noel alanguilan

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.

wine is a bunch of software programs which allows a person to run windows programs on x86-based unixes which includes linux, freebsd and solaris. wine is not an emulator.

this is a bit exciting for me because with wine i can play my windows games on linux. and i could possibly run photoshop (up to cs2) on my linux machine and test some customized programs that runs only in a dos-box. they have a database of windows applications that have been tested to run on wine on a handful of linux boxes. not all windows applications run flawlessly and some not at all so check the applications database if you can run your fave windows program on your linux box. lastly, they also have a faq of sorts on why wine is important.

this has been a long time in coming. finally. i can run photoshop with the help of wine on linux. i would prefer that it run natively — a photoshop version that runs specifically on linux — but adobe so far has been mum about plans to port photoshop to linux.

wine is an open source compatibility layer that helps windows programs run on linux. the wine people (codeweavers) with some google money has improved its support for photoshop — versions 5.0 up to cs2 is supported but not cs3. well, not yet anyway.

interesting times indeed.