Published by City Farmer, Canada's Office of Urban Agriculture
Setting Up Pages
On The World
Wide Web
For Windows Users
by Eldon Wong
(C) Copyright:1995 Now that you have read Michael's article, you think to yourself, "Great, I'm ready to put some Web stuff up for myself!" But wait a minute; you don't own a Macintosh. Now what? Most of Mike's article is still useful for Microsoft Windows users, but here's more Windows-related information.
First of all, you need a Web browser. Fortunately, there are many available (NCSA Mosaic, Netscape WinWeb, etc.) and many of them are identical in looks and operation to those on the Macintosh. Currently, the most popular browser is Netscape.
Now you are ready to create HTML documents. HTML is an acronym for HyperText Markup Language. There are many ways of creating the documents. For the true programmers out there, you can use a plain text editor and type all of the text and embedded tags as you type. For the rest of us, there are many tools at our disposal.
HTML Tools
These packages are specifically designed to help you create HTML documents. Some of the packages that I have tried are: HoTMetaL, HTML Assistant and HTML Writer. They all have their individual merits (i.e. HoTMetaL checks to make sure you don't have mismatched HTML tags), but all of them are very useful, and I would recommend any of them.In a short time, there will be add-ons for word processors like Microsoft Word for Windows. Microsoft is currently beta testing its Internet Assistant product. This product adds a toolbar with the different HTML tags on it. You can simply add HTML tags by choosing the one you want from the toolbar. When you are finished, all you have to do is save the file as a HTML document. Quarterdeck also has a MS Word add-on product in beta version.
When working with graphic images, a couple of applications that I find very useful are WinGif and LView Pro. WinGif can produce interlaced GIF files while LView can save a GIF file with a transparent background. LView pro can also save files in JPEG format. This format compresses images smaller than GIF files. HTML documents can handle both GIF and JPEG file formats for images.
Once you have your files created, you need to put them up on your account. To access your UNIX account, you can use any communications package (Windows Terminal, Procomm, etc.). If you are already connected to your UNIX account using SLIP or PPP (communication protocols), then you can use terminal packages like EWAN or Trumpet Telnet to log onto your account in order to create directories and change file permissions. To transfer your files, once again you can use a communications package or you can use Winsock FTP which works with your SLIP or PPP connection.
HTML hints
Please keep these factors in mind when you are creating and transferring your HTML files:- Because DOS limits your filenames to a maximum of 8 characters and a 3 character extension, your filename will likely have the extension .htm. UNIX systems usually don't recognize this as a HTML file and needs an extension of .html. After transferring your files from your machine to the UNIX server, you must change the extensions so that they are .html instead of just .htm otherwise it will be read as a text file (at least this is the case with the University of British Columbia's Web server).
Before transferring any of your files to the server, you should also check any links referencing other HTML documents to make sure they have the filename extension .html. If you are testing the links and files on your computer, you will be using .htm as the file extension, but when you are ready to transfer the files you should go through your documents and change all of the extensions. Once that is done, you can transfer your files, change all of the filename extensions on your UNIX account (see above) and all of your links will work, otherwise you will have to make all of the changes using an editor on your UNIX account.
Transfer your HTML files as ASCII text and your image files (GIF, JPEG) as binary files
Setting Up Pages
On The World Wide Web
