Creating your own website

[Vahed]

Today, following on from the request of John Mills in Roselands Drive last week, I´m starting a multi-part series focusing on the basics of creating and uploading your own website.

Last week I asked you to register your own domain name on the Internet so that you would be ready to begin creating your website and I have a quick question from a reader to field regarding this:

You mentioned [ برای مشاهده لینک ، با نام کاربری خود وارد شوید یا ثبت نام کنید ] in your latest article and that it would cost £9.40, I can't seem to find any thing for that price, has it changed or am I not looking hard enough?
Mike Cresser, via e-mail
The price of £9.40 that I mentioned was the inclusive of VAT price, if you click on `Domain Registration´ on the left hand side of the webpage, you´ll see the price of £8 + VAT. Just enter the name of the site that you would like to register in the box on the site and then select payment details. After this is complete you will be given the choice of setting up free hosting which I suggest you take advantage of.

To continue, the first step in creating a website is obviously to acquire some software that will allow you to create the pages that you will eventually upload onto the Internet and your options for this are almost endless. The one piece of software that is both easy to use and widely available would be Microsoft FrontPage which comes as part of many different Microsoft Office suites or FrontPage Express which comes as part of Internet Explorer. If you can´t find either version installed on your computer then run the Microsoft Office setup or download the latest version of Internet Explorer from [ برای مشاهده لینک ، با نام کاربری خود وارد شوید یا ثبت نام کنید ] />
This article is too short to cover the finer points of creating a website in Microsoft FrontPage as to do so would necessitate writing an entire book on the subject; however, there are a number of websites and books available to help you with this as well as the programs help file. Incidentally, if you missed last weeks article or happen miss any future articles, they will all be made available from the Herald Express website [ برای مشاهده لینک ، با نام کاربری خود وارد شوید یا ثبت نام کنید ] this includes an article I did on compressing images which you may find useful as if you can make your website as small as possible then you decrease the time it takes for your readers to download it.

The interface for FrontPage is similar to Microsoft Word or Publisher in the way everything is laid out and so any of you with experience of either of these programs shouldn´t have too much difficulty creating a simple site. As a first step, if you create a page that you would like as your first page and then save it as `index.html´ then this ensures that whenever people go to load your site that this will be the first page that loads up by default. As you know, a website is a collection of a number of different pages (A hotel, for example would have a different page for their price list, brochure and contact information) and so to form links with your other pages, you should create something called a hyperlink which will allow the user to hop from page to page. To do this, select a piece of text that you want to use as the link and go to `Insert´ and `Hyperlink´. If you now select another page that you´ve created (such as a contacts page) then whenever someone browsing your website clicks on your link then this page will open. Please bear in mind that to keep things simple to begin with, all your files should be kept in the same folder and you should try to keep all your filenames in lowercase.
Of course, it is also possible to insert compressed pictures, tables, symbols etc. into your webpage as long as you ensure that everything is stored in the same folder.

Once again, this article is far too short to go through the finer points of creating your own webpage so I suggest that you experiment with FrontPage and look up some extra reading material on the subject before next week when we´ll talk about uploading your webpage. If you want to test your page before we prepare to upload it then click on `File´ and `Preview in browser´ where you will be able to get a better idea of how your site will appear to your readers.

Computer Articles 2007

[Vahed]

Last week we had a look into the most fundamental ways to create a website on your PC using a program called FrontPage which is available as part of Microsoft Office or FrontPage Express which comes as a free option to Internet Explorer available from [ برای مشاهده لینک ، با نام کاربری خود وارد شوید یا ثبت نام کنید ]
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I´m going to assume that by this stage you have registered your site name online (e.g. [ برای مشاهده لینک ، با نام کاربری خود وارد شوید یا ثبت نام کنید ] and that you have made a simple site to put onto the Internet. If you missed either of these tutorials then please go to [ برای مشاهده لینک ، با نام کاربری خود وارد شوید یا ثبت نام کنید ] where you will be able view any past articles.

This week we´re going to look at how to actually put your page onto the Internet using a file transfer method known as FTP (File Transfer Protocol) and to do this, you require a special piece of software known rather unsurprisingly as an FTP client. Such programs are very easy to come by on the Web and indeed one is included as part of Microsoft FrontPage however a program that I have come to rely upon is one called CuteFTP which has never given me any problems.
To acquire this program go to the address [ برای مشاهده لینک ، با نام کاربری خود وارد شوید یا ثبت نام کنید ] and download the free trail version online which will function correctly for 30 days without requiring you to purchase it. The file itself should only take quarter of an hour or so to download at which point you should install the program as you would any other piece of software.

Providing you have already registered your site on the Internet or have received information regarding any free webspace provided by your ISP (Internet Service Provider) then you should now be in a position to start transferring some files to your file space. The information they have provided should include a host address, user name and password. If any of these are missing then your first port of call should be to phone or e-mail the technical support department of the people who are going to be hosting your site.

If you now start CuteFTP and click on `New´ in the site manager box that will open up then the program will give you the opportunity to enter in all of the settings that have been provided to you in order to access and upload files to your Internet site. For example, the Red Station Domains site that I recommended for hosing last month will require you to enter ftp.uploadserver.co.uk as your host server, you should then enter your user name and password into the boxes supplied and, as with all providers you will have to select `Normal´ login for the login type.

If you then click on `connect´ the server should log you in displaying all information about the status of your connection in the upper box on your screen. On the right hand side of the screen you will find a listing of all the files currently residing in your webspace and on the left hand side you´ll see the files and folders stored on your computer.
Your hosting company should have informed you of the correct folder on the server you should store your files in. Simply enter this folder and then just drag and drop your website files you wish to upload from your computer (left hand side of the screen) on to the server (right hand side) then your website should be ready for its first visitors.

To finish with, I´ll leave you will a couple of helpful hints -
- Don´t be afraid of phoning the support line of the company who has agreed to provide your hosting. Many of them are just a local or national call rate and they should be able to resolve any problems you are experiencing.
- Always check your page thoroughly in a web browser such as Internet Explorer after upload to ensure that all links you have provided to other pages on your site work correctly.
- Try your page out on a number of different computers to see how it looks on various machines and alter accordingly to ensure as many people as possible are able to view it.
- Save the first page you want your visitors to see when they load up your website as index.html as their computers will always load this page by default.

[Vahed]

Over the last couple of weeks we have covered the basic points of making your own webpage and as to continue on the subject, this week I´ll talk about good practices all budding web-designers should cover when constructing their own site:

- One of the most important things to remember when designing a website is that not all your viewers will have the same machine specification as you. The following are prime examples of things that you should bear in mind concerning compatibility between different machines...

o Always attempt to try out your website in several different browsers as they all have a slightly unique way of displaying pages. The two main ones that you need to cater for are Microsoft Internet Explorer ( [ برای مشاهده لینک ، با نام کاربری خود وارد شوید یا ثبت نام کنید ] ) and Netscape Navigator ( [ برای مشاهده لینک ، با نام کاربری خود وارد شوید یا ثبت نام کنید ] Bear in mind that not all users will have the most up to date version of the software so you should ensure that your page is compatible with earlier versions of these browsers.
o Try to design your site so that it will work on a number of different screen and colour resolutions as it´s little use designing your site around a huge 21" monitor if the majority of your viewers will be accessing it using a tiny 14" screen.
o If doing a simple site, always try and keep all your filenames in lower case as many websites are case sensitive meaning that if a user types in `test1.html´ but you´ve named that particular page `Test1.html´ then the browser will return an error.
o If adding fancy Flash animations, always consider that a large percentage of your readers may not have the appropriate player installed so you should also think about making a version of the page without the animations. For those of you unsure what Flash is, take a look at `

برای مشاهده محتوا ، لطفا وارد شوید یا ثبت نام کنید

.

- Always think about file sizes when designing your page. There´s nothing more annoying than going to a site and finding that it will take several minutes to load because of a huge picture or sound clip that the author has put onto the page which you don´t particularly want to see or hear anyway. The easiest way to achieve this is as follows:
o Always save your images as Jpeg files and then use an image compressor to make the file sizes as small as possible while still retaining quality. Please refer to my earlier articles on compression. Also ensure that the actual physical size of the picture you are putting onto your webpage isn´t unreasonably big. For example, there is no purpose in including an image which is approximately A4 size if you are just going to scale it down to around 2 inches in your website editor.
o There are a number of HTML compressors available free of charge which will remove all unnecessary lines of programming from your webpage to make them as small as possible. Try picking one up free from [ برای مشاهده لینک ، با نام کاربری خود وارد شوید یا ثبت نام کنید ] />
- Always adhere to certain design principles when making up your site. These include:
o Don´t EVER use garish background colours; Mucus green text on a lime green background makes for very difficult reading and looks terrible.
o Background images should be kept simple as to not distract from your foreground text.
o Try not to underline text as this will make it look as though it is a hyperlink and your readers will get quite annoyed when they try clicking it as they believe it will link them to another page.
o Never insert a sound file into your website that plays automatically. If you give your readers the choice of hearing the music then that is fair enough but there is nothing more frustrating than when you´re listening to your favourite CD or MP3 and a bad remix of the A-Team begins to play in the background without any obvious way of stopping it.
o Finally, never ever write in capitol letters only; Commonly referred to as shouting, it makes you look as though you don´t know how to type properly and makes your text particularly hard to read.

For particularly bad examples of web design try going to the page [ برای مشاهده لینک ، با نام کاربری خود وارد شوید یا ثبت نام کنید ] By taking note of other peoples mistakes you can learn how to avoid them.

[Vahed]

This week I will again answer some of the mail that I have been receiving recently in the hope that it will resolve a number of problems that my readers have been having.

I've been reading with interest Chris Holgate's excellent `Click´ column in the Herald Express about designing web sites. I wondered if Chris would be able to take a look at the Shakespeare Unlimited web site at [ برای مشاهده لینک ، با نام کاربری خود وارد شوید یا ثبت نام کنید ] which I have recently launched on the Internet. It is primarily designed to provide a fun and interactive approach to the study of Shakespeare and is already generating a lot of interest in schools throughout the South West. As a Torbay based site, there is an obvious local interest aspect to the site, even though nationwide organisations such as @school have already started to take an interest in the original way in which we are attempting to present Shakespeare on the Internet.
I would welcome any comments or feedback in relation to the site.
Chris Brooks, via e-mail

This is one I´ll leave for my readers to investigate. The site itself looks very well made and some readers will appreciate the Flash content of the site which provides the multimedia elements. For details of how you can create your own animations such as shown in this site, go to [ برای مشاهده لینک ، با نام کاربری خود وارد شوید یا ثبت نام کنید ] where you will be given information on how to incorporate these elements into your site.

I am a mature computer user; I have recently built a 5 page website using FrontPage Express, and have not been able to fully upload it onto my Webspace. My ISP is 'Clara', they explained to me that the free webspace is not compatible with FrontPage, although their domain space is and suggested I rewrite the site using 'Dreamweaver', which is OK until you see the price. Could you advise of another system as simple as 'FrontPage' that would do the trick? My site contains 4 or 5 gif images + text.
Eric D Rose, via e-mail

I´m more convinced that their webspace doesn´t support connecting through FrontPage´s FTP rather than not supporting the HTML (Internet page) files that FrontPage creates as these are industry standard. I´d recommend that you look at my 45th Article (03/11/01) which is available from [ برای مشاهده لینک ، با نام کاربری خود وارد شوید یا ثبت نام کنید ] as this will give you information on alternative methods of uploading your site such as via a program called CuteFTP ( [ برای مشاهده لینک ، با نام کاربری خود وارد شوید یا ثبت نام کنید ] Connecting in this way will allow you to upload your pages created in FrontPage via CuteFTP so you will not be required to purchase Dreamweaver.

I wonder if you can help me with two problems, I should say that I am running Windows 95.
First can I control the size of the window in which a newly opened application starts. I usually open apps from the relevant data file entry in explorer and I want a full screen window but (apparently at random) they often start with the part size one.
Second can I customise the explorer to open at some level(s) down from C: as I most commonly want to work on the same group of files, held in the same sub directory which many levels down?
J Green, via e-mail.

In terms of opening up an application in a new window, as far as I´m concerned the application should open in the same size window as it was running in when you were last using it. This is unless it is a DOS program in which case you can force it to always open in a full screen window by doing it following : Right click on the file in question, and go to the `options´ tab (this may change depending on your version of Windows) and click on `Full Screen´ then hit okay. If any other readers have experienced the same problem as J Green then please write in, especially if you found a solution.

Instead of opening explorer straight off, if you use the command line `Explorer c:´, `Explorer desktop´ or wherever you wish Explorer to open first off from clicking the Start Menu and `Run´. You can then make a shortcut to these by creating a `new shortcut´ on the desktop and typing this in as the command line. Every time you click on this icon now, your chosen destination will be opened automatically, in addition, this shortcut can be placed on the start menu, quick-launch bar etc.

[Vahed]

After a quick break from our website tutorial last week to answer a number of readers questions, today we get back to wrapping up this multi-part series on creating and uploading your own website.

In part one, we looked at an application called `FrontPage´ - The full version is available as part of Microsoft Office and a cut down version - FrontPage Express is available free from [ برای مشاهده لینک ، با نام کاربری خود وارد شوید یا ثبت نام کنید ] This product combined with the free Microsoft Image Editor are fine if you are happy keeping with a simple website, however, if you are planning on creating a more sophisticated site then there are a number of other products that you may want to consider trying out:

Macromedia Dreamweaver - Dreamweaver is highly regarded as the most powerful web page creator available on the market today. The program, in my opinion, builds on the features of the complete edition of FrontPage by providing much more comprehensive options and tools whilst still maintaining a high degree of user friendliness.
Dreamweaver includes tools for debugging your site and tight integration with technologies such as Flash as well as tools for debugging JavaScript and HTML errors. These may not be things that you know about too much at this stage, but soon tools such as these will soon become almost become indispensable. In addition, Dreamweaver also seems to create a lot cleaner, quicker to download code than the bloated pages that FrontPage seems to compile, the program makes it quicker and easier to program straight into HTML and your pages should be more compatible with the majority of browsers that your audience will be using.

To summarize, it is hard for me to pinpoint what exactly it is that makes myself and the majority of other web programmers prefer Dreamweaver; It just seems easier and more powerful to use in general. I do recommend that before considering purchase you should download the free trial version from [ برای مشاهده لینک ، با نام کاربری خود وارد شوید یا ثبت نام کنید ] so that you can evaluate the software for yourself.

Macromedia Flash - Another popular website design tool in the Macromedia range, Flash allows you to create animated introduction sequences and navigation aids for your website that are both interesting to look at and small to download. Probably the easiest way for me to describe what Flash is about is for you to see an example for yourself - Try going to the site [ برای مشاهده لینک ، با نام کاربری خود وارد شوید یا ثبت نام کنید ] where a list of all the best Flash animations have been compiled for you.
Essentially, Flash is an animator with a number of powerful tools that allow your readers to navigate through the animation to reach specific points in your site or to perform specific tasks. Where Flash really comes into its own however is that the program creates very small files that take a fairly short while for your readers to download.
One major drawback of Flash is that your target audience will have to have a Flash player installed in order to view the animations. The player is free of charge to download and a large number of Internet users will already have it installed on their computer, however it is always a good idea that you create a non-Flash version of your site for those without.

Again, Flash is available for free trial from the website address [ برای مشاهده لینک ، با نام کاربری خود وارد شوید یا ثبت نام کنید ] for you to look at before you considerer purchasing the full product.

Macromedia Fireworks - Macromedia Fireworks is a graphics creator and editor that has been built from the ground up with web graphics in mind. Giving you dozens of tools for creating and manipulating graphics which will be incorporated into your web page, Fireworks ensures that it is both quick and easy to make a whole host of different graphics - Practically anything from image rollovers to web-animations and static images. Essentially, it is important that your images are kept as small as possible which is what Fireworks excels at, automatically selecting the best format and compression rate so that your audience get the fastest possible downloads from your site.

Once again, Fireworks is available for free trial from the website address [ برای مشاهده لینک ، با نام کاربری خود وارد شوید یا ثبت نام کنید ] for you to look at before you consider making a purchase.

To summarize, these three Macromedia products make life a lot simpler when designing your own web page however not all users will need all the features included. The most unfortunate point is the price of the complete set; around £650 although the products are obviously available individually of course. In any event, I would still urge you to download the trial versions of these three packages as they are fully featured for 30 days at which point they expire. Even if after this time you don´t think they would be worth buying, just uninstall the products and you would have had 30 days worth of free software with no commitment to Macromedia whatsoever. End

Computer Articles 2007