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PAST MEETINGS
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2002
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Topic:
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Building A Web Site From
Scratch
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Host: |
Cathy Angus
Sidley Austin Brown & Wood, LLP
1501 K Street, NW -- 6th Floor
Washington, DC
(202) 736-8000
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Presenters: |
Pam
Thompson
Contractor to
Sidley Austin Brown & Wood, LLP
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Pam signed up for a free web host and then
built the following web site using Microsoft FrontPage. Note: any
version of FP would accomplish the same:
http://members.tripod.com/wtforum
Lisa Kautz sent a link to a very amusing
spoof on bad web design. If you have a fast web connection, you can
enjoy it at:
http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail51.html
Special thanks to Productivity Point
International for the FrontPage Introductory class gift certificate!
Jennifer Longsworth was on hand to draw Kathy Valentine's name from the hat
(actually box). Kathy's response was, "I've never won anything
before!" Congratulations, Kathy!
The following are text excerpts from her
PowerPoint presentation. If you want the entire 3 MB presentation, which has
screen shots of the web host sign up process, you can grab it from the
bottom of this page.
Topics Covered At The
Meeting
- Signing Up for a Free Web Host
- Opening Your New Site into FrontPage
- Save Time, Work Locally - How to Create a Web On Your Hard Drive
- Setting Up How Users Will Navigate Your Site: Borders versus Frames
- Creating Internal and External Links
- Creating a Template You Will Use to Create Your Other Content Pages
- Previewing Your Work
- Inserting Pictures
- Bonus topic: Creating Graphics to Use
as Buttons (Using PhotoShop)
- Using Pictures as Hyperlinks
- Creating and Modifying Tables to Control Layout
- Creating Hover Buttons
- Creating a Form and Setting Options
- Copying Your Locally Saved Files in Your Web Host Site (Yep, Copy
and Paste To The Rescue Again!)
Popular Free* Web Hosts:
* Requires display of sponsor banner ad(s) on each page
of your site or to have pop-up ad(s).
Free WYSIWYG Editors
(The following links have many
programs to choose from)
Reasons I prefer Borders
to Frames:
- Web viewer can’t accidentally bookmark the wrong thing and get only
part of a page in the future.
- "Cleaner" because if your page requires vertical scrolling,
the scrollbar will start at the top of the page, not the top of the
inner frame.
- Some browsers can’t support them.
- If people get to your site via some search engines, you could end up
with a frame-in-a-frame situation. Yikes!
Lessons I Learned The
Hard Way
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Create all your filenames in lower case and without spaces!
It will be easier on your users if they type the URL to one of your
pages. (Otherwise, your file called "excel tips.htm" will have
a URL that looks like http://www.somewhere.com/excel%20%tips.htm"
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Create your basic site on your hard drive and then copy it up to the
web host. It’s much faster.
- Create lots of folders to keep similar pages together (e.g. all class
description pages).
- Of all pages, don’t forget to title your index.htm page - it’s
what people are most likely to bookmark!
General Design Tips
- Be consistent
- Standardize
your fonts, colors, navigational links and layouts, otherwise you may
confuse your guests.- Keep each page short
- Not more than 2 screenfuls- Spell check
- Please!- Be fearful of frames
- Some browsers don’t support them and many
people just hate them- Be kind to your guests
- Flashing gif’s and never-ending music
just get annoying after about 5 seconds!- Be careful of code
- Some browsers can’t handle Java and may
lock up the guest’s browser or PC- Preview your work
- In as many browsers and resolutions as you can
- you’ll be astonished at some of the differences. Try to stay within
800 x 600 on your pages for greatest compatibility.
Design Tip Web Sites
Free Themes &
Templates
Free FrontPage Tutorial
Sites
Code Generators &
Other Tools
Troubleshooting
Resources
- FrontPage 2000 Articles Available From The Microsoft Knowledge Base
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http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=%2fsupport%2fFrontPage%2ffp2000%2ffp2karticles.asp%3fSD%3dGN%26LN%3den-us
- Publishing Outlook Calendars on the Internet or an Intranet –
http://www.slipstick.com/calendar/olpubcal.htm
Presentation
(a part of 2002.zip)
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