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topstyle lite on linux

Friday, 1 August 2008 9:57 am by noel
posted in tech | tags: , , , ,

i was messing around with some css and html pages and going back and forth between the browser and css/html editor to preview how a page would look like and i suddenly missed using topstyle lite (css editor). it came with homesite 4.5.2 (html editor) but it can run standalone as well. what i like about tslite is that it has a preview window — you can see how your css would make the text/page look like almost immediately. i was thinking since i have wine installed why not try and install topstyle?

the latest version of topstyle lite is 3.5 so i downloaded that. i was able to install the program but with a few glitches.

every time i launch the program it gives out an error message telling me that it cannot “create the internet explorer browser object”. well, of course, since i don’t have ie installed. clicking on “ok” and the error goes away and gives me the topstyle editor. ok. i can probably live with that ie error and just treat the thing like a nag screen.

at this point the program is running on linux so i proceeded to open some of my css files just to give it a spin. everything works except for the preview pane. apparently topstyle uses internet explorer as its css previewer. a little digging in the newsgator knowledgebase and i found a guide to use netscape gecko as the previewer instead of ie. but that path didn’t work for me — the provided mozilla activex control installer just couldn’t list linux’ hidden subdirectories and, therefore, couldn’t find the mozilla layout engine. pity. i really like the program but without the preview, the topstyle just doesn’t work for me.

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4 Responses to “topstyle lite on linux”

  1. Dan Kegel Says:
    1 August 2008 9:44 pm at 9:44 pm

    Thanks for the bug report about preview not working off the bat. Bug filed,
    http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14715

    I was able to use the Mozilla ActiveX control for preview,
    sort of. Here’s how:

    First, I tried installing the Mozilla ActiveX control you pointed to,
    but it had trouble, complaining it couldn’t find the mozilla/bin directory.
    The trick is to notice the complaint from Wine:
    err:module:import_dll Library MSVCP60.dll (which is needed by L”C:\\Program Files\\Mozilla ActiveX Control v1.7.12\\mozctl.dll”) not found
    After I installed msvcp60.dll by doing
    wget http://kegel.com/wine/winetricks
    sh winetricks vcrun6
    that problem went away.

    TopStyle then did an internal preview with Mozilla, but only when
    I did “Preview / Use Mozilla”. It wasn’t a live preview; I had
    to use that menu item every time.

    Does that help?

  2. noel Says:
    1 August 2008 11:21 pm at 11:21 pm

    thanks a heap for the tip. unfortunately, it didn’t work for me. i followed your instructions but there wasn’t any preview still.

    i do, however, have a couple of questions:
    1. where do i look for wine error messages. i can’t seem to find it
    2. i didn’t see “preview / use mozilla” in top style. there was only the “preview” option. did you use topstyle pro or topstyle lite?

    btw, your website has an abundance of knowledge. awesome dude!

  3. Dan Kegel Says:
    2 August 2008 1:43 am at 1:43 am

    1. The wine error messages only show up if you run wine inside a terminal,
    see http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#head-a37de3282d447376d2220d20a278ae52258551a4

    2. I used topstyle 3.5 pro trial.

  4. noel Says:
    2 August 2008 10:58 am at 10:58 am

    hmmm… i looked at the logs and this what wine said:

    preloader: Warning: failed to reserve range 00000000-60000000
    preloader: Warning: failed to reserve range 00000000-60000000
    err:dosmem:setup_dos_mem Cannot use first megabyte for DOS address space, please report
    preloader: Warning: failed to reserve range 00000000-60000000
    err:dosmem:setup_dos_mem Cannot use first megabyte for DOS address space, please report
    preloader: Warning: failed to reserve range 00000000-60000000
    err:dosmem:setup_dos_mem Cannot use first megabyte for DOS address space, please report
    err:dosmem:setup_dos_mem Cannot use first megabyte for DOS address space, please report
    err:alsa:ALSA_CheckSetVolume Could not find 'PCM Playback Volume' element
    err:alsa:ALSA_CheckSetVolume Could not find 'PCM Playback Volume' element
    preloader: Warning: failed to reserve range 00000000-60000000
    err:dosmem:setup_dos_mem Cannot use first megabyte for DOS address space, please report
    fixme:win:LockWindowUpdate (0x1002c), partial stub!
    fixme:win:LockWindowUpdate ((nil)), partial stub!
    fixme:win:LockWindowUpdate (0x1002c), partial stub!
    fixme:win:LockWindowUpdate ((nil)), partial stub!
    fixme:win:UpdateLayeredWindow (0x1006c,(nil),(nil),0x7f21f0f8,0x59bc,0x7f21f0f0,0x00000000,0x7f21f0ec,2): stub!
    fixme:commdlg:GetFileName95 Flags 0x00800000 not yet implemented
    fixme:shdocvw:PersistStreamInit_InitNew (0x7f05c0d8)
    fixme:shdocvw:OleControl_OnAmbientPropertyChange Unknown dispID -1
    fixme:shdocvw:WebBrowser_Stop (0x7f05c0d8)
    fixme:shdocvw:WebBrowser_Stop (0x7f05c0d8)
    fixme:shdocvw:WebBrowser_Stop (0x7f05c0d8)
    fixme:shdocvw:WebBrowser_Stop (0x7f05c0d8)
    fixme:shdocvw:WebBrowser_Stop (0x7f05c0d8)
    fixme:shdocvw:OleObject_Close (0x7f05c0d8)->(1)

    because of the lines “fixme:shdocvw:WebBrowser_Stop (0x7f05c0d8)” i tried to use fakeie6 in your script but i still didn’t get any preview from tslite. using topstyle pro trial isn’t really an option because it will expire sometime in the near future.

    i will keep trying but in the meantime, i’ll have to shelve this for the moment.

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