Whether you are a SAS code creator, a blogger, a technical writer, an editor-in-chief, an executive, a secretary, a developer or programmer in any programming language or simply someone who uses computer or hand-held device for writing, you need to read this blog post – your life is about to change forever!

Did you know that you can use a web browser as a SAS code editor? I’m not talking about browser-based SAS programming interfaces like SAS University Edition or SAS Studio; these are full-blown applications. I’m talking about converting a regular web browser into a “notepad” where you can type, display, and save your SAS code. Or non-SAS code. Or practically anything. And you don’t even have to be connected to the Internet to use this browser functionality.

Converting a web browser into a notepad

This trick works with most modern browsers:

Chrome

Firefox

Opera

Safari

It will not work on Internet Explorer 11.

Try this: open your web browser (I am using Firefox in the examples below) or a new tab in your browser and type the following in the URL field (case insensitive):

data:text/html,<html contentEditable>

Hit Enter. Then click anywhere in the browser body.

Your browser has just turned into a Notepad. You can now type anything in it, including SAS code:

In order to save your SAS code in Firefox, click on File ⇒ Save Page As… and save it as type Text Files (*.txt;*.text):

This functionality is possible thanks to HTML5’s contentEditable attribute and the browsers’ ability to handle data URL.

I don’t know about you, but I find this browser-notepad feature very cool and handy. Not only does it allow you to type SAS code in your browser, but it also gives you the capability to take notes and copy & paste excerpts or code snippets from other web pages on non-web applications. If you use WebEx or Skype or Lync to present one of the SAS web browser-based products such as SAS Visual Analytics, SAS Visual Statistics, etc., you can share your browser to your audience and make one of the tabs a typeable area. Then during your presentation you may switch between browser tabs depending on whether you are presenting SAS VA/VS or your own on-the-fly typing.

Bookmark notepad in a browser

If you like this Notepad browser feature, you can easily bookmark it by placing it on the Bookmarks toolbar. In this case, I suggest typing the following line in the URL filed:

data:text/html,<html contentEditable><title>Notepad</title>

and then dragging the image in front of this URL string and dropping it to the Bookmarks toolbar to create a button. Then, every time you need a Notepad it is at your fingertips; you just need to click the button:

Styling your new SAS editor in a browser

By default, your browser editor does not look pretty. However, you can use HTML tags and apply CSS styles to them to make it look better. You can control font (style, size, color), margins, paddings, background and other CSS style attributes. For example, try the following URL:

data:text/html, <textarea style="width:100%; height:100%; padding:20px; font-size:2em; font-family: SAS Monospace; color:darkblue; border:none; border-left: 10px solid lightblue; margin-left: 30px;" autofocus/>

You may modify this URL as you wish. For example, you may modify the font size for your typing area. For the font size you may use "em"s or pixels, 1em = 16px. If you specify the font size in pixels use whole numbers, e.g. font-size:32px, font-size:24px, font-size:20px. If you specify the font size in "em"s you can use whole numbers or decimals, e.g. font-size:2em, font-size:1.5em, font-size:1.25em.

Your web browser editor becomes much more presentable:

The autofocus attribute places cursor immediately in the typing area of the browser notepad, without having to click on the browser body first.

I want to hear from you!

Do you like this editable browser feature? Would you use it to enhance your presentations? Do you envision yourself writing SAS code in a browser? An article, a blog post? What other usages can you envision using such a web browser transformation? Do you have any ideas to expand this notepad browser functionality beyond presenting, typing, taking notes, copying/pasting, and saving your SAS code? Can you apply SAS color syntax highlighting in a browser? Or a background image? How about submitting your SAS code from a browser?