Write Your Page

Quick Reference

HTML | Graphics | Scripts | Helpful Tips

If you want to write your own web page and have never done so before, you need to learn a little about HTML. HTML is the language that is used to create and design web pages.

HTML

There are a few ways to learn about HTML. WestNet has prepared an HTML Primer. This brief document introduces HTML and shows you the basics of the language. You may choose to view the HTML Primer online with your www browser, or download either the uncompressed or zipped postscript version (don't forget to enable your browser's "Save to Disk" mode, if required.)

Other places to find information on HTML:

HTML Quick Reference - A quick-reference guide to HTML, part of the htmlchek package (htmlchek is a program designed to check your HTML documents for syntax errors). The PERL version is installed and can be run from a UNIX prompt.
The Bare Bones Guide to HTML - A short listing of HTML tags. Good to print and keep by your computer while you work.
A Beginner's Guide to HTML - From NCSA, the people that brought you Mosaic.
The HTML Goodies Page: A great tool for learning html - used by some of our local schools!
Webmonkey: From Hotwired. Web design tips and tricks.
The HTML Writers Guild - Many documents relating to HTML and style.
Vincent Flanders has put togehter a list of Web Pages That Suck - While subjective, there are some good style tips here.
A number of HTML authoring tools are available.

Be careful, though! Netscape has added their own extentions to HTML (newest version - HTML 3.0 Extensions) While more and more browsers are supporting these extentions, be warned that not everyone will be able to read your page if you use them.

Graphics and Pictures

Adding backgrounds, graphics, animation and pictures to your web page can make it more interesting. Some places to find HTML "clip art":

Library of Icons - A list of some of the icons used in various WestNet web pages.
Library of Backgrounds - A bunch of backgrounds you can use with Netscape, copied from the Netscape server. Netscape's server has instructions on using backgrounds.

Scripts

For security reasons, we do not support user-written scripts. However, we have some general-purpose scripts available:

Add A Counter - How to add a counter to your page.
mailback.pl - How to have the results of a form e-mailed to your account. This is a simple script I wrote a few years ago.
cgiemail is a more complicated script, developed at MIT. It is more flexible, but requres a little more work to use. It is installed as http://www.westnet.com/cgi-bin/cgiemail . Click on the name to read the documentation at MIT.
popup.cgi: Use a drop-down box to select which page is next.

Helpful Tips

We suggest when writing your page to keep all code and references to links and files in lower case. Our UNIX system is case-sensitive, and this is usually the most common problem found in web design. The code calls for a file name in capital letters, and the file name is in lower case. By keeping everything in lower case, in the code and the file names, errors can be avoided.

Also, please avoid using spaces in file names. They do not always reference correctly on a UNIX system, and should not be used.

Previous Page | Next Page
Chapter Index | Help Index