TopStyle Pro 3.0

July 3, 2002

What's New and Improved in Version 3.0

HTML and XHTML Editing

New to this version is the ability to open HTML documents in TopStyle for editing. Almost all of TopStyle's features support <style>..</style> blocks within HTML documents, including the style checker, style inspector, palette editor, style sweeper and selector list.

Editing HTML documents is simplified by the following time-savers:

When editing HTML, the dropdown above the Inspector will show the active HTML definition. Similar to the active style definition, the active HTML definition is used by TagComplete, Tag Insight and the Tag Inspector to determine which HTML elements and attributes to support. When an XHTML definition is selected, TopStyle will insert XHTML-compliant markup.

TopStyle's new HTML toolbar/menu contains the following items:

Note: HTML Insight and the Tag Inspector draw deprecated elements and attributes in disabled (grayed) text.

When editing an HTML document, the preview will always show that HTML document instead of the preview file used when working with CSS files. Any server mappings you have in place will still be applied.

Finally, we've also added an HTML-aware spell checker (F7) so you can quickly check your HTML documents for spelling errors.

Style Upgrade

Style Upgrade "upgrades" an HTML document by replacing presentational markup with embedded styles. To use this feature, simply open an HTML document in TopStyle and choose HTML > Style Upgrade, or click the Style Upgrade toolbutton.

In this release, style upgrade is configured automatically and exposes no options. If you'd like to make it configurable, please let us know. Also, please note that this feature is not intended as an HTML validation tool - it's designed only to convert HTML elements and attributes that have been deprecated in favor of style sheets.

Clip Library

The new clip library (Ctrl+Shift+L) enables you to store commonly-used snippets in a central location. Right-click on the clip library to add or remove items, and single-click on an item to insert it into the current document.

For even faster insertion, use the new quick insert (Ctrl+Q) feature to display a menu of up to 26 style library items. Once the menu is displayed, just type the letter corresponding to the item you want inserted.

Replacement Tokens may be used in clip library items. When TopStyle encounters a replacement token, it will prompt you for custom text before inserting a library item in the editor. Replacement tokens are delimited by %r[..], and the text between these delimiters appears on the prompt. For example, if you have the following item:
   value="%r[what is the value]"
TopStyle will display a prompt with "what is the value" on it. If you respond to this prompt with "THIS VALUE" then TopStyle will insert:
   value="THIS VALUE"

Full Screen Preview

The new Full Screen Preview (F12) enables you to quickly view the current style sheet or HTML document in a maximized browser window.

Power users will appreciate how the full screen preview can be split into two separate previewers, each of which has its own set of rulers and may use a different !DOCTYPE and/or browser type (Internet Explorer or Netscape Gecko). You can also choose the preview size by selecting from a list of common screen resolutions (1024x768, etc.) or by entering a custom size.

Note: Since the full screen option enables choosing a !DOCTYPE and splitting between Internet Explorer and Netscape Gecko, these features have been removed from the main TopStyle window.

Custom Keyboard Sets

TopStyle Pro 3.0 takes customizable keyboard shortcuts to a new level by enabling you to create multiple sets of keyboard shortcuts.

Even better, you now have the ability to insert different text strings based on the context of what's being edited. For example, you could create a Ctrl+B shortcut which inserts font-weight: bold when editing a style sheet or style block, but inserts <strong>..</strong> when editing HTML.

Create keyboard sets that mimic your favorite text or HTML editor, or create your own from scratch. Just select Options > Keyboard Shortcuts to change or customize the active keyboard set.

Related Styles

Right-clicking within an HTML tag or CSS rule now enables you to see a list of related styles. For an HTML tag, this list will contain selectors that include the current HTML element and/or the class assigned to the current HTML element. For a CSS rule, it will show any selectors which have the same element or class. Clicking on an item in this list will navigate to that item's style. The related styles list can also be shown from the Tools menu.

Note: The number shown to the right of each item in the related styles list is its specificity. This can be useful in tracking down inheritance problems, since styles with a higher specificity take precedence over those with a lower one.

Color Picker and Custom Palettes

TopStyle's Color Picker has been redesigned to offer a number of new features.

Note: Custom palettes installed with TopStyle cannot be modified.

HTML Tidy Integration

TopStyle enables you to use HTML Tidy to reformat your HTML pages, providing a handy way to clean up your code and identify where problems exist.

After running HTML Tidy, TopStyle will display a list of messages it generated along with a second tab labeled "Tidy" which contains the reformatted ("tidied") HTML. After reviewing the changes, simply click the "Copy to active editor" button to replace the contents of the current document with the reformatted HTML.

Thumbnails

Among the items in the left-hand viewbar is a new Thumbnails tab, which displays thumbnails of all images in a specific directory. Just right click on a thumbnail to display a context menu which enables the following:

You can also drag-and-drop an image into the editor to insert it at a specific location.

Note: When editing HTML, an IMG tag will be inserted when a thumbnail is dragged into the editor. When editing CSS, a URL value will be inserted.

File Explorer Panel

The new File Explorer panel enables quick navigation of your file system. In addition to supporting Favorite Folders - which are shared with the Open/Save file dialogs - there's also an address bar which displays a menu of the last 15 folders visited.

Note: Keeping the folder tree hidden and using the Favorites menu and address bar may be a faster way to navigate between folders, since populating the folder tree requires querying the Windows shell (which is often slow, especially with network drives).

Other Changes

Known Issues