HtX Home Page

Version 1.0 Now Available -- no expiration date!

Downloading HtX

HtX, version 1.0 is now available for the following platforms:

  • Windows 95 or NT;
  • Unix: DEC/Alpha, SGI, Sun/Sparc, Sun/Sunos, Linux, NetBSD, DECstation

Coming soon: BSDi

Downloading Instructions

  • Click on the following to download the archive of your choice:
    • htx10win.exe for Windows 95/NT
    • htx10unix.tar.gz for all Unix platforms

      NOTE: The Windows distribution is a self-extracting archive. The Unix distribution requires unpacking with gunzip and tar.

  • Further installation instructions are provided in the accompanying Readme.txt file.

What is HtX?

HtX is an extensible Web development system which is to HTML what LaTeX is to DVI. HtX uses a LaTeX-like source file to specify a set of related HTML pages called an information space. As in LaTeX, each information space is formatted according to a style specified by the author. Authors can create their own styles or extend and/or overwrite existing styles to produce intricate documents with minimal effort. Like LaTeX, HtX's meta-language provides flexibility and extensibility in expressing style apart from content.

HtX's power lies in its ability to provide the pieces for creating a uniform style. Rather than enforcing any particular visual look and feel, or pattern of interconnection, HtX allows the author to build his or her own style using the primitive tools provided by the system. Such a style can be captured in a style file and used to create multiple information spaces with similar appearance and hyperlink structure. See the links below for sample documents using the styles released in the current distribution.

HtX is part of DRAGN, a project at Oberlin College funded by the National Science Foundation through the CISE Educational Infrastructure program. As such, the system will be available for educational and non-profit use free of charge. The language itself was created and is being developed by Richard Salter. Others actively associated with HtX development are Fritz Ruehr and Rhys Price Jones.

HtX Examples

Here are links to the examples included in the HtX distribution:

HtX User Guide

A complete HtX User Guide is now under construction. Although incomplete, the current version is substantial: it contains a tutorial, descriptions of the released styles, annotated examples, and a Reference Guide to HtX commands.

Link to HtX User Guide

This work is supported in part by the National Science Foundation under grant number CDA-9312578.