Chicken Little by Philip Hughes
Copyright 2008
All Rights Reserved
Introduction
Hope you like Chicken Little web page builder.
Chicken Little is designed to help you build a wed page easily at home or your small business.
Chicken Little is not a full featured web page builder. If there is enough interest it will be expanded in the future. Is it a usable program? You bet ! There are many users who want
An easy to use program with out having to read a two hundred page manual. This version
.05 is free.
You can learn how to use this entire program in under 15 minutes. Please feel free to experiment. If you do find something that does not work. Do not do that!
Object Movement
Moving objects is very easy. All you have to do is to put the highlight over the text or picture
That you want to move and hold the left button down for your mouse. Drag the mouse where you want the object to move and release the left mouse button.
Double Clicking while over text will put the text into the text editor box for writing.
Currently some button will only work if select the object you want to do something with by
Left clicking the mouse button. Four six small highlight boxes will appear. Now you can
Chose the button you want. To deselect right click again.
A Summary is as follows:
Left down to select for movement
Double click to edit text
Left click to select object
Note: If you try to use a button that appears not to do anything. You probably need to Select the Object first.
Top Row of Buttons
The above buttons accomplish the following features. The features are from left to right as you read down the page.
New Project
Pressing this button will bring up the Projects screen. The New Project field will have focus.
Changing other text field parameters on this page is permitted.
Open a File
This button allows you to chose a file to load into Chicken Little. To move to a different project simply chose the up folder button on the menu. This feature will be modified in
The future.
Save your Current File
Pressing this button saves your current file.
Load an Image
Easy enough to understand. Simply press the button and browse to the image you want
To load. A good suggestion is to gather the images together into one folder before you begin a project.
Add Text
Adding text is simple. Press the button and the text editor will pop up on the screen.
It is a good idea to chose your font features before you call this button. The font choices
Will not work within the editor it self. This was done intentionally. Most projects only use
A few font sizes and types. Doing this way allows more of a set your font and away you go.
You only have to change fonts when you need to instead of constantly choosing fonts for every text object you add to the page. If you decide to change a font. Simply make your changes at the font selector and double click on the text you wish to change.
The editor will pop up with the text you want to change in it. Simply exit the editor and the new font size or change will then take place. Very easy.
Publish to Browser
To see what your page will look like in your browser. Push this button. To return to editing simply close your browsers window.
Front To Back
Does exactly what it says. First select your picture or text by right clicking while the object is highlighted. Six small squares will come up showing that your object has been selected.
To deselect and object simply right click on the mouse again and the small choice indicators will disappear.
Back to Front
Does exactly what it says. First select your picture or text by right clicking while the object is highlighted. Six small squares will come up showing that your object has been selected.
To deselect and object simply right click on the mouse again and the small choice indicators will disappear.
Compile to XHTML
Pressing this button will recompile your page to XHTML format.
Second Row of Buttons
New Page
Pressing this button will bring up the projects page with the name textfield receiving focus. Other textfields on this page may changed or selected at your leisure.
Options Page
This page allows you to toggle certain features on or off . You can also change the dimensions of your pictures that you load so that all pictures are automatically loaded at that size. This is a very handy feature because you are not having to constantly resize your pictures while building a page. When you save your page all off your pictures are saved to the file in the new size. You never have to worry about resizing the old pictures.
The features that you can toggle on and off are:
Links
Graphing Numbers
Snap to Grid
Image Resize
Save as Jpeg
Maintain Aspect Ratio
Width and Height Sizes of the Picture upon loading.
Delete Object
To delete either the text or the image, the object must be selected first. To select and object highlight the object and then right click on the mouse. Six small boxes will appear showing the object has been selected. Press the delete button to see your object disappear. If for some reason you need to deslect an object, simply right click again and the selector boxes will disappear.
Links
The link button allows to tell your link where it is going. You must select your text or image by highlighting the object and then right clicking the mouse. The selector boxes will appear and then you can press the Links button. Links may also be changed by selecting the Properties button.
Menu Maker
Menu selection will allow you to make a quick css navigation menu. This feature has not been implemented yet. It is for future expansion.
Back Page
Back Page allows you to add an image of your choosing to the background of the document. Currently this image should be prepared and sized properly to cover the
Entire background of your XHML Document. If you load a text that is not the correct size,
It will be resized to fit your current size of your XHTML Page. There are reasons for this.
Any properly prepared image can have anything on it. There is no limit to what you can
Do graphically. The advantage of a prepared image like this is that you could actually have
Many multiple images put on a background image and it will load very quickly into the browser. With the new css features , It reduces the placement problems and you can have
Exact placement of text or pictures. A Background Maker is planned in the future of Chicken Little.
Form Button
Form Button brings up the form buttons Menu. You can actually make a simple form with Chicken Little.
Properties Box
The properties box gives you access to the properties of each object whether picture of text.
To select highlight the object that you wish to see, right click on the mouse and the properties box for that object will appear on the screen.
Prepare Folder For Upload
Prepare the folder is the feature that does all the work to make your folder.
It gathers all of your objects into one folder. It further optimizes the pictures. Eliminates all
Extraneous files and puts a fresh folder prepared for upload on your desktop.
Currently it will only allow text files and Xhtml files. Any other extensions or additions should be added or copied to the folder afterwords.
I will add some more instructions next week. Rome was not built in a day you know!
Any help will be appreciate. Please recognize while I appreciate any suggestions I may
Not be able to implement everything. Also some suggestions I may deem to be out of
The scope of this project. Some point any software author must make hard choices to either include something or excluding something. I hope all of you will understand. I do
Appreciate any suggestions offered.
While the list may seem short. Chicken Little will do quite a lot. Some features are still being developed. This is definitely a beta program. I wrote the program to promote my company. After working on it for 3 years part time. I thought the little program may have some promise. Any way you be the judge. I hope you enjoy it. I will receive any emails or suggestions at
Ps. I have tested Chicken Little in the following Browsers:
FireFox
Internet Explorer
Opera
Safari
The Pages seem to display properly. This does not mean that every feature will work in every Browser. Some may not work if the browser does not support the feature or if you are expecting Chicken Little to perform in a way that it was not designed.
Have Fun!
Sincerely,
Philip Hughes
Treecare.tv