CydD's WebTV Tricks!

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CydD's
WebTV Help Page

HTML and JavaScript Hints and links for WebTV-ers

Stuck in Frames? Click here!

Welcome to my depository of information to help build a website with WebTV, including some quick lessons in HTML and JavaScript. Go ahead and skip right to the old WebTV tricks, the quick Cut and Paste tutoral, or the helpful links; or peruse my checklist to see if you're as much of a WebAddict as myself. :-) The first few apply to computers as well, the rest is pretty much WebTV specific.
You May be an Addict If...

Someone says ''You are...'' and you immediately think ''URL''
You use <HTML> tags in everyday writing.
You see nice wallpaper and wonder what the URL is so you can use it on your site or e-mail.
You ever dream of:
surfing the Net
e-mailing
reading or posting on newsgroups
using the pillow as a keyboard
Chatting in a chatroom (Speaking of which...)

You speak in ''/me'' actions, '' /me goes to the kitchen for a byte, (haven't got time for a whole e-meal, LOL! BRB!''
You've ever been in a chatroom using only the WebTV remote and on-screen keyboard
You keep a stockpile of AAA batteries under the couch
You have a backup 6-pin PS2 keyboard in case the batteries run out on both the keyboard and the remote
You wish the Sony© WebTV remote controlled the VCR as well as the TV, if you ever watched movies anymore that is
You haven't turned on the TV without hearing the ''Splash'' effect since you bought WebTV
The HTML in your e-mail signature box is nicer than some websites... (Remember, make sure the tag <HTML> is the first thing in the box! Not even one space ahead of it or it won't work. Then just hope that it isn't lost or corrupted during a ''Down for Maintenance'' session, it really does seem to happen...)
You only e-mail other WebTV-ers so they can fully appreciate your e-mail
You sit directly in front of the WebTV, holding your notebook at a 30 degree angle to write snail mail.
You see a map of ''Java'' and you wonder what it would look like if WebTV could view Java applets
Biggest clue that you're a web addict too: you know what all of this means!
(Yes, those were from personal experience. I spend more time on WebTV than I do sleeping. But I only ever spent 26 hours straight on it! I'm sure there's worse! ...I can quit any time...)

At least in all my surfing I picked up quite a few tricks WebTV could do before the upgrades. My favorite was the JavaScript alert to get the URL of any image on a web page. But WebTV "upgraded" to eliminate JavaScript capabilities. We used to have JavaScript capable e-mail. We used to be able to use "hot links" in e-mail to switch user, go directly into sent mail, check cookies list, and so on. When you saw a picture you wanted the URL of, you'd hit the ''Go To'' button, erase ''http://'' and type in:
replacing the 1 with whatever number picture you wanted. The popup box gave the end of the URL, then you could transload it to your site! Now if you want to get a picture, you have to validate the page's HTML, the old way was so much easier. But remember, either be sure it's a non-copyrighted image or get permission to use it. There are a lot of sources for directly-linkable images, it's not a good idea to just link to someone else's pictures. The least that could happen is that they change the URL and your pic's gone. And many people are paying for the bandwidth their site uses, every time someone looks at their linked-to image, they have to pay for it. The best thing to do is connect a transloader service to one of the ''F'' keys and while on the page of, say, ''image.gif'' hit that ''F'' key and the transloader will show image.gif's address in ''Last Visited URL'', then you can transload it to your site's FTP easily.

Now a quick lesson in Cut and Paste: For copying text from a textarea you can type in such as a website editor, a form, or of course e-mail you're writing, position the cursor at the beginning or end of the text you want to copy. Hold down [shift] and press arrow keys to highlight a line or single letter at a time. When it's all highlighted, hold down [cmd] and press [C]. (On a computer keyboard, the Windows icon key works as the remote keyboard's [cmd] key. On older keyboards, [ctrl] + [alt] = [cmd].) To remove the text while copying it, Cut by using [cmd] and [X]. To paste the saved text, [cmd] [V]. To cut or copy the entire text of a form, like to save the URL from hitting [go to] (computer keyboard [F7]) and clicking [Show Current] or to save an entire e-mail in progress, [cmd] [A] highlights it all, then [cmd] [c] to copy or [cmd] [x] to cut.
To save an entire web page, [cmd] [A] then [cmd] [C]. To save part of a page, press [Find] (computer keyboard [F5]) and enter the first word in the phrase you want to copy. If the highlighted word's an earlier occurance of the desired word, hitting [cmd] [G] will go to the next occurance of that word on the page. When the right one's highlighted, hold down [shift] and use the arrow keys as above, highlight everything you want to copy, and [cmd] [C]. To copy an entire recieved e-mail, be sure the cursor box is over the address link in the e-mail or an HTML link in their signature box, then [cmd] [A]. If the cursor box is on the sidebar, it will highlight the sidebar itself!
Some things you might notice: If any text on a webpage is made of .gif images, it won't copy. Lots of people hide text in their pages, either to use as a spacer between pictures or to improve their search engine listing. Kinda like if I typed:
But I wouldn't do that. Not WebTV, uh, Free money, um, sex, cattle mutilations, uhhh, nude celebrities.
Fun: Hear a computer synthesized voice say what you type here:

Hit [go to] and "show last" to use this in email.
Anyway, the rest of this page is coming soon, I have other obligations at the moment, feel free to e-mail me with questions or comments though. I'm sure it won't be long until some of these tricks go the way of the ''demo'' mode. It wasn't important or useful, it's just the principle of the matter.

Links!
homepage!
[ Free homepages from Angelfire (not my favorite because of the lengthy process involved in activating transloaded files) ]|[ WhoWhere, kind of a ''phone book'' deal ]|[ Tripod free homepages Usually too busy to edit the page or transload to, computer users see annoying popup ads there as well as on Angelfire. ]|[ World Wide Mart web scripts ]
A good place to look through lots of sites on a subject or to get your site noticed is the list of Webrings where you can find a ring to join. (My site's currently in the MST3Ks Caption This! webring.)
LinkExchange is another popular option.
Extreme webtracker gives statistics on site visitation but the JavaScript sometimes messes up on Angelfire
I got some nice animated webcounters from BoingDragon
Linkable Gifs to use on your page or email:
Draac's Free Gifs!
My page heading banners are from Transloaded to my site with Star Boulevard Transloader. All the instructions are on their FAQ page.
HTML Help

Email: CydD@webtv.net