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One of the most exciting aspects of being a student at SI is the opportunity
to "publish" on the World Wide Web. While doing so takes a bit of
work - and we encourage you to start learning about HTML and the World Wide
Web early on - it is ultimately a rewarding experience.
Tagging Text with HTML
There are two ways to create HTML documents to serve as web pages
on the World Wide Web
- tagging text by hand
- using a "wysiwyg" text editor.
Tagging by Hand:
Tagging by hand is a "logical" process. This means that while you are tagging your document,
it will just look like a text document with HTML tags added to it, and not at all like what it will
look like when displayed on the Web. That's what the tags are for--they instruct a machine on
how to physically display your document.
A word processing program, such as Microsoft Word, Wordpad, BBEdit, TextEdit, VI or PICO,
is used when hand-tagging HTML. SimpleText is the preferred program of the two because it
does not include the formatting Microsoft Word does, which can muck up the display of your
document on the Web.
Using a "wysiwyg" text editor
Using a "text editor" is a "physical" process, as it allows one to create the physical design of a
Web page as one creates the content. The editor keeps track of the html tagging, such as
Heading size, "b old," etc., but doesn't display them. Instead, it displays the document as it will
appear on the Web. This is similar to the way Microsoft Word codes formatting into a document
for you.
Putting Your Document on the Web
In order to "publish" a web page on the World Wide Web, you have to
put it on a machine that is connected to the Internet. At the University of
Michigan this is accomplished by storing the document in a folder named "HTML"
within your home directory.
UM (ITCS) web servers vs the SI web server:
- UM: All SI students, faculty, full-time staff, and some guests,
receive a Basic Computing Package from ITCS that includes file server space. In
this UM ITCS managed file space (also known as your IFS directory), there is a
"html" folder within the "Public" folder which serves any web content you put
into it at the URL:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~youruniqname/
For info on how to create a web site in this space, visit the U-M IT Central
Services web page at:
http://www.umich.edu/~umweb/how-to/ .
- SI: All SI students, faculty, staff and guests of SI are also given
file server space (known as your SI NetWare or Novell home directory). This SI
Computing managed space has an "HTML" folder right at the top level (along with
InBox, Private and Public) which serves any web content you put into it at the URL:
http://www-personal.si.umich.edu/~youruniqname/
To have a default page for your site accessible on the Web directly from this URL
without putting a specific page in the URL, you'll need to create a default page and give
it one of the following names (the 3 or 4 character file name extension is necessary):
- index.htm
- index.html
- default.htm
- default.html
To see how to ftp to your SI NetWare/Novell space, see the Fetch HowTo Page. Although this
page describes how to use Fetch, a Mac FTP client, to connect to your space, the example
settings still apply to other platforms, such as Windows or Linux.
A
Beginner's Guide to HTML will help you to conceptualize what HTML is, and how to go about
creating an HTML document of your own. (This document is a little bit out of date, but it is a
thorough resource for beginners, nonetheless.)
Web pages that are for personal use are stored in individuals' home directories. All pages
for classes should be stored in the course folder created for a designated class. All group
or grant related pages should be stored in the appropriate Public directories of the group.
The name of the document--which is not the same as the title of the Web page-- to
be displayed on the Web must! end with .html. This is how a server recognizes
the document as a file to be displayed on the Web. For example, a personal page might be
saved as a SimpleText or Claris HomePage document titled HomePage.html.
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