ConvertSelection

Available in English, French, and German.
Requires NEXTSTEP 3.2 or higher, or OPENSTEP 4.x for Mach.
ConvertSelection (bin & src) is FREEWARE. Use as you see fit.

You can download the ConvertSelection application (180KB, compiled for all four platforms) from:

ftp://ftp.peanuts.org/peanuts/NEXTSTEP/text/services/ConvertSelection.NIHS.b.tar.gz

You can download the ConvertSelection source code (18KB w/o on-line help) from:

ftp://ftp.peanuts.org/peanuts/NEXTSTEP/text/services/ConvertSelection.s.tar.gz

ConvertSelection comes with eight predefined conversion services:

Convert to HTML
Convert to HTML (incl. meta chars)

Converts language-specific special characters like umlauts or accented ones to HTML entities.

Convert from HTML

Opposite of the above. Converts &...; strings back to human-readable characters.

Convert from ISO-Latin1-encoded
Convert from NEXTSTEP-encoded

Ever received a mail that shows lots of stray =FC's and =E4's instead of umlauts or accented chars, as well ='s at most line ends? Use one of these two services to convert the stuff back to human-readable form.

Convert to Lowercase
Convert to Uppercase

Converts all characters incl. umlauts and accented ones to lowercase (uppercase).

Convert to 7-Bit ASCII

Converts German umlauts and sharp 's' to Ae Oe Ue ae oe ue ss. Strips accents from all other language's special chars. Useful to make sure that your language's special chars are at least somehow recognizable on foreign platforms and don't display as whatever character a foreign platform might guess.

The conversion rules for the predefined services are defined by string tables (text files with the extension ".strings"), located within ConvertSelection's application folder. For each conversion service, there is a corresponding ".strings" file. To modify the behaviour of a conversion service, edit the rules within its ".strings" file.

The functionality of ConvertSelection is not limited to the eight predefined conversion services. You can create entire new conversion services to your liking. All it takes you to do this is to create a new ".strings" file in ConvertSelection's application folder, and to add an entry for that new ".strings" file in the file "services", which is located within ConvertSelection's application folder, too.

See ConvertSelection's on-line help for in-depth explanations.

This section contains new add-on conversion services, kindly submitted by nice fellows from all around the world. You, too, can have your own conversion service appear in this section.

Downloading any of this section's conversion services is easy:

1) Click a ".strings" link to display the contents of the ".strings" file. Save that file locally on your machine (by choosing Command-S, if you're using OmniWeb). Then move that file into ConvertSelection's application folder.

2) Click the "services" link to display the new entry/entries that will have to be added to ConvertSelection's "services" file. Select and copy everything, open your own "services" file in ConvertSelection's application folder, and paste the entry/entries into. (Be sure to add to the contents of your own "services" file, not to replace the entire existing contents.)

Note: in order to move ".strings" files into ConvertSelection's application folder, as well as to open the "services" file within, you'll first have to select ConvertSelection.app in the Workspace Manager's File Viewer, then choose File -> Open as Folder.

Convert from/to (La)TeX

A contribution from Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, The Netherlands.

Geert Jan writes:
I hereby send my To/From (La)TeX .strings files, these may be useful to others as well. Note that they are intended for my purpose, which is to be able to run a spell-checker on the file. This means that I attempted as much as possible to be able to transform back. As I do not use the ¥ very much I chose to use it as command prefix in the NeXT-ified file, so that I can reconstruct the (La)TeX file without problems. I have not yet found a solution for hidden hyphens (\- in TeX).

ConvertFromTeX.strings

ConvertToTeX.strings

services

If you've created a new conversion service that could be useful for others as well, you're welcome to send it to stefan.schneider@eunet.at (preferrably as NeXTMail). Your contribution will then be added to this very web page.

In your e-mail, please include a copy of your ".strings" file, a copy of your "services" file (just drag both of them into the Compose window), and a description of what your conversion service does.

Many thanks in advance for any contributions of yours.

ConvertSelection © 1996 Stefan Schneider Software.  All trademarks mentioned belong to their respective owners.