This section describes how to add a paragraph of text to a Web page, change the appearance of text, and use headings, line breaks, and horizontal rules to change Web page layout.

Adding Text and Headings

The following example adds a second level heading with the text "Example Heading Level 2." The example then adds a line of text "Hello World Welcome to Web<ToolKit>." The text line is created by adding two text strings to the os_paragraph object p . The second text string shows how Web<ToolKit> makes it unnecessary to use cumbersome syntax when inserting special characters in a Web page.

If you were manually inserting HTML to display the text string, "Web<ToolKit>," you would specify " Web<ToolKit> ". With Web<ToolKit>, you do not have to use character entity references like " < " to display special characters. Instead, you simply specify " Web<ToolKit> ."

Example <ospace/web/examples /text1.cpp>


    #include <iostream.h>
#include <ospace/web.h>

int main()
  {
  os_page page( "Text#1 Example" );
  page << os_heading( 2, "Example Heading Level 2" );
  os_paragraph p( "Hello World " );
  p << "Welcome to Web<ToolKit>";

  page << p;
  cout << page;
  return 0;
  }

Affecting Page Layout Using Block Format Functions

Web<ToolKit> provides a set of global functions called block format functions that affect the layout of the page. These functions are supported only in Netscape browsers.

One example of a block format function is os_center() . This function takes an element as an argument and returns an os_element_group object containing the element. When the resulting group is displayed, all contents of the original element are centered in the browser viewing area. Another block format function is os_paragraph() . This function adds a line space below the contents of the object.

The following example centers the second level heading added in the previous example between the left and right sides of the page and adds a horizontal rule after the heading. The text strings are placed in paragraphs, changing their presentation on the screen.

Example <ospace/web/examples/ text2.cpp>


    #include <iostream.h>
#include <ospace/web.h>

int main()
  {
  os_page page( "Text#2 Example" );
  page << os_center( os_heading( 2, "Example Heading Level 2" ) )
       << os_horizontal_rule()
       << os_paragraph( "Hello World" )
       << os_paragraph( "Welcome to Web<ToolKit>" );
  cout << page;
  return 0;
  }

Controlling Appearance of Text

The appearance of text, such as bold or italic , can be controlled through a set of text markup functions. Refer to the Web Reference Manual for a complete list of markup functions. If no markup functions are defined, the text appears according to the defaults of the browser used to view the Web page.

All markup functions return an element group containing a copy of the original element. When the element group is converted to HTML, the appropriate effect is applied to the entire contents of the element group. There are two categories of markup functions: physical and logical. Each of these is described below.

Physical Markup Functions -Functions that define a specific typographic style that is applied to the contents of the resulting os_element_group . When you use physical markup functions to affect the appearance of text, every browser displays the contents in the same way.
Logical Markup Functions -Functions that assign special meaning to a group of elements without defining a specific typographical style. The typographical style is left to the browser and may be presented differently with each browser. This may result in several different logical markup functions being rendered the same.

The following example uses the physical markup functions os_bold() , os_italic() , and os_strikeout() to affect the appearance of text.

Example <ospace/web/examples/ text3.cpp>


    #include <iostream.h>
#include <ospace/web.h>

int main()
  {
  os_page page( "Text#3 Example");
  os_paragraph p( "This paragraph shows text highlighting!" );
  p << os_break()
    << os_bold( "this is bold text on a new line" )
    << os_break()
    << "this is normal text on a new line"
    << os_break()
    << os_italic( os_strike( "this is strike through, italic text" ) );

  page << p;
  cout << page;
  return 0;
  }