Step By Step
Chap 2 - Page 1

If you haven't started a new blank page do so now. Click on the first icon on the first toolbar. Now that you have your blank page started you will need to define the pages properties. Click on the word format on the command line then select Page properties from the drop down menu. You will see a window with three tabs at the top.

Click on the general tab. You will see:

TITLE

LOCATION

AUTHOR

DESCRIPTION

KEYWORDS

CLASSIFICATION

You will need to give the page a title. This isn't the same as a file name. The title is the line of text that appears at the top of the browser. When giving your page a title keep in mind the size of the browser and how much text can fit on it.
Type in your page title in the white bar next to the word TITLE.

The next line is location. You can't alter this it just informs you where the page you are currently working is located.

Type your name in the white bar next to the word AUTHOR.

In the box next to the word DESCRIPTION type in a short description of your site. Try to limit yourself to 25 words or less.

The Next box is KEYWORDS. In here type a list of words separated by commas that describe all the aspects of your page's content. Some search engines use keywords to help people search for information. For example if your site was about aviation you might use planes, airplanes,jets,biplanes,aircraft,aviation,flying,.... and so on. Notice the plurals. People often use plurals when searching for a subject. If you can make a word plural by adding an S then always do so. It's not necessary to include the singular form. However if you have to change the word any other way to make it plural then include both the singular and plural forms of the word. You may want to save this to do until last. That way you better see what content your pages have.

Let's Leave CLASSIFICATION alone. It's not needed

Now click on the COLOR AND BACKGROUND tab. Again this is all optional but it will really improve the page. Under Custom Colors you will see two sections. Page Colors and Page_Background:

Page Colors

NORMAL TEXT

LINK TEXT

ACTIVE LINK TEXT

FOLLOWED LINK TEXT

BACKGROUND

LINK TEXT is the text on your page that is linked to a target on the same page or to another page or file. You can link text to any graphic, sound file, or web page you want to open.

ACTIVE LINK TEXT. The ACTIVE LINK TEXT color is the color that linked text changes to when you click on it. This text color should sharply contrast with your linked text color.

FOLLOWED LINK TEXT. The FOLLOWED LINK TEXT. is a link to a page or target you have already visited, or at least the link is in your history.

BACKGROUND. This is where you assign the background color for the page. Always assign a background color, even if you are using a background graphic. Some people don't load images when they surf the net. And be sure to test your pages with the graphics turned off so you can see if your text is legible.

Next to the use image button you will see a long white bar followed be a choose file or Browse button. A background image is the stationary for the page. If you have your graphics on you can see the background picture I am using for this page. Plan ahead when making your website Most servers will let you have sub directories. These are folders just like on your own computer, and you can store files there. If you have a lot of files this helps to separate them into categories. You might want to put your graphics in a folder by themselves, or if you have a lot of graphics like this site you may want to break the graphics down into the different types, such as: banners, buttons, bars, backgrounds, pics, etc. If you have less than 20 files then just leave them in the same folder.

You can type in the relative address or complete URL of the file you want to use for a background or you can use the browse button to find the file on your hard drive. If you use the browse button you will see the location of your file in the white bar. However it's addressing a file on your computer. Here's a little hint Communicator will sometimes print this address in your code instead of it's address relative to the parent directory. Always erase the extra typing in the white bar till it does look like it should when it's on the website.

And now for a lesson in addressing. Let's look at the different kinds of addressing.
Complete Addressing is where you type in the whole internet address of the file. As an example the Complete Address of this page is:

Relative Addressing is the address of the file in relation to the parent directory and the location of the file you are linking from. The Parent Directory is your main folder. Be sure to set up a main folder on you hard drive and keep it exactly like you want your web page. Let's look at this page as an example again. It's parent directory is www.fordpub.com.
Yours will be something like:

This page is in a sub folder called Webmaster. When you link to another file from this page you highlight the item or text and then hit the link button. In the white bar you will type in the file name you want to link to. I'll use the next page in this tutorial.

If the file is in the same folder that's all you need, but what if it was in a sub folder of the same folder. I'll use lessons as a sub folder.

Just remember to start with the folder that the current page is in. Now what if the sub folder was in a different folder, such as the background image for this page. That is kept in a sub folder that is in the parent directory

First you have to back out of the folder that the current page is in. To do that use 2 dots and a slash.

Then you have to go to the folder that the file is in.

Then the file or the next folder.

You Are Visitor number