From robert-mcburney@uiowa.edu Thu Mar  9 13:25:44 1995
Article: 545 of cern.www.announce
From: robert-mcburney@uiowa.edu (Bob McBurney )
Subject: Announcing Arachnid; Graphic WWW Page Builder/Linker
Date: Wed, 8 Mar 95 12:56:41 MET

Introducing Arachnid!!!

Announcing Arachnid, the first Macintosh application that offers a true
graphical layout environment for building World Wide Web Pages.

The advent of new-generation Web browsers like Netscape has empowered Web
page authors to add more graphical detail and more interactivity to the
Web pages they maintain.

Finally, there is a tool that allows anyone to build Web pages that take
advantage of these new capabilities, without having to deal with actual
HTML code - Arachnid!

Unlike common HTML editors, Arachnid allows you to work on-screen with
ALL of the objects common to Web pages, and to actually preview much of
the runtime behavior of linked text and graphics.

With Arachnid, page design and layout is a graphic, hands-on, experience
that incorporates ALL of the visual elements of a Web page. These
include:
	- individual text blocks which can be repositioned in line with
		graphics.  Text can be edited directly or imported
 		from text files, including fully formatted
		RTF text files.
 	- import and on-screen placement of in line GIF image files
	- Header Rulers which can be scaled, aligned,
		 and repositioned.
	- Tools for creating Forms, including:
		-editable text fields (both scrolling and non scrolling)
		-scrolling selection List fields
		-radio and checkbox buttons
		-popup menu buttons
		-Submit/Reset command buttons

Because the real power of Web pages are the embedded links to other local
pages, locally stored multimedia files, and URL's anywhere on the
Internet, Arachnid functions as the first "Authoring" class tool for
defining, and testing, the links you create within a Web page.



Arachnid uses an intuitive "Drag and Drop" interface.  Automatically
create links from text and in line graphics to anything from the full
suite of Web links,  including:
	-any local page within the project
	-spans of text within any local page
	-URLs located anywhere in the world
	-local files,  including full playback support of multimedia
		-audio(AIFF)
		-video(QT)
		-graphics(GIF,PICT,JPEG) files



Arachnid creates a project for each "Web of Pages" that you build.  Each
project can contain an unlimited number of pages,  simplifying the
process of managing links between locally stored pages.  Converting a
page, or an entire project of pages, into HTML compatible files is a
single operation, accomplished by selecting "Export to HTML" from the
File menu.  The resulting text files can be opened immediately by your
favorite Browser.

 Arachnid is coming on March 25,1995,  and is coming for FREE.  The
application will be downloadable from the University of Iowa's home page.
Connect your Browser to "http://sec-look.uiowa.edu/" after 3/25/95 to
download your own FREE copy of Arachnid.

If you are interested in becoming a Beta tester for Arachnid before then,
please contact:

Robert McBurney
100 LC
University of Iowa
Iowa city  IA
52242

E-mail at:
robert-mcburney@uiowa.edu