CREATING AND PUBLISHING WEB PAGES

The first step in developing a web site is to create the individual pages themselves. Microsoft Front Page has many features that are not supported by our web server. The best option is to just use the Front Page Editor to create the individual pages for transfer to the site using WS-Ftp95.

  The Front Page Editor:

The Front Page Editor program operates very much like a word processor. You can switch between three modes, Normal, HTML and Preview. The program will start in Normal mode; it is here where you can create web pages just like word processor documents, using toolbars similar to Microsoft Word. By clicking on HTML mode, you can view and edit the actual HTML code of the document you are creating and finally by clicking Preview you can view (but not edit) the document as it will appear in a web browser.

Normal Mode:

It is recommended that you create a directory on your computer to contain all your files and images etc. This will make it easier to transfer the files to the server.

The format of the web pages themselves is completely up you. Feel free to make them as simple or as complicated as you like. However we recommend you view the Rotary International policy on the use and transfer of electronic communications. To read this policy please visit: http://www.rotary.org/services/board/epolicy.html

Within Normal mode, you can use many of the editor’s functions to create functional and exciting web pages, however our server does not support some things;

By pressing the enter key, you are making a "paragraph" break. To simply make a line break, hold down the "shift" key as you press "enter".

Front Page Explorer is not supported by our server.

WebBots such as hit counters and scheduled images are not supported by our server. Front Page uses functions to create these WebBots that only Microsoft web browsers will use.

Tables are a great way to make your page look more professional, they are similar to using columns in a word processor, and all professional web sites use tables.

Images are great to make your page fun to look at. However when you insert an image you must remember to transfer the image file (image.gif, image.jpg) to your directory on the web server. Anything you insert into your page, whether an image or a sound file or a downloadable file, you must transfer that file itself to the server as well as the page which calls it, unlike a word processor document which combines the inserted image with the document.

To insert a Hyperlink in your document you can highlight any text or image and link it to another page or a target on the existing page. The only thing to remember is to use complete links, such as http://www.rotary3450.org/file.htm you must include the file extension (.htm) and the complete link (http://www.ro…)

Also in Normal mode you will notice within the Insert menu such things as Active Elements, Database, Advanced and Form Field Elements. Our server does not generally support these features. Such elements as forms and hit counters can be found on the web in a format that is supported by our server and also supported by all web browsers.

Once you have created your home page you should save it as either default.htm, home.htm or index.htm Our server is programmed to use any of those names as the home page. Once you have chosen your filename, do not use any of the other names for files.

HTML Mode

Within HTML mode you can edit the code of the page. If you are looking to make your page active with forms and hit counters, you will need to insert code.

There are many web pages that can help you to use and learn HTML, some of the best are:

http://builder.com

http://www.webmonkey.com

http://www.wbsabstract.com

Preview Mode

In Preview mode you can view the page, as it will appear in a web browser. You cannot edit the page in this mode. This mode also uses Internet Explorer as its base, the page may look different in Netscape and it is worth checking.

There are several other web page creation programs available. Two others are "Dreamweaver" from Macromedia, which is available for free trial from http://www.macromedia.com and "Homesite" from Allaire www.allair.com .

 WS-FTP95

The very first step in transferring files to the Rotary web server is to obtain your username and password, simply email webmaster1@rotary3450.org (these passwords are the same as those for the email system)

The next step is to obtain a copy of our recommended file transfer program (ftp), WS-Ftp95. This is available for download from this site It is free for non-profit organizations and students.

Once you have installed the program, open it and create a new profile. As you will see, the program has several ftp profiles set up already for various ftp sites on the web, you need to press New to create your new rotary profile (make sure you are connected to the internet!).

The Profile Name is up to you; it is used to separate your profile from the existing ones.

The Host Name/Address for our server is: ftp.rotary3450.org

The Host Type can be left as Automatic detect

The User ID is your clubs, do not click Anonymous

The Password is your clubs, click Save Pwd if you like

The Account can be left blank, as can the Comment field.

Once this is done, click ok and the program will connect to the Rotary server, you will see it’s progress in the bottom left of the program window (it may take a while to connect depending on the speed of your Internet connection). The right hand side of the screen shows the server and the left your local computer.

Now that you are connected you will see the directory public_html on the right and your local directory on the left. You must open the public_html (double click it) directory to start transferring files. The server is programmed to look inside that directory for internet files, so once you are inside that directory you can transfer anything you like and create further directories if you want to, but you must be inside public_html

Now make sure you are in the right local directory on the left, you can navigate using the arrow to move up and double clicking directories to open them.

Once you are in the right local directory on the left and public_html on the right you can begin to transfer files. You can transfer a file by double clicking it or by clicking it once to select it and then using the right hand mouse button to open a menu, from that menu choose "transfer file", you can select more than one file to transfer at a time. You can transfer files from right to left or left to right. It is very important to remember that any file you transfer will overwrite the file of the same name on either side, effectively deleting it. So if you make changes to the default.htm file and transfer it, the old default.htm file on the server will be effectively deleted. It is a very good idea to back up your files to a

separate location on your computer as it is easy to make mistakes.

Here is a brief description of the command buttons:

ChgDir – Input the name of the directory you would like to change to

View – View the selected file (not used)

Exec – Execute the selected file (not used)

MkDir – Create a new directory

Rename – Rename a selected file or directory

Delete – Delete a selected file or directory

DirInfo – View the directory Information

If you are having problems with this program help is available at the Ipswitch Software web site: http://www.ipswitch.com

Welcome to the Rotary District 3450 Internet!

Any further comments or queries please email: webmaster1@rotary3450.org