EDIT 772 home page

News 10/18/99

1. Readings: - for next time, I need you to read my two pages on forms at

www.nvcc.edu/home/nvwillj/html-forms/
www.nvcc.edu/home/nvwillj/html-forms/form_codes.htm

One page shows form elements and their names. You need to learn these names. The other page shows the HTML code for each element. It's useful to learn these.

These are only about how to make form elements; to learn a bit about activating them, follow the link on the first page in the section "Technical info on form processing."  More clearly, that would be this page:

www.nvcc.edu/home/nvwillj/html-engagement/email.htm

If you're rusty on table-coding, please review my site on tables sometime - these 10 or so codes are crucial to page building:

www.nvcc.edu/home/nvwillj/html-tables/

And I mentioned making pages friendly to search engines in some of your comments, but didn't get to it in class.  Here's that link-

www.nvcc.edu/home/nvwillj/html-engagement/search_engines.htm

Last: a few folks are leaning towards frames.  They should have a look at my site on frames at

www.nvcc.edu/home/nvwillj/html-frames

..particularly the section on "Why Don't More People Use Frames?"  If you're not interested in frames, don't worry about this.

2. Presentations - In two weeks, everyone will need to give a brief five minute presentation on some useful resource for web-building (5 mins x 20-odd students = about 2 hours - we'll need to move briskly). These are really informal, but if some guidelines, help, here they are

Some things that might be helpful could include

3. What to do with Dreamweaver now- We had an introduction to DW this evening, and we covered a lot. You may have one of these reactions

Awesome! I love Dreamweaver! Should I buy the program?
The 30-day trial from Macromedia is fully functional, so you don't have to buy it immediately. But sure, if you like the program, $99 academic price (available in the GMU Bookstore) seems like a good buy. There are a lot of advanced features (we'll use it exclusively in the spring semester advanced class) so it's hard to outgrow the program. And although there really is no accepted industry standard HTML editor, DW seems to be the closest thing to it. So sure - buy it.

Yikes! I hardly understand AOLPress! Do I have to learn DW, too?

No. You have to learn to make a web site - most HTML editors you can use are fine with me. If you like AOLPress, use it. It works fine with Dreamweaver, too by the way - you can use both programs on your site if you like (I do this all the time). If you like Claris HomePage, use that.If you like Netscape Composer, well, try to wean yourself away from it - without code editing, it's pretty limited, but o.k. if that's what you need to get going. FrontPage? Uh...do yourself a favor and don't use it. It'll give you ten times the headaches it is supposed to solve. MS-Word or Powerpoint (or some other converted program)? No; these are converters, not editors.

4. One more bit about setting up sites in Dreamweaver

I've said a couple of times that you need to save all of your stuff - graphics, html files, everything - inside your edit772 folder on your disk. Dreamweaver really, really increases the importance of this. When you define a site, everything has to be inside (or below) that site's folder. Things that are outside the site's defined folder can't be used. E.g. if your disk has these folders...
a:\edit772
a:\graphics

...and you've defined your site as a:\edit772, you can't really use the graphics in your 772 work. Solution? Cut and paste the folder "graphics" into the folder edit772.

Advanced users tip: If you're working on a site that you want to use outside of our class (e.g. a portfolio site, or a site for work), then you can set it up as a separate site outside of your edit772 folder.
a:\edit772
a:\portfolio

Just be sure that all of the stuff you want for your portfolio (or other site) is in the portfolio folder - all your graphics for your portfolio, and all your html files. Then you'll define a second site as a:\portfolio. This is normal - I have about a dozen sub-sites defined for my home page.

All your edit772 stuff will be in its folder, and your long-term portfolio site will be in its folder (and each will be mostly inaccessible to the other, which is o.k. - long term, you will use your portfolio site but not your edit772 site). To link from your edit772 schedule page to your portfolio, you'll just have to hand-code one link.

9/22 - The homework from Monday night was a bit lengthy, so here it is, listed out:

1. Pick a tentative final project idea.  E-mail me what you've got in mind - jwilliam@gmu.edu

2. Assignment 2 should be a page with graphics on it somewhere - there aren't any other requirements.  However if you'd like to practice your HTML graphics skills, you could (and these are just options)

+ put on at least one regular graphic, like this (Element/Image menu in AOLPress).  Some places to get graphics that we looked at included
  1. cooltext.com
  2. gifworks.com
  3. webclipart.about.com
  4. Library of Congress (www.loc.gov) - American Memory - memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/finder.html

Remember: Always save everything to the edit772 folder on your disk

+ make a graphic of your own at #1 or #2 above

+ link a graphic.  Select the graphic (double-click or hold Shift and push an arrow key), and go to Element/Link and type in a URL -  

If you don't want the blue border, set the image properties to zero in the code  -

<IMG SRC="check.gif" WIDTH="18" HEIGHT="18" border="0">

- or select the graphic and go to Element/Image and un-check the "Show Link Border" option

+ use a background tile, such as one from www.mediabuilder.com/graphicsback.html

+ and if you were really adventurous, you could make an image map by following my directions.  If that gets complicated, let it alone for now.  Once you see it done in class you'll get the hang of it.

3. Learn the 10 or so tags in table coding

4. Look at the template examples.  Mentally settle on one of these or one of your own for your final project

5. Look at the browser-safe color chart.  Mentally pick a few colors your final project - a main color(s) and a couple of accents

Note: Your assignments need to be stored in the edit772 folder of your floppy disk, and linked to to your assignments page (the file "index.html" in the edit772 folder on your floppy disk).

If you've made an assignment (and saved it into your edit772 folder on your floppy disk), but aren't sure how to link it,

1. open the file A:\edit772\index.html from your floppy disk

2. scroll down to 9/27 and highlight (click and drag or Shift-Arrow keys) "Assignment 2"

3. go to the Element/Link menu.  Select Browse, then double-click on your filename for assignment 2. Then select OK



4. After you've linked everything and saved it, you need to connect to mason.gmu.edu and upload your whole edit772 folder.  Uploading won't go smoothly for everyone yet, so you can bring your floppy to class and upload it 9/27.  Just be sure you've got the assignment done and linked on your disk, and always

keep everything inside the edit772 folder on your floppy