7.8 Hints And Conventions

Where To Include Include Files

It's better to include your include files at the end of the main web file, as if FunnelWeb generates an error, the line number in the listing file is easier to correlate with the main file if several files have not been included.

Separating Pages

It's a good idea to separate the macro for each page in a web in the FunnelWeb file, by a line of asterisks in a FunnelWeb comment. This makes the FunnelWeb source file easier to work on in your text editor.

@!************************************************

@O@<index.html@>@{
@<Begin page@>@(Dave's Home Page@)

<P>Welcome to my home page. Check out my
<A HREF="@<Links FILE@>">links page</A>.

@<End page@>
@}

@!************************************************

@$@<Links FILE@>@M@{links.html@}
@O@<links.html@>@{
@<Begin page@>@(Dave's Links@)

<P>Check out @<Yahoo@> and @<Dilbert@>.

@<End page@>
@}

@!************************************************

Input And Output Line Lengths

When using FunnelWeb to create webs, you will probably find that your input and output files have lines longer than the FunnelWeb standard 80 characters. So you may wish to include the following directives in your main and include files:

@p maximum_input_line_length = 200
@p maximum_output_line_length = 200

Macro Naming Conventions

Since 1994, I (Ross Williams) have been using FunnelWeb to generate all the webs in all my webspaces. During this time, I have developed some macro naming conventions which you may wish to adopt.

FILE: Use this suffix for macros that contain the names of files that form part of the web.

WWW: Use this suffix for macros that define web directory URLs, up to and including the trailing slash. The URL may be absolute or relative, depending on the context.

WWW/abs: Use this suffix where the URL must be absolute.

EMAIL: Use this suffix for email addresses.

FTP: Use this suffix for FTP directory addresses.

WINDOWNAME: Use this suffix for the names of browser windows.

Here are some examples:

@$@<Home FILE@>@Z@M@{index.html@}
@$@<Ross WWW@>@Z@M@{http://www.ross.net/@}
@$@<Ross WWW/abs@>@Z@M@{http://www.ross.net/@}
@$@<Ross EMAIL@>@Z@M@{ross@ross.net@}
@$@<Ross FTP@>@Z@M@{@-
ftp://www.ross.net/clients/ross/@}
@$@<Ross WINDOWNAME@>@Z@M@{ross@}