The Official EHTML Page - Codes

Setting Up To Use EHTML

While EHTML resembles HTML in many ways it does require some EHTML setup to take full advantage of it's power. Namely, each file should end with ".eht". Do not put anything in your "ehtml" directory. This is for the use of the EHTML subsystem and compatibility with previous versions of EHTML.

Codes That Display The Current Environment

These codes display various information about the current environment of your page. The environment, as far as the page is concerned, is the current state of the EHTML server as well as who is connected to it.

<DATE>

The current date in the format "Monday January 1, 1980"

<TIME>

The current time in the format "12:00 am"

<LOCATION>

Displays the "domain name" of the client software currently accessing your page. For instance, a SLIP connection to Vaxxine could display "[slip8.vaxxine.com]" while an access from the general access Internet server at Brock University could display "[badger.ac.BrockU.CA]"

Codes That Display Special Messages

Any successful page has to draw people back to it. The following codes offer a quick and easy way to provide an amusement or subtle hint to people accessing your page. Since these codes work with standard UNIX text files, you can easily update the information without modifying (and possibly damaging) your page layout. They also allow for the reuse of sections of HTML. For instance, a standard page "disclaimer" could be placed in a file and shown in several pages with the <DISPLAY> code. Any time you modified the file containing the disclaimer, the changes would be reflected on each page displaying it.

<MOTD x>

Displays a Message Of The Day file. The MOTD file is an ordinary text file that you can easily modify using "pico" to change the message displayed.

<DISPLAY x>

Displays an ordinary text file that you can easily modify using "pico" to change the message displayed. Works much the same as as a <MOTD> but is more flexible about file naming.

<COOKIE x>

Displays a "cookie" line from a file. The cookie is a line of text that is randomly selected from a file that you specify. A cookie can be used to display many different types of text, from popular "one liners" in a television series to "plugs" about your business products.

Codes That Maintain Visitor Counts

Visitor counts help let you, and others, know how many times your page has been loaded from the server. It gives a brief measurement of the popularity of your page. Combined with the Flow Control codes covered later, they can even let you know how many clients are accessing from different locations.

<COUNTER ADD|DISPLAY x>

With this code inserted into your page, a counter can be used to record each time a client loads your page.

Codes That Control The Flow Of Your Page

The flow control codes allow you to control the way your page is displayed based on where the person loading the page is from. You can display different blocks of text and even terminate your page altogether.

<IF %LOCATION% ==|!= x>

This code allows you to selectively show a part of your page, known as a 'block' depending on where the client loading on your page is on the Internet.

<ELSEIF %LOCATION% ==|!= x>

This code, when combined with <IF>, allows you to continue checking if an original <IF> was false.

<ELSE>

Should the last specified <IF> and/or <ELSEIF> fail, the <ELSE> block will be executed.

<ENDIF>

This code marks the end of any processing for the current <IF> code.

<EXIT>

This code stops any more processing of your page. It is especially helpful with the standard EHTML <IF> in order to change the way your page responds if the user is, or is not, from a particular site.

Codes That Perform Logging

Putting up your page is only the first part of the battle. The next part is to have people come and visit it. Quite often you would like some kind of indication as to who. The EHTML logging codes give you such an indication.

<LOG x>

This code allows you to maintain a log of those domains where clients have accessed your page.

<DATELOG x comment>

This code allows you to maintain a more detailed log of clients that have accessed your page.

<LOCLOG ADD|DISPLAY|NUMSORT|LOCSORT x>

This code allows you to log visitors to your page, and then display a summary of the number of visitors from each individual site or domain.

Codes That Interact With The Outside World

The average WWW page is static or unchanging for long periods of time. The use of scripts helps to make your page more lively but they have often relied solely the CGI interface, a standardized and sometimes clumsy way of interacting with your page. EHTML allows scripts to have a more active role in your page.

<RUNIT x>

This code allows you to invoke a UNIX command or script with it's output appearing on your page.

[ EHTML Overview | EHTML Setup | EHTML Codes | EHTML Problems ]
Please Report Problems With This Page To: Vaxxine Web Development, vaxxweb@vaxxine.com