An interactive nature poem
Rain Over Lochranza
There are a few reasons why you use an web editor to write material for your website and don't rely on using an ordinary text package like Microsoft Word. As one example, a package like Word will place its own formatting onto your writing which can mess up things when you go to insert it into your website. If you have to use Word then Save As "Rich Text" (which will get rid of some of the formatting you don't want) before you Paste it into your site. Some people paste their Word writings into a Web Editor and then paste that into their website. I am writing as a beginner in html and I feel that is still a useful viewpoint to write from e.g. I genuinely know the difficulties that other beginners suffer in getting their writings published onto their website. As regards multi-voice poetry, there seems to be two ways of adding your writings to your website. One is to use pre tags and monospace fonts. The other is to use html and possibly CSS and make up from two to six columns of text (using Div tags). You can cut and paste the html structure from one of my previous articles in WordPress. If you are good at html and CSS then you can probably make up the html structure yourself. The html would be written in an html editor. As would the pre tags variant. HTML does not recognise more than one white space at a time. It does not recognise more than one line break at a time. And it doesn't recognise tabs. Using preformatted Text: When you use the <pre> tag before a piece of writing and a </pre> after the end, then you will have a piece of writing where all the white spaces and line breaks are kept. You need to use a mono spaced Font because ordinary Fonts have different widths for different letters and for different punctuation. If you use a monospaced Font every space, letter, and punctuation mark will be the same width. This is what you need. Courier is not an attractive font and I use Lucida Console (which I am using just now). But there are many monospaced fonts to choose from (Including a Courier New, and Andalel Mono). So you would have-
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>usingpretags</title>
</head>
<body>
<pre>
your text here
</pre>
</body>
</html>
Another difficulty -for me- with using code is that I am doing two things with my multi-voice websites. The first is to show my multi-voice poems to you. The second is to teach you how to place your own multi-voice poems onto your own website. Here I show you the code that I use to prepare my poems for my site. However, putting code onto a site means the site tries to turn the code into a poem. To stop this and let you see the code behind the poem-the code has to be "wrapped" in a particular type of protective code that will stop it being changed from html (or CSS). When downloading a web editor make sure you do so from a trusted site. I have used the first Notepad (version 1) but found it not at all user friendly. I usually use Microsoft Expression Web 4. This is user friendly and gives you an Edit html mode and a Design mode (which shows you what it thinks a Browser will display). There is also a Preview Browser mode which allows you to take the code into a browser to check it more accurately than in Design mode. I believe that this package is now free for Download. Dreamweaver is the best known web editor package. It is similar in aims to Microsoft Expression Web 4. I have not tried it and cannot comment on it. It is not free. To try out other packages (to know which to recommend), I Googled "freeware web editor" and "free html editor". I got about thirty names. Most were not free and were only on limited trial offer. Some of those that remained are partial versions of full price packages (which obviously the makers want you to buy). I never downloaded any that were for expert web Developers. I tried out these eleven that were free and that I could easily download (I had trouble downloading some others but that may have simply been my lack of expertise): NoteTab Light, Website X5 Free, PageBreeze 5, Lauyan TOWeb V6, TextMorph28, WDL Website Builder 4, Notepad2, Alleycode HTML Editor, Blue Griffon, Coffee Cup Free HTML Editor, and EditPad Lite 7 (I wrote the main part of the artcile using EditPad Lite 7,than patsed this into CoffeeCup Free html editor to re-do in html). It is worth at least trying out a Free Text Editor instead of using Microsoft Word. Here is a beginner’s guide to five free Text Editors designed for writing for the Web (I could not say that any were, excellent): Edit Pad lite 7: Very basic. Has a preview in browser mode (but no html mode). You write text that goes straight into your website. There is no spell check though. Text Morph: Very basic. Can also show HTML in html VIEW mode. But you cannot edit the html. Text goes straight into your website. Not user friendly. Note Tab light: Very basic. Not user friendly. Lauyan TOWEB: Is a text editor but is mainly for making complete websites. Worth trying if you are hosting your site as well as writing for it. Not for me. Incomedia Website X5 Free: A text editor as part of a build an entire website package. Extremely basic. Not for me. Here are six html editors. I recommend that you if at all possible try to learn how to use an html editor! A few seem excellent but need to be tried out by you: Notpad 2: Not user friendly. Not for me. I think this is aimed at experts. Pagebreeze 5: Looks good. Has a visual WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) view and html editor. Also has a preview browser view. Blue Griffon: Looks good. Has a WYSIWYG view mode and an html editor Coffee Cup Free HTML Editor: Looks good. Has a split preview mode (to see html code and WYSIWYG). Can preview in browser. WDL Website builder 4: Looks good. Has an html code view and a WYSIWYG view. Has a preview in browser view. Alleycode HTML Editor: Looks ok. A bit basic. Has a split preview mode (to see html code and WYSIWYG). Also has a preview browser view. When I first started to try putting multi-voice poetry into my WordPress site I tried the Visual Editor and used Microsoft Word as a text editor. This took a great deal of time and was never completely accurate. Eventually my WordPress site could take up to four columns using html coding given in a previous article on my WordPress site. But WordPress could not cope with five or six columns where the text was very small. My Blogger website has never failed to correctly take the html I have entered into that site. I recommend that you pick one of the four best HTML free editors mentioned above. Get to know how to use it. You might even enjoy using it. I use WordPress and Blogger for my multi-voice writings. WordPress does not seem to suit all types of multi-voice. Also, I have read (on a poetry blog) that Blogger may be on the way out. I hope this is not so! But it means that I have had to look for another free website host. Blogger has no ads. So far I have had few ads on WordPress. I couldn't find a new website without the possibility of ads being there at some point. Again, a couple of times I had thought I had found a free website host only for my account to change from Free to Premium (paid) meaning I had to cancel that site. The most suitable free site looks good though. I have started a multi-voice site on, Yola. It is Free and you have a Free mark on your site which is good. I will keep you updated.
Ashby McGowan
Animal rights and human rights multi-voice poet
Posted 463 weeks ago
THE ATOMIC LANTERN
Dreams of warriors
and cowards and peace
campaigners
twelve poets
the old, the ill
women
and children
and a dog
Are revealed as indistinct shadows on the wall
Dry grasses merely burn
Birds in flight are dust in the wind
And the words in this poem burn on the page
No creature moves
A strange kind of peace
This poem alludes to a famous haiku by M. Basho (first line of which is: The…
Posted 467 weeks ago
THE ELECTORAL MEDIA BIAS COMMISSION
THE ELECTORAL MEDIA BIAS COMMISSION
THE ELECTORAL MEDIA BIAS COMMISSION
This is an idea for a commission that could be set up in any country when elections are being held. Anywhere in the World. The USA and the UK have seen a need for such a commission. It would run in the lead up to an election. It would have powers to fine media outlets that report factual errors as fact. And to ensure that misreporting does not happen again. Or…
Posted 469 weeks ago
THE BAD GUY
If you see him, tell him from me
We need a new kind of world
We need truth and compassion
Rules, based on morality
No bad guys on either side
No either side
If you see him, tell him from me
I will buy him a herbal tea
If he smashes in no more doors
And he kills no more
They say he is a hero on the T.V. show,
Across the World he will parachute or row
Black ops and anonymous assassinations,
Posted 469 weeks ago
What went wrong? (a prose poem)
What went wrong? (a prose poem)
What went wrong?
Every window
Shattered
A crater that kills the road
23 bodies blown
To bits and
15 bodies than could have been
Partly
Put back together –
If the Hospital hadn’t
Also
Been targeted
Men, women, children, and one
Foetus dead – in the womb
All
Civilians
What went wrong?
Practising another religion
From a far-away land
With a different colour skin
With a different culture
With a…
Posted 472 weeks ago
A link to a multi-voice Educational article
A link to a multi-voice Educational article
Whale road Review published my pedagogy paper about Teaching how to write multi-voice poetry (for students and educators) in their Spring issue. Published April 1 2017. Please have a look: http://www.whaleroadreview.com/mcgowan/
Posted 482 weeks ago
A link to a multi-voice Educational article
A link to a multi-voice Educational article
Whale road Review published my pedagogy paper about Teaching how to write multi-voice poetry (for students and educators) in their Spring issue. Published April 1 2017. Please have a look: http://www.whaleroadreview.com/mcgowan/
Posted 482 weeks ago
Posted 483 weeks ago
An interactive play about Domestic abuse.
An interactive play about Domestic abuse.
Posted 483 weeks ago
Posted 483 weeks ago
An interactive multi-voice play
An interactive multi-voice play
My Mate Paul HD interactive play Please join me in performing this interactive play about Domestic Abuse.
Posted 483 weeks ago
Rescue
In the Bar I had gulped down far too many drinks. I was feeling sorry for myself. Life can be hard. After an argument with the Barman I left and went down to the sands.
It was hot but the sea was nearly empty. The huge waves kept everyone from swimming. Apart from one brave person who stood bracing himself against the waves. Every so often a big one would nearly throw him over. Crashing over his…
Posted 484 weeks ago
THE ANGER OF THE LONELY GIANT
THE ANGER OF THE LONELY GIANT
(A prose poem)
The angry Giant can roar very loud! Aaarggh!
Yet he is lonely, for no one loves him.
Sometimes a stranger will see him in the town centre,
He will smile and go to shake the Giant’s hand.
As the Giant jumps on their head he bellows,
“Why do you not love me?”
He doesn’t like gays, or women, or scientists, or those of a different religion.
He has his…
Posted 487 weeks ago
Posted 488 weeks ago
Posted 490 weeks ago
Posted 490 weeks ago
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