Abstract: A token identifies a special comment that includes information usable by a specific Web page editor. Tile information included within a special comment may include authoring state information, such as parameters used by "WEBBOT" components to provide extensions to hypertext markup language (HTML) features. When a Web page is opened, the editor parses each element on the page and determines if a comment is special by detecting the presence of a predefined token. In the preferred embodiment, the token is the word "WEBBOT." The information included within this special comment can include references to extensions to HTML tags, including those that are not known by the editor, and parameters required by HTML extensions. Since the special comment is in a format ignored by Web browsers, it does not impact upon the ability of a browser to render the page.

Abstract: A method for rewriting document references such as URLs located in an included document, when an include operation is performed. The include operation may be performed by the server at any time, for example, when the including and included documents are stored on the server. One aspect of the invention is a process for inserting a second document into a first document, where the second document has a reference to a third document. The reference may be a link to the third document or may be an instruction to insert the third document. In this process, the second document is parsed to identify a relative reference to the third document with respect to the second document. An effective base reference for the second document is determined. In an HTML document, the effective base reference is the effective base URL. The relative reference to the third document is converted to an absolute reference using the determined effective base reference of the second document.