Writing Web pages

Here is a very brief list of some things that seemed useful to me when I began writing Web pages.

Conventions about using the Web

Let's not reinvent the wheel!

Conventions, protocol, and warning about putting files on the Web:

1. Never put copyrighted material on the Web without permission from those who hold the copyright. In practice, this usually means don't put anyone else's copyrighted material up. Pictures and graphics may be copyrighted as well as text. Look very carefully at the bottom of any page on the Web. If it says that it is copyrighted, don't use material from it. If it's not clear to you that it's free for all to use, then don't use it. (You can link to it, of course. That's what's going to make the Web really convenient!) It is possible to buy software that has lots of non-copyrighted graphics and pictures. Use those for your creative urges!
2. It's good manners to "take responsibility" for your page by putting your name at the bottom and telling people how to communicate with you. Look around at various Web pages for ideas of how people do it. If you want to fix a link that will enable people to click on it and automatically send an email message to you, make the link to an address that starts with the word mailto rather than http. For example, the link on my email address below is mailto:mparker@austincc.edu
3. When your Internet provider gives you a place for Web pages, you may think of that like a directory on your hard drive. (Usually) you can create subdirectories in it as you wish. Each subdirectory can have one file in it with the name index.html. If you create such a file, then when anyone types your Web address, ending with that directory name, they will get your index file. If you have not created that file, they will get a list of all the files in your directory. Most Webmasters (Isn't that neat - when you have put up a page, you can call yourself a Webmaster!!) always use an index file in every subdirectory. In that index file, you give the world the ability to access whichever files you want them to see, but not the others that you might just have lying around in there. (It also works to name it index.htm. However, if both are available in your directory, it will use the one with the four-letter extension as the primary one.)
4. In some local computer software, you can't name the index file index.html, because the extension has four letters. So, I name it whatever I want, and then, after I have transferred it to the remote computer, I use the Rename option to fix the name. (When I transfer a remote file, with the four-letter extension, to my local computer and then work with it in Word 6.0, save it, and transfer it back to the Web, I get garbage. So I don't use the four-letter extension much.)
5. Generally, short file names and directory names are good. Don't use spaces in these names, because those won't work on the Web.
6. It's nice, but not crucial, to give each Web page a title. Undoubtedly your software allows you to do this. I didn't learn about it until after I'd created a lot of pages, but I wish I'd started earlier. If people save a link to your page under their "Bookmarks" (in Netscape), it will show the title of your page in their list if you have one.

Building on other people's work (Subtitle: How to not reinvent the wheel!):

1. It's always fun to see what other neat links other people have found. Add a section on "Interesting Links" to your Web page. This is part of why the copyright restrictions aren't so bad. If someone else has copyrighted it, and has put it on the Web, then you can link to it, and all your readers can read it too.
2. You can print or download any file on the Web. If you see a page you like, and the parts of it you like don't seem to be copyrighted, then download it. In Netscape, you use the "Save As" command under the File menu. Name it whatever you'd like and put it in whatever directory you'd like.
3. After you've saved a page from the Net, and you go back to your word-processing software program, open that file. While there may be some strange-looking commands in it, just ignore those and don't change them. Change the text as you like. You can use this sort of thing as a "tutorial" as you want to learn more about HTML. But you don't need to learn much about that in order to get started and do quite a lot!
4. Be careful about copyright issues. The polite thing to do (probably the legal thing to do) is, before you put up something on your own page that you got from someone else's page, send them an email address and ask if it is OK for you to use it.