7.5 Defining A Consistent Style

We have already seen how FunnelWeb can be used, through the use of @<Begin page@> and @<End page@> macros to set up a particular page style throughout a web. However, this is really just the beginning of FunnelWeb's capacity to manage the style of a web. This page provides some other ideas.

Generic Style Macros

HTML contains some tags such as <em> that have a high-level meaning ("emphasis") rather than a low-level meaning such as "italics". You can use FunnelWeb to create your own high level formatting macros so that you can later change the style of the web just by changing the macro definitions.

For example, suppose that your web contains lots of latin names of plants. You've decided that you want to highlight the names, but haven't decided how. Using FunnelWeb you can just define a macro:

@$@<Latin@>@(@1@)@M@{<B>@1</B>@}

This means that all latin names will be set in bold. However, if at a later date, you change your mind, you can just change the definition to some other format.

Margins

Here's another example. Suppose that you want some parts of the text in your web to be narrower than others. You can achive this by defining and using a macro like this:

@$@<Narrower@>@(@1@)@M@{@-
<TABLE><TR><TD WIDTH="200">
@1
</TD></TR></TABLE>
@}

If at a later date, you want to change all the widths, you just need to change the single definition.