Need an HTML tool .app

[one1]

My buddy is setting up his website and I've been lending a hand in putting descriptions in the boxes. His boxes are HTML and won't even line break without the <BR> command and everything has to be coded in html for bold and such.

We have about 3300 products to load and that's a lot of coding, years worth infact. What application takes what it see's on the page and transfers it into HTML speak so I can paste it into an HTML box?

I have access to the Adobe CS4 master collection if indesign or something does this. I don't use it much so I don't know the collection well.

 

[Darth.Titan]

Well if you have CS4, Dreamweaver has a WYSIWYG editor. You could input your data in that then go to code view and copy/paste the HTML from there.

It's an inelegant solution, but should work.

 

[SrWebDeveloper]

Sounds like you want to clone (site ripping).

Tell me more about the source, i.e. do you want to grab HTML content from existing web sites and copy/paste into your friend's box written in HTML??

One way to automate the process of browsing to sites, viewing source, copy/pasting but (most importantly) also make sure images/attachments are saved and referenced locally is to use a cloning tool like WebCloner. I can't access that link due to my firewall, I also found this too for Mac.

If you feel like coding a solution, write a small script that uses PHP's fopen function which allows you to grab the HTML of any URL. Then write some code that site rips, i.e. saves the images/attachments to the local server then generate the correct HTML with the corrected paths.

Plenty of PHP site rippers if you Google search.

-jim

 

[themoonisdown09]

Wow, that's a lot of data entry. Why not use a database to put all the products in and then make the website be dynamic? That way, if any of the products change, or you want to add new products, you just make the changes in the database and you're done.

Also, it would be smarter to not store the HTML code in the database and to use a template.

By the way, here's a shout out to the 423!

 

[one1]

Well if you have CS4, Dreamweaver has a WYSIWYG editor. You could input your data in that then go to code view and copy/paste the HTML from there.

It's an inelegant solution, but should work.

That would work best perhaps.

Thanks guys. We are entering from paperback catalog all our own items and descriptions. Not copying anything from the net. He's just becoming tired of having to enter the descriptions AND then do <BR> code so it doesn't all bunch up.

I see ya , GA

 

[SrWebDeveloper]

Now that you explained the source (a hardcopy catalog) - I'd follow the advice of themoonisdown09. To expand on that, write a script that takes input of product information and apply it directly to database. A simple form that saves the data to a database on submit. Then in your web site query the database, return the record and parse the product information into a single template and display that. Create multiple templates if you wish to display groups of items differently than others using an optional template ID field, but the key point is separate the presentation (HTML) from the data (database) layers and use the database for speed and organization.

You'll spend a little bit of time writing a script, designing a sensible database structure and creating a nice template, but once data entry starts, you can roll quickly.

-jim