Creating your Web Site

To create the web pages that will make up your web site, you have two choices:

1. Use a web authoring software package such as Dreamweaver, OR
2. Learn HTML and then use a text editor or HTML editor

Web Authoring Software

Most web authoring software has a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) interface, allowing you to see what your web page is going to look like as you create it. Web authoring software is as easy to use as a word processor, and it allows you to create your page without learning HTML, the language of the web. Dreamweaver, a full-featured web authoring package, is available campus-wide in public labs and on employee machines. Details on how you can purchase Dreamweaver for your personal computer are available on our software downloads page.

Learning Dreamweaver

Training classes for students in Dreamweaver are offered most semesters. Check the Student Training schedule for the current offering. Faculty should check the Faculty Training page for training information.

Refer to the Dreamweaver tutorial created by the Office of Educational Technolgy.

Some web resources to help you with Dreamweaver are:

Webmonkey Dreamweaver Walk-through: Written back when Dreamweaver 1.2 was the current version, but it will still get you started.

Macromedia Support Pages: A wealth of information, especially about the more advanced features of Dreamweaver.

Learning HTML

If you'd rather use HTML to create your web pages, you'll only need a text editor. UltraEdit is a text editor available on all public lab machines and employee machines. It has HTML syntax highlighting and a toolbar button which will open the current page in a browser for previewing. Open UltraEdit by clicking Start > Programs > UltraEdit > UltraEdit-32 text editor.

A good free HTML editor which you can download for your home or dorm machine is HTML-Kit.

There are several good tutorials on the web for learning HTML. A few are:

• HTML Help by the Web Design Group: Your one-stop-shop for HTML help, including links to dozens of tutorials.
• Sizzling HTML: Covers more advanced topics

Once your pages are created you should ftp everything to your web account. The world will then be able to view your site by going to the appropriate URL.

The URL of your web page

If your main page is called home.html and you place this file at the top level of your web account, the URL of this page will be:

Student with network logon smithj:

      http://webpub.allegheny.edu/student/s/smithj/home.html

Employee with network logon jsmith:

      http://webpub.allegheny.edu/employee/j/jsmith/home.html

Department with network logon english (or english was requested for URL):

      http://webpub.allegheny.edu/dept/english/home.html

Group with network logon gap (or gap was requested for URL):

      http://webpub.allegheny.edu/group/gap/home.html

If you name your main page index.php you can shorten your URL by leaving off the name of the page:

      http://webpub.allegheny.edu/student/s/smithj/

You may also substitute spider, webs, or studentweb for the word webpub in the URL's above, eg:

       http://spider.allegheny.edu/group/gap/home.html

 

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