to-speed with an Advanced Editing document. Page Three contains a few additional supplementary notes and Page Four contains additional resources and suggestions.

View the of this webpage with the Thunderstone WebTV Source Code Viewer. Put a "Source Code" Viewer on your webpages.



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