Running Your Text Editor

To get started working on this session's example, run your text editor.

Windows: To run Windows Notepad, click on the Start menu, and then select Programs (or More Programs in Windows XP), Accessories, and Notepad.

Tip

For a shortcut to run Notepad, click on the Start menu, select Run, type notepad, and press the Enter key.

Macintosh OS 8/9: To run SimpleText, use the Finder to open the Macintosh HD folder and the Applications folder, and then double-click on the SimpleText icon. If SimpleText is not in that location, you can use Sherlock to search for and find its location on your computer.

Macintosh OS X: You can run SimpleText from your folder of OS 9 applications. SimpleText will take longer to load than when run under OS 9, however, because the OS 9 emulator must be loaded first. For a faster loading text editor, you can run the TextEdit text editor, which is a native application included with OS X. For more detailed instructions on configuring TextEdit for working with HTML files, see "Using TextEdit in Mac OS X" in the Friday Evening session.

Tip

By default, Windows hides the file extensions for known file types, showing only the file-type icon to help identify the file type. To make it easier to identify and work with files, it is strongly recommended that you turn on display of file extensions. This will also help to protect you against viruses attached to e-mail messages. With display of file extensions turned off, a file attachment named as clickme.txt.exe would be displayed as clickme.txt, with only the file icon to tell you it is not a text file, when in fact it is an executable program file that could possibly delete everything on your hard drive. In this book, I'll be including the file extension for all file names.

To turn on display of file extensions in Windows 98 or higher, open My Computer, and then select Tools, Folder Options, and click the View tab. In Windows 98, make sure the check box, Hide file extensions for known file types, is unchecked. In Windows XP, make sure the check box, Hide extensions for known file types, is unchecked.

In Windows 95, open My Computer, and then select View, Options, and click the View tab. Make sure the check box, Hide MS-DOS file extensions for the file types that are registered, is unchecked.