Prototyping tool: HTA - HTML Application

Case: (For windows) You are about to prototype some screens in a user dialog. Make a folder. Open a text editor, preferably one with HTML syntax coloring, make some rough HTML and save the file with ending .hta to the folder. Close the editor. Open the folder. The icon you see represents this file. Now double-click it to view it or right-click and select a suitable program to edit. Maybe you'll need to attach the file extension to a editor program, for which there are several options. Notepad++ is a nice free editor.

What just happened here? Microsoft supplies a mshta.exe file which use your file as input. HTA files may contain dynamic HTML and run as trusted applications via mshta.exe. So basically, it is like an Internet Explorer view, but much faster and in trusted mode.

F5 works to reload the file.

This prototyping tool is simple and fast. It supports HTML, CSS, Javascript, Visual Basic Script and more.

For more information:
1) Wikipedia, HTML Application - includes source example
2) Microsoft, MS Tech Library on HTML Applications (HTA) - reference documentation

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