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Disclaimer
This software is copyrighted by the author, Martin Goebbel. It may be used and distributed freely without any restrictions.
This software is provided "as is" and any express or implied warranties, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantibility and fitness for a particular purpose are disclaimed. In no event shall the author be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, or consequential damages (including, but not limited to, procurement of substitute goods or services; loss of use, data, or profits; or business interruption) however caused and on any theory of liability, whether in contract, strict liability, or tort (including negligence or otherwise) arising in any way out of the use of this software, even if advised of the possibility of such damage.

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Why this program has been written
Actually there were two reasons for this:
So the main Design Goals where to
The second point was accomplished by using only BIOS Video routines for output. This should make it work under standard Dos, Dos/V, DesqView and it should work more easily with Screen Readers.
It should also work on a computer without a 100% compatible CGA video adapter and on a dos emulator (not tested). The drawback is that it is slow on older machines. I tried it on a computer with 8086, 4.77MHz. It did work, but don't expect blazing speed there.

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How to use it
Usage is actually pretty simple. On the Commanline type:
HLIST document.htm

If there is no filename supplied, hlist displays a list of available commandline options.
If the file on the commandline does not exist, HLIST asks you if it should create an empty HTML File under this name. If you answer yes the program starts with this empty file which can then be edited using ALT-E (see below).

While loading the document, there is a message on the top of the screen. After the Document has been parsed, there is a short, high beep (This is consistent throughout the program. A successful operation gives you a high beep and in case of an error there is a low pitched beep). Now you can start scrolling through the document by a single line using the cursor up and down keys. For a full page use the page up and down keys. Home and End will take you to the start of the document or to its end.
The Tabulator Key can be used to select a Link. Pressing Tab will go to the next Link, pressing Shift and Tab goes to the previous Link. To activate a Link, just press Enter. If the file specified by the Link cannot be loaded, you will hear a short beep and get an error message on lines 24 and 25.
To reload the previous Document use the Cursor left key. If there is no previous Document then nothing will happen.
The Display shows the HTML File in the upper part (Lines 1 to 20) and any additional information in the lower part (Lines 22 to 25). Line 22 shows the document Title, line 23 the complete filename and line 24 the url of the currently selected link. On line 25 there is information on which lines of the document are currently displayed, the total number of lines in the document and the remaining available memory.
Emphasized and Bold characters are displayed in black, links are displayed in blue. The BIOS Cursor will also be placed on the currently activated link. If this Link is not within the display, the cursor will be placed on position 80 in line 25.
If no function has been selected the lower Display shows the document title, the file name and the value of the currently selected Link (or 'None' if no Link is selected).
When using a Display Mode with more than 25 Lines, please adjust the Line numbers acoordingly. The Information Field is always in the last 4 Lines.

Commandline options

The values you set from the commandline will be stored in the executable. You don't have to use them each time you call the program.
Functions

Something more about links: you may only use local or relative links (This program is not a full Web Browser after all). Something like <A HREF="http://www.some-where.org/index.html"> is not understood. But <A HREF="C:\HTML\INDEX.HTM"> or <A HREF="..\HDOC\MAIN.HTM#label"> should work.
When using ALT-D or ALT-E the program will swap out all of the data before starting an external program. The data will be swapped (in that order) to either XMS, EMS or a File. In order to be able to reload the data after you return to HLIST you have to avoid using any TSR's or other programs which might mess up the DOS Memory Allocation.
Addendum: I have experimented with running DosPPPD and WatTCP while being shelled out to DOS. It seems to work fine.

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System Requirements
The minimal system requirements are
About Speed: On a 4,77 Mhz PC this program needs 25 seconds to parse a 50K HTML File. If nothing seems to happen after starting the program, it's not necessarily a program crash. Just wait a while.
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Bugs and missing things
Like usual there are probably tons of Bugs I did't find yet.
This program supports only a subset of HTML 2.0. I have only included the tags I felt to be necessary for writing the documentation for my programs (See Reasons above, point 1 ).
This new Version allows it to view any Text file, wether HTML-Tags are included or not. This should make it possible to view mail messages with included HTML-Parts. Currently the following tags and special symbols are (more or less) supported:
Tags (not case sensitive)

Special Symbols
New with this version is a better international support. It supports all the special characters I found in my HTML 2.0 Book and maps them correctly to your selected codepage. The following codepages are currently recognized:
If your codepage is not supported, then 437 will be used. In case you are not sure what a codepage is and what it is needed for, you might find something about it in your Dos manual.
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How to contact the Author
You may reach me by email under one of the following adresses:

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