General Considerations
Use a Page Writing Program
, I do because it is a very fast way to write pages, but do check the code before you publish it onto the Web.- In MSWord (*Ver.8 or older)click
How To open an HTML file with Notepad
Using graphics.
Use GIF files for simple graphics and line drawings, (Essential if you need a transparent background). Use JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) format for photos. Some Unix based servers reject uppercase filenames. E.G. Adobe PhotoShop saves Gif89A files as Image.GIF, which Unix will just ignore. So you need to manually alter your code with a code editor like Notepad, then rename the file to image1.gif. MSWord would name it Image1.gif, with an uppercase I, which won't work either, so rename it. This is probably the commonest cause of images that don't load. (Next to putting them in the wrong directory!) If you haven't got a fancy Photo Editing program, try double-clicking the picture file icon in My Computer. With luck it will open in M.S. Photo Editor (If you installed it!), and you can then do an Image/ Resize, on it. At the same time you can select the 'Set Transparent Colour' button, and make the background invisible. Set the image size using it's pixel size - browsers size pics by pixels. So a jpeg file with high resolution, say 300dpi, but only 1" wide will display at nearly half a 640 screen in width, and still be quite small in kb terms..Use the Alternate Labels.
Do go through your pages and put in the Alternate Labels. If someone is browsing with images turned off, they will probably need to see the Alt Tags to make any sense of your page. A second bonus is that it is a very legitimate way to build up the keyword frequency on the page, by using keywords in the ALT tags. The third bonus is, you can put across a subtle little message with it, because the Label appears when the mouse hovers over the picture. (See the Opotiki Page link below for a sample of useful messages when your mouse hovers over the links.) SYNTAX = <IMG SRC="mypic.gif" BORDER=4 WIDTH=100 HEIGHT=100 ALT="Great photo of ME" > In some Page programs, you can select the picture, and then select the properties function and edit the ALT Tag there.Check your work.
As you are composing your page, keep checking it. Hit the Save button every time you finish a bit, and then look at the page with your browser (Press 'Refresh' or 'Reload' each time to verify the changes). Page Composers display things on screen differently to Browsers.Page Loading Times
. Be aware that your computer stores web stuff in a cache so that it can reload pages quickly when you return to them. This carries the built in trap that when you are watching your page load on your own machine, it is probably getting most of it out of cache. (C:/Windows/Temporary Internet Files for I.E. and C:/Program Files/ Netscape/ Communicator/ User/ Cache for Netscape). So therefore, you won't get a true impression of the loading time. To measure it accurately, you have to publish the file to the web, clean out your cache, load the page cold just like any user would have to, and time it as you do it. Remember also that your test times should cover both peak and off-peak trials.Try both Browsers.
As part of the 'Browser War', the authors deliberately(?) cripple their programs so that various bits of code will not work on the opposition browser. This in theory makes you loyal to their browser. EG, <BLINK> (Blinking Text) works on Netscape but not on I.E., and <MARQUEE> (Scrolling Text) only works on I.E. It makes me angry, not loyal. The result is that you and I have to test our pages on both browsers, to be sure that all the features work properly, and viewers can actually read what we have written. If Netscape have got (say) 50% of the Browser market, then a page written in 'FrontPage' that is un-readable on Netscape is going to frustrate half the viewers trying to see it - Think about that, and what it might do to your (corporate?) image, before you write too many pages using FrontPage*. The page I mentioned earlier with the mammoth 628kb of graphics was written with 'FrontPage', and was pure spaghetti when viewed with Netscape.* Bill has apparently now found out about styles in web pages, so if you use MSWord Ver9 - as found in Office 2000, you will get very complicated pages, almost impossible to understand or edit. You now have the capability of making very classy pages with it, never mind that half the browsers out there won't be able to understand or handle them! Also Word thinks it knows better than you and puts the pic GIF's in strange directories, and generally makes it impossible to control the publishing process, (just like FrontPage). Use a basic editor or a simpler program, and have it do exactly what you want it to do!
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