
Documentation
Configuration
of JazzNews is done using a simple text file - specified in the <APPLET>
tag in your HTML file. This text file uses a format similar to HTML.
Here is an example of one such config file, with comments about each 'tag'
in brackets.
<number_of_sections>
1 (this is very important - it must match the number of sections)
<section>
(start a new section - must be matched with </section>)
<pause> 5000 (the number of milliseconds to wait
once the headline has reached the top
- 5000 milliseconds = 5 seconds)
<delay> 10 (this affects the scroll speed - the
lower the number, the faster the scroll)
<titlefont> Helvetica 20 BOLD 255 0 0 (See
note below on fonts)
<link> http://www.sygem.com (Optional - an URL
to go to when the headline is clicked)
<frame> _top (Optional - you can put the name
of any frame here)
<title> Welcome to SyGem Software </title>
(the headline for this section)
<textfont> TimesRoman 12 PLAIN 0 0 0 (See
note below on fonts)
<text> This is the text which | (the
body text. As you can see, this can span)
will appear in the body of the | (multiple
lines. It will only stop reading the text)
applet
| | Note that this can span (when
it it encounters a </text> tag.
multiple lines... </text>
</section> (the end of this section)
The body text has
some extra attributes - namely the use of the vertical bar '|'. This can
be used to force a line break. As long as there is a space either side
of the bar, that's how it will be interpreted. To force a paragraph break
(a blank line between paragraphs), use 2 bars, again with space between,
like this ' | | '. The body text will word-wrap itself, so there is no
need for you to insert line breaks, unless you actually need them.
Fonts: There are 3
possible font names - Helvetica, TimesRoman and Courier. These are case-sensitive,
so if you get it a bit wrong, JazzNews defaults to using Helvetica. You
can chose BOLD, ITALIC or PLAIN for your font style, and the 3 numbers
at the end specify the colour of the font - R, G, B values (each number
can have a value between 0 and 255, giving a total of 16777216 possible
colours).
There is no limit
to the number of sections you are allowed in your file. IMPORTANT NOTE:
You must ensure that there is some blank space between each of the tags
in the config file. If there is not, JazzNews will fail to read in the
data correctly, and not work. For example, this would result in an error...
<pause>5000 because there is no space between the tag and
the data.
Once you have your
config file completed, all you need to do then is put the <APPLET>
tag into your HTML file. It should look something like this...
<applet code="jazznews.class"
width="300" height="300">
<param name="bred" value="238">
<param name="bgreen" value="238">
<param name="bblue" value="255">
<param name="filename" value="jazznews.txt">
</applet>
Note that this example
assumes that the jazznews.class file is in the same directory as
the HTML file. It doesn't have to be - as long as you specify the correct
relative path, it can be anywhere you like.
The first 3 parameters
allow you to alter the background colour of the JazzNews applet. This
can make it appear more a part of the web-page. For example, 238,238,255
is the colour of the background of these web-pages.
The final parameter
specifies the config file. The path to this file will be relative to the
HTML file the applet is located in. It is also possible to specify a URL
as the filename - like "http://www.sygem.com/JazzNews/test.txt"
for example.
There are some extra
parameters also available to you. The randomstart and randomorder
parameters allow you to mix up the displaying of the news items. Both
are boolean values - true or false. randomstart will start the
news displaying at a random news item from the config file. randomorder
will display the news items in a random order (surprise, surprise!). These
parameters are used like this: <param name="randomstart"
value="true">. The default value for each of these parameters
is false.
Additionally, it is
now possible to force JazzNews to pull new news items at regular intervals.
By using the update parameter in your html file, you can specify
the number of seconds JazzNews should wait before loading in new data.
The data file used will always be the one specified using the filename
parameter. For example, <param name="update" value="120">
will cause JazzNews to reload news items every 120 seconds, or 2 minutes.
The reloading will only actually occur once the last news item has scrolled
off screen, so a small delay may occur at this point. This is normal.
And that's about it!
Simple, isn't it... What I suggest you do now is play around with some
of the demo files, and create your very own news scroller. And enjoy!
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