This online guide is for assisting the students, faculty, and staff of MTSU with web page development. It is specifically for account holders on frank, the MTSU academic server and may not benefit others. Information in the online guide includes:
Before you can start creating your own web pages, you must have an account on frank. If you are an MTSU student and need an account, visit "Get an MTSU Student Computing Account". If you are MTSU faculty or staff and need a frank account, complete a form at the Office of Information Technology, Cope Administration Building, Room 3.
Bookmark: A feature of Netscape which enables you to mark web pages of particular interest to you for future reference and easy access.
Browser: A program that helps users work with the web by displaying documents and making links between computing sites. A graphical web browser such as Internet Explorer or Netscape can display web documents in hypermedia format; that is, it can be used to view text, images, and video and to listen to audio.
File Transfer Protocol (FTP): A communication standard which allows you to send and retrieve files over the Internet.
GIF: Graphical Interchange Format. File names normally have .gif suffix. Can use up to 256 colors. Compresses files without loss of information. Compression is best for images with areas of a single color.
Home Page: The initial entry point into a web document. The home page may also serve as a main menu and contain references to related documents.
HTML: Hypertext Markup Language is the method an author uses to markup a document so that it can be displayed on the Web.
HTML Editors: Programs that help you develop web pages. A GUI-based HTML editor such as AOLPress provides an intuitive point-and-click interface.
HTTP: HyperText Transfer Protocol is used to transfer hypermedia, such as text and audio or text an images.
Hypertext: A method for linking documents together non-sequentially.
Internet: The Internet is a vast network of computer networks which was originally developed as a governmental experiment in the late 1960's. The Internet works by using a common transfer protocol between computers. This enables many different types of computers to communicate.
Java: A programming language written by Sun Microsystems for the Web. It is designed to create interactive applications on the Web.
JPEG: Joint Photographic Experts Group. File names normally have .jpg or .jpeg suffix. Can use many colors. Best for photographic or painted images. You can specify amount of file compression. Some of the information is lost during compression.
Lynx: A text-based web browser.
Netscape: A graphical web browser that can display Web documents in hypermedia format; that is, it can be used to view text, images, and video and to listen to audio.
URL: The Uniform Resource Locator is a way of specifying where something is on the Internet. It takes this general form: <method://<host computer>/<pathname>> This first part specifies the access method used to retrieve the document such as ftp, gopher, telnet, or http. The host computer identifies a machine and the pathname specifies a directory and filename. Your URL on frank will be http://www.mtsu.edu/~yourusername.
World Wide Web: A vast series of electronic documents called web pages or web documents that are linked together over the Internet. Also referred to as the web.
Since you have made it to this point in the guide, you probably have already formulated some ideas about your future web site--colors you will use, information and images you will include, and links you will make. Before you finalize your planning:
Sketch a diagram of the pages you want to start with. Think about the content you will include on each page. Draw arrows to display how visitors will navigate your site.
Here are a few basic design tips to keep in mind as you design your web site. Visit http://www.voice.com/bud/bud.html to see a site that breaks all the rules!
I. Everything Really Works!
II. You Can Read It!
III. It's Text Browser Friendly!
IV. You Don't Have to Wait Long for It to Load!
V. It's Unique
VI. It Won't Drive You Crazy!
VII. Netiquette is Observed
The Homepage Generator enables MTSU students, faculty, and staff to develop web pages in a easy-to-use, browser-based environment.
After validating the account, the Homepage Generator allows an MTSU frank account holder to select from a variety of initial layouts, enter contact information, and choose additional pages including personal info, professional activities, resume, courses, and interesting links pages. A sample page is displayed and may be adjusted until the user has the desired layout.
Immediately after the desired layout is accepted, the user must telnet to his frank account and run the hpgenerator program to finish the installation process. If the user previously had a home page, the hpgenerator program will move his old files into another subdirectory.
Many HTML Editors are available today. With a WYSIWYG editor, you can created web pages without knowledge of HTML (HyperText Markup Language). Instead, you can create Web pages just as you would create paper documents with a word processor like Microsoft Word. AOLpress helps you create and publish web pages. AOLpress is both an editor and a browser. Because AOLpress integrates authoring and browsing, you can integrate reading and editing. After you install and configure AOLPress to access your frank account, you can make changes and republish the page immediately.
Installing and Configuring AOLPress
AOLPress is free and available for Macintosh and Windows 3.x/95/NT platforms. After downloading the appropriate version, start the installation process by double-clicking on the downloaded file and follow the directions.
Once AOLPress is installed, start the program. To use it with your frank account, you will need to complete the following steps.
To open a new empty page:
To open an existing page:
To save a page:
As you move the mouse over the page window, the cursor is I-shaped. When you click the mouse in the text, a flashing I-shaped cursor marks the point where text will be placed when you type. Once you have positioned the cursor, there are several ways to get text into your page.
You can format text by selecting your text and using the various options under the Format menu. Options include Type Style, Size, and Color as well as Heading. Paragraph formatting options include various alignment choices.
Text is often added in lists. With AOLPress you can add bulleted, numbered, or definition lists easily.
You cannot create images with AOLpress. However, you can create images with other software programs or copy them from web pages and add them to your web pages with AOLpress.
To copy an image from a web page:
To add inline images to your web pages:
Typically graphics used on the web are either gif or jpeg. JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) files normally have .jpg or .jpeg suffix. They can use many colors and are best for photographic or painted images. With jpeg files, you can specify amount of file compression but some of the information is lost during compression. GIF (Graphical Interchange Format File) files normally have .gif suffix. They can use up to 256 colors and are best for images with areas of a single color. GIF files may be compressed without loss of information.
A link is a cross-reference to another file (in your account or somewhere else) or target location in a file. Other files and anchors are the targets of links. A link can be either an absolute link or a relative link.
Absolute links specify the full location of a file. You can only use absolute links to link to a file on a different server or disk. Relative links omit part of the file specification and use the current location as the default. (For example, http://www.mtsu.edu/~htmlclas/index.html is an absolute reference and index.html is a relative link.) It's usually best to use relative links within your own web site. Relative links allow you to move the entire directory tree to a new location without breaking your links. You should try to use absolute links only to references files outside your own web.
To make a link:
Tables (like the one below) let you align text and images into columns and rows.
 Test #1 -- January 30 |
Review Chapters 1 - 20 |
| Paper #1 -- February 12 |
Read and review assigned readings including MTSU Computer and Network Acceptable Use Policy |
| Test #2 -- March 28 |
Review Chapters 21 - 40 |
To add a table to your web page:
When using AOLPress, you don't see HTML tags--you probably don't want to. Sometimes the need may present itself for you to see or edit the actual HTML code that creates your web page. To do this, select Tools--Show HTML. You can view or edit in this window. To exit click on the X in the upper right-hand corner of the window . Select Apply if you wish to save your changes, Abort if you don't wish to save them, or Cancel to stay in the HTML view mode.
Learn more about the many options in AOLPress by working their online tutorial. Select Help--Tutorial to get started.
It is very helpful to have at least a passing acquaintance with a few UNIX commands when you are creating web pages on frank. The following table offers an overview of commonly used commands and their functions.
| UNIX Command | Description |
| ll | Gives a directory listing of files and subdirectories in the current or specified directory |
| cd (subdirectory name) | Changes current subdirectory to specified directory |
| pwd | Displays your present(current) working directory |
| mkdir (subdirectory name) | Creates a new subdirectory |
| rmdir (subdirectory name) | Removes or deletes a subdirectory |
| cp (source path and filename) (target path and filename) | Copies an existing file to a new file or new location |
| mv (source path and filename) (target path and filename) | Moves an existing file to a new file or new location |
| rm (source path and filename) | Removes or deletes specified file |
| chmod (group u, g, o, or a) (+ or - attributes r, w, or x) (subdirectory or filename) | Changes a group's (u=user, g=group, o=other, or a=all) permissions (r=read, w=write, and x=execute) on specified subdirectory or filename |
"Publishing" web pages means saving HTML and related files to your account on frank. It is sometimes called "saving remotely". If you are on the campus network, you can publish files by using an FTP client such as Fetch or WS-FTP. These programs allow you to move files from the hard disk or floppy disk on your local computer to your account on frank.
If you have created your web pages on with a local HTML editor and didn't use Homepage Generator as a starting point, you will need to create a subdirectory to hold your web pages. To create this subdirectory
After you create the pubic_html directory, use your ftp application to copy your web files into it. Then see the following section to make your web pages available to the public.
All of the files that you create or upload to your account on frank have default permissions that allow only you to read them so that your memos, letters, and personal files are protected from other people. However, you want all of your Web page files to have file permissions that will allow anyone and everyone to read them.
The chmod command will allow you to change file permissions (read, write, or execute) for the user, group, others, or for all. To see a file's permissions, user the ll command:
frank $ ll This will list a directory of files in the current directory.
total 2
-rwxr--r-- 1 jdoe oit 427 Oct 30 13:44 index.html
The permissions are listed in the first column. The permission list is structured as follows.
- |
rwx |
r-- |
r-- |
| The first dash tells you that index.html is a file rather than a directory. If index.html were a directory, a d would appear here. | The next three letters show the permissions that the user has on the file. The user can read the file, write to the file and execute the file. | The second three characters show the permissions that the group has on the file. The group can only read the file. | The file set of characters shows the permissions that others (the world) have on the file. Others can only read the file. |
To change a permission on a file, at the frank prompt:
Usually, you will want to give read permission to the group and others. If you were giving permission to everyone (group and other) to access (read and execute) files in your public_html directory, you would enter:
frank$ chmod a+rx public_html
Often, you will have uploaded several files and will want to change the permission on all of them. You can use the following wildcard with the chmod command to change the permission of all the files in the public_html directory.
Hint: Be sure that your current directory is public_html before you use this command. You can use the PWD to confirm this.
frank$ chmod a+r *
