Setting up a web site
All prices are in GBP: Great Britain Pounds - unless shown otherwise.
Two thing to keep in mind
Short names
Try to keep your domain names as short and as easy to remember as possible:
MYRABBITS.COM
is better than
THERABBITSINNORTHEASTLEICESTERSHIRE.COM
Small files
Remember that a very large number of visitors to your site will not have broadband.
Nothing makes a modem user scream more than a site which uses fancy flash graphics, has huge images and plays elaborate pieces of music.
Never use Flash graphics - they are the ultimate in bad taste. Flash is only used by "professional" graphics designers who want to impress other graphics designers.
Must modem users will not wait for large files to download - they will not bother to read your site at all!
Use thumbnails for your images - the reader can then click on the ones he is interested in so you can link to the larger version.
Try not to use sound or music - people using the Internet are often in the company of others and your music will just annoy them and everyone else.
Try to keep the files small if you absolutely must use sound.
Finding an available domain name
The best place to find out what domain names are available, and details of who owns existing domain names, is:
UK2.NET
Advice: use this site to check availability but do not use it to purchase domain names.
Purchasing a domain name
See the next section about buying your first domain name.
The best place to purchase subsequent domain names is:
www.just-the-name.co.uk
Advice: use this site for purchase because their system is much more flexible than UK2.NET when it comes to redirected email and web site links.
As of November, 2005 a .COM costs about 16.00 GBP per year - less per year if you purchase a domain name for a longer period.
Finding and purchasing web space
You do not need separate web space for each domain name you may have.
One set of web space can be shared by dozens of different domain names.
A recommended supplier of web space is:
www.plugsocket.co.uk
They provide a huge amount of space for about 25.00 GBP per year. They also support PHP scripting (see below) and provide multiple email addresses.
Your first domain name/site
You will need to purchase your first domain name/site from Plugsocket so that you can get the initial site set up.
From then onwards, you can purchase as many domains as you like and redirect them (via just-the-name) to folders in your Plugsocket web space.
You can also redirect email for your other sites to the addresses that come with your Plugsocket web space (or to any other email address you may have.)
Scripts
If you want to do any "clever" stuff you may wish to use scripts as well as HTML web pages.
The best language for writing scripts is PHP - and you can find all about it at www.php.org.
Resources: books and software tools
Books
If you can stand being patronised by a publisher who picked an awful name for a series of books, then the "Dummies" books are really very good.
There are books on creating web pages, using HTML version 4, creating PHP scripts and everything else you could ever want for web site development/maintenance.
You can find out more at www.dummies.com.
Uploading to the web site
Your web site is uploaded and maintained using a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) program.
Your web space provider will have provided you with an account name and password to allow the FTP program to access your web space.
An excellent (and free!) FTP program is Core FTP Lite and you can find details at www.coreftp.com.
Editing web pages and scripts
You can use fancy (and expensive) web page editing software if you wish.
However, HTML is a very simply language and you can edit .HTM files using any ASCII text editor - even Windows NotePad (don't try it in Word though - things will go wrong!)
The best of all editors for HTML, scripts and style sheets (.CSS files) is UltraEdit (about US$40) - you can find out more at www.ultraedit.com.
"Including" standard parts for all web pages
All pages on a web site should have a similar "look at feel" so that the reader quickly becomes comfortable using the site.
This means that all pages should have common material at the start and end of each page.
Unfortunately HTML does not have an INCLUDE command to include other .HTM files anywhere within a new file.
The PAGEGEN.EXE program (contact us for a copy) makes up for this:
- Create a new folder for your web site. (For example: c:\mysite).
- Create a sub-folder to contain your images. (For example: c:\mysite\images).
- Create a sub-folder to contain your "raw" pages. (For example: c:\mysite\pages).
- Create and edit your web pages in the raw pages sub-folder - never edit the files in your web site folder.
- Copy PAGEGEN.EXE to your raw pages sub-folder.
- Create any pages to wish to include as .HTM files. (For example: PAGETOP.HTM and PAGEBOTTOM.HTM).
- Add the INCLUDE command wherever you need it. For example:
<INCLUDE> pagetop.htm
.... rest of HTML page goes here ....
<INCLUDE> pagetop.htm
- When you have created a new page, or edited an existing one, double click on PAGEGEN.EXE - this will automatically generate your final pages in your web site folder.
Note: PAGEGEN.EXE processes ALL raw pages (.HTM and .HTML files) so you do not have to pass it any filenames.
This means that you can make a change to any of the include files (for example PAGETOP.HTM), double click on PAGEGEN.EXE and all your final pages will be updated with the modified text.
To see how this works:
- Right click on this page (the one you are reading)
- Select View source
- Everything before the first <H1> line came from a PAGETOP.HTM file
- Everything after the last <H5> line came from a PAGEBOTTOM.HTM file
- These two included files set up the page and display the banner, menu, copyright line and images on the right-hand side.
Style sheets
Cascaded Style Sheets (.CSS files), referenced by every page on your site, provide a way to give your site a common look at feel.
This is the .CSS file used by this site:
#PAGEHEADER { height: 75; background-color: #000060 }
#LEFT { line-height: 225% }
BODY { margin: 0 0 0 0 }
H1 { margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 4pt; font: 18pt Arial Black; color: black }
H2 { margin-top: 8pt; margin-bottom: 4pt; font: 14pt Arial Black; color: #008; border-top: thin solid #E0E0E0 }
H3 { margin-top: 5pt; margin-bottom: 5pt; font: 12pt Arial; color: #008; font-weight: bold }
H4 { margin-top: 8pt; margin-bottom: 4pt; font: 14pt Arial Black; color: #008 }
H5 { margin-top: 8pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; font: 8pt Arial; color: black; text-align: right; border-top: thin solid #E0E0E0 }
BODY, P, TABLE, UL, OL, LI { font:10pt Arial; color: black }
P { margin-top: 5pt; margin-bottom: 5pt }
UL, OL, LI { margin-top: 1pt; margin-bottom: 3pt }
UL, OL, LI, P { line-height: 110% }
TABLE { border: 0}
A { text-decoration: none; color: #008; font-weight: bold }
A:HOVER { text-decoration:underline; color: #000 }
So, every line containing the <H1> ... </H1> pair would have no margin before it, a 4 point margin below it, use the Arial Black font in 18 point and be coloured black.
Every line containing the <H5> ... </H5> pair would have an 8 point margin before it, no margin below it, use the Arial font in 8 point, be coloured black, be aligned to the right of the page and have a thin solid border line before it. (This is the line containing the copyright statement at the bottom of the page.)
Click right on this page and select View source to see how the style sheet is called up at the beginning of the HTML page and to see how the various items in the style sheet are used throughout the page.
Web site rules
- Go for the shortest and most easily remembered domain name.
- All files should have lowercase filenames - Linux webservers are case-dependent.
- Use a common page top/bottom so that all pages have a common look and feel.
- Use a CSS style sheet to define a common layout.
- Always have the site name or organisation name on every page - so the user always knows which site he is on.
- Always provide a contact page so readers can comment on the subject of the site and the site itself.
- Provide a simple navigation menu, and stick to it - don't change it from page to page.
- Do not use more than one font (well, maybe a second one for headings) - otherwise it becomes a mess.
- Do not use lots of different colours - keep the layout in the CSS file.
- Never change a font in the HTML page - keep the font definitions in the CSS file.
- Use bold to highlight key words or phrases - underlining gets confused with links (both would be really bad taste!)
- Do not use Flash graphics - remember, your visitors may not have broadband.
- Do not use large images - use thumbnails and links instead.
- Do not use more that three levels of heading and sub-headings - keep it simple!
- Do not try to do anything "clever" - even professional graphics designers can turn the simple into a mess.
- Never use frames - many browsers cannot handle them properly and they soon clutter the user's screen when links are followed.
- Make full use of the screen. Web sites started using the full screen, then they went to frames (bad move), then they restricted themselves to the 800 pixels in the centre of the screen. With larger and larger screens this is wasting valuable space.
- Avoid clutter. A page that tries to contain too much is totally confusing. Look at ISP portals for bad design.
- Keep pages simple and short.
- Precis, precis, precis - maybe this is not taught anymore but a web site demands that you avoid the waffle and cut directly to the substance.
- Bullet points. These clarify ideas and get messages across quickly. Some people like to go on and on and on - bullet points stop that.
- A good web site should be simple in design and should represent substance over style. The other way round impresses no-one.
An example: four domains sharing web space
This example shows what might be on your local hard disk when one domain name is used for your web space and three other domain names are redirected to different folders within it.
Obviously the words SITE2 - SITE3 would be replaced with something more meaningful - perhaps the domain names themselves.
This structure is uploaded to your web space without the pages sub-folders - these are only used for creating/editing web pages on your hard disk - not on the web space.
C:\MYWEBSITE (Final pages for first site)
C:\MYWEBSITE\IMAGES (Images for first site)
C:\MYWEBSITE\PAGES ("Raw" pages for first site - and the PAGEGEN.EXE program)
C:\MYWEBSITE\SITE2 (Final pages for site 2)
C:\MYWEBSITE\SITE2\IMAGES (Images for site 2)
C:\MYWEBSITE\SITE2\PAGES ("Raw" pages for site 2 - and the PAGEGEN.EXE program)
C:\MYWEBSITE\SITE3 (Final pages for site 3)
C:\MYWEBSITE\SITE3\IMAGES (Images for site 3)
C:\MYWEBSITE\SITE3\PAGES ("Raw" pages for site 3 - and the PAGEGEN.EXE program)
C:\MYWEBSITE\SITE4 (Final pages for site 4)
C:\MYWEBSITE\SITE4\IMAGES (Images for site 4)
C:\MYWEBSITE\SITE4\PAGES ("Raw" pages for site 4 - and the PAGEGEN.EXE program)
© 2006 UK Secularists
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