History of the Internet and WWW
Exercise: Hand-code your own page
Simple freeware WYSIWYG editors
Exercise: Make a page with AOLPress
HTML Basics
Jeff Williamson
Northern Virginia Community College
www.nvcc.edu/home/nvwillj/html-basics/
nvwillj@nvcc.edu
How to FTP to GMU systems
FTP or file transfer protocol is how you move files from, to, or between servers. It's the equivalent of a copy and paste command on a desktop computer. The only significant difference is that you have to specify whether the files being copied and transferred are text (or ASCII) or binary. That's it, really - it's not a complex technology.
I'll add FTP instructions for other systems as needed. For right now I'll only deal with ftp to student accounts at GMU.
First of course you'll need to have a student account. All registered students have accounts assigned to them automatically; they just need to be activated. Go to http://mason.gmu.edu/ISO/SysEng/Mason/account.html to activate your account if you haven't already.
Then you'll need to follow the directions at http://masonlink.gmu.edu/ucisweb/keywordcontent.cfm?contentid=33. (Tip: If you don't know where your telnet application is, just type telnet://mason.gmu.edu in your browser. If this doesn't work in Netscape, try Internet Explorer).
Windows 3.1 or higher users should download, install, and run WS_FTPle from http://www.ipswitch.com/Downloads/ws_ftp_LE.html.
Mac users should download, install, and run Fetch from http://www.dartmouth.edu/pages/softdev/fetch.html. I don't have access to a Mac so I can't provide directions for this immeidately, but I recall from using Fetch that it is very similar to WS_FTPle.
Choose New from the initial session dialog box, and set the 5 parameters circled below:
then click the Startup tab and set two more (Remote host must be public_html; Initial local directory is just wherever you keep your page - A:\, C:\MYPAGE, etc.)
Then you need to establish a dialup connection to GMU. Instructions for that for Win 3.1, Win 95, and Mac platforms are at www.gmu.edu/departments/ucis/help_search.html
Connect to GMU and start WS_FTPle. Select your GMU home page from the "Profile name" box shown on startup, and click OK. You'll see folder views of your homepage stored on your local machine and the folders and directories in your GMU account, and a handful of buttons denoting various file operations.
Click to select the files or folders you want to work with (Ctrl-click to select multiple files; selecting a folder selects all the files within that folder), and then choose a button for whatever you want to do.
Common problems with FTP to Mason
1. Not putting files into the public_html folder
You can establish an FTP session and transfer files, but if you don't transfer them to the public_html folder, they will not be web accessible. See the illustration for the "Startup" tab in WS_FTPle above.
2. Case mismatches
Web servers differ in case sensitivity; some are, some aren't. The Mason server is case sensitive; myfile.htm and Myfile.htm are two different files.
3. Extension mismatches
It's an easy mistake to request or link to blahblah.htm when your actual filename is blahblah.html.
4. Spaces and other illegal characters in filenames
Spaces are the most common problem and biggest no-no - instead of
my first assignment.htm
use
my_first_assignment.htm
5. Files in different directories
If you have set up your files in different folders or directories (a good idea), at some point you'll still wind up with a link to the right file, but with the wrong directory syntax. The general rules area. You can transfer to another, equal-level directory just by naming it, e.g. "cats/persian.htm"
b. You can go up a directory level by using dot-dot-slash, e.g. "../index.html"
Gory details are explained in a handout on link syntax
6. Don't forget to reload!
You can't see any changes to a page unless you reload it in your browser.(Secret Javascript tip: Javascript changes won't reload unless you cut and paste the URL in, then reload. Don't ask me why...)