Move into the Neighbourhood! Build Your Own Home Page Now! | Become a citizen | Move into the neighborhood | | Citizen Responsibilities | HTML References and editing tools | Every effort has been made to explain instructions as simply as possible. Our approach is designed to meet the needs of most of our clients. You do not have to be an ace surfer to be able to make good use of the instructions which follow. We hope you enjoy. The first step explains how to build your home page easily, using tools that have been put to the test by our team of Internet specialists. The second step shows you how to check your Web page using your browser. The third step provides directions for how to transfer what you produce to your friendly neighbourhood server. Your home directory will go by the same name as your pseudonym and will be c reated only minutes after your profile has been accepted. Have fun building! Please feel free to contact us with any comments you may have. THE FIRST STEP: Building a web page-as simple as one, two, three! Relax! You’ll be surprised how easy it all is! Whatever level of knowledge you have, creating your own Web page is as simple as one, two, three. In fact, we have set out the instructions according to a range of different options. Just pick the path which suits you best to move into your new neighbourhood. Are you a beginner who has no interest in learning how to code? Would you like to learn how to code but need a little push in the right direction? Would you like to go a little bit deeper? Would you like to tackle coding right from the start? Are you not even interested in creating your own page? Whatever path you take, you must save your file on the hard disk with either a ".htm" or ".html" extension. Your home page must be saved under "index.html" or "home.html". In addition, we strongly suggest that you name your files using all lowercase letters and avoiding all accent marks Are you a beginner who has no interest in learning how to code? Believe us, you don’t have to be an expert in HTML programming. You only need the right tools! Thanks to a variety of available software, you’ll hit the nail on the head without even coding a single line of HTML. You say you’re all thumbs? Not with the right tool, you’re not! Would you like to learn how to code but need a little push in the right direction? Believe it or not, HTML coding is within your reach, even if you haven’t learned the basics of programming. There are a whole range of tools available to teach you the ABCs of programming while also automatically genera ting your home page template in HTML. Afterwards, you can update your page as often as you like. We have selected a number of HTML references to help you along your way. Would you like to go a little bit deeper? Do you feel you’re far enough along in HTML coding? Then you’re ready for CGI programs and advanced functions. Hit counters, email forms and image maps are now wit hin your reach, especially if you have already built your own Web page template. Would you like to tackle coding right from the start? Using a tool can certainly simplify your work, but it may not be necessary. If you want to get down to the nuts and bolts of building your Web page now, all you really need is a text editor. NotePad (PC) or SimpleText (Mac) will do the job. However, you will need to be familiar with HTML language. We have selected some HTML references that may come in handy. Are you not even interested in creating your own page? If you would rather turn things over to a professional, the Internet yellow pages offers loads of listings of information highway specialists who can help you create your Web page. The following resources can also be consulted on the Web: Carrefour.net : création de pages Web la Toile du Québec : édition W3 Visionary Designs Developers Consortium THE SECOND STEP: How to check your web page using the browser of your choice Before you display your page for the whole world to see, you’ll have to perform a number of careful checks. At least if you want to fly your colours proudly! If you have used a WYSIWYG editor (WYSIWYG stands for What You See Is What You Get) then you have already seen your creation at each stage of the building process. Otherwise, you can use your browser to view the results. Whatever path you have taken, your browser will enable to check if your links work A-okay. You only have to type in the address of your home page in the space where you normally enter the URL address of the site you want to visit. For example, if you have named your home page "index.html" and you wish to save it in the "mypage" index on the hard disk of your computer, you only have to type in: "file:///C/mypage/index.html". (In Mac language, folder is the same thing as /C/mypage/ in Windows lingo.) Of course, you can’t please all of the people all of the time. Sometimes, however, it’s worth a bit of an effort to make your page more "popular." You may want to test your web site using more than one browser. Remember that two the most widely used browsers are Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer. Certain standards have been adopted throughout the industry, meaning that most browsers are quite compatible with one another. However, you may notice several differences between various types of software. You might want to include a short note to visitors informing them which browser(s) work best with your page. When you are satisfied with your page, your fellow Web neighbours will be too. You can now move on the third step in complete confidence. THE THIRD STEP: Uploading your web page Note: Before you begin the third step, make sure you sign on as a neighbour in your local community. Your home directory will go by the same name as your pseudonym and will be created only min utes after your profile has been accepted. To finally see the Web page you just created locally on Internet, you have to upload it onto the server. This is what the famous expression "client and server" is all about. The client is the user’s computer whenever it requests a service-in this cas e, accessing a home page from the user’s home via a modem connection. The server is the computer hosting Web sites for the community. It is the location where the home page can be read by the client. To transfer, you will need to use FTP (File Transfer Protocol). Here again, you can choose the path which best suits you: You already have a FTP tool You would like to use the FTP integrated into the Netscape Navigator You would like to use the FTP integrated into the Microsoft Internet Explorer You would like to see our suggestions for PC You would like to see our suggestions for Mac Whatever path you have taken, don’t forget: To name your home page "index.html" or "home.html" (the "htm" extension is also acceptable). To transfer all the documents your refer to in your page, for example: supplementary HTML pages, images (gif or jpeg), or any other multimedia document. When transferring your files, to send your HTML files in ASCII format and your images in binary (both are musts, or near-musts). Almost all FTP software comes with an automatic pre-selection option for making the necessary file extensions. Simply configurate accordingly. To name both image and HTML files using lowercase letters and avoiding all spaces and accent marks. FTP software very often has an option that allows you to remedy this common mistake (i.e., on WS_FTP, the command "force lowercase", under the menus Options and Session Options. You already have a FTP tool If you already have a FTP tool and you are familiar with how to use it, the only additional information you need to supply is: the Host Name: pages.videotron.com the User ID: your vlxxxxxx account ID the Password: the one you selected for your vlxxxxxx account You would like to use the FTP integrated into the Microsoft Internet Explorer If you simply want to upload a new file, or a file which has the same name as a file which is already in your directory, the FTP integrated into Microsoft Internet Explorer will do the job nicely. Just type in the address of your page with the prefix "ftp", as follows: Be sure to enter your account ID and your account password in the appropriate fields. Your password is thus part of the ftp address you just typed in. No confirmation is provided for this password. ... Replacing vlxxxxxx by you VL account number and mon_mot_de_ passe by the password related to this account. Since the password becomes part of the ftp adress, there will not be any confirmation for the password entry. Then you will see the contents of your directory on the server. At that point, you can upload a file from your computer onto the server. Note: Since this method of sending passwords does not use asterisks, it is not yet totally foolproof. Microsoft is currently at work on a forthcoming version of Explorer in which ftp can be used more safely. Our suggestions for PC The software we recommend for FTP uploading are listed in the tools section. The most popular programs are WS_FTP (Windows) and Fetch (Mac). The following WS_FTP pop-up window displays the typical parameters you have to configure in order to access the server: You can make the Profile Name anything you want, as long as you can remember it! The other home page parameters you must set are: the Host Name, or the name of your server; the Host Type, which is Sun Solaris; your User ID, which is the same thing as your Account listing; and the Password, which will appear as a series of asterisks when you enter this information. The other fields are optional. If you feel like fine-tuning your WS_FTP configuration, check out the available online information (readme.txt)! Once you have entered these parameters, save your configuration by clicking on "Save", located toward the top and centre of the window. While you’re in the process of configuring, WS_FTP may display "Connection Closed" or "Connection Reset" because th e FTP connection was inactive. Don’t panic! To reconnect, all you have to do is click on the lower left button displaying "Close" or "Connect". Our suggestions for Mac The following is an example of the Fetch confinguration on Macintosh. Once launched, Fetch will display a dialog called "New Connection". To put your documents on the server, first you have to enter the address pages.videotron.com in the field shown as Host, followed by your User ID (vlxxxxxx) and your Password in the appropriate fields. A series of bullets (·) will display when you enter your password, which should be the same as the password you use to connect to Internet via Videotron. If anything appears in the field for Directory, you can go ahead and erase it. Then, click on "OK" to connect. If you don’t feel like configuring Fetch every time you want to connect to your Web site, create a shortcut. Simply select the "New Shortcut" option in the "Customize" menu of Fetch. Once you have entered these parameters, save your configuration by clicking on "Save", located toward the top and centre of the window. While you’re in the process of configuring, Fetch may display "Connection Closed" or "Connection Reset" because the FTP connection was inactive. Don’t panic! To reconnect, all you have to do is click on the lower left button displaying "Close" or "Connect". While you’re at it, why not configurate the dialog at Bookmark Editor? Enter "My Web Site" (or some other name more to your liking) at Name. Select "Folder" from the Type menu. If nothing appears in the other fields, enter "pages.videotron.com" at Host , and your User ID and your Password (only if you want) in the appropriate fields. This shortcut will allow you to use Fetch to connect directly to your Web site from the following locations: the Shortcuts menu located under "New Connection", which can be accessed from the "File" menu the Windows: Fetch Shortcuts menu the File: Open Shortcut menu The following is another way to bookmark the path to your Web site. First, connect to your site via the "New Connection" dialog under the "File" menu. Make sure not to select any file, and then click on "Save Bookmark", which appears under the "File" menu. Indicate the location on your hard disk where you want to store this bookmark, and click on "Save". From now on, you can use this bookmark to access your Web site by double-clicking on its the location you selected to store it under in "Finder". Important!! When you send GIF or JPEG images by Fetch, you must transfer this information as raw data. To send a file, click on Put File... Once the image has been selected on your hard disk, the following dialog will display: It’s important to change the Format to "Raw Data" before clicking on "OK" to send the image. If you don’t want to have to specify the format each and every time, configurate Fetch so that "Raw Data" is selected by default. To do so, first open the "Customize" menu and select "Preferences". Then click on the "Upload" tab and then select "Raw Data" in the "Default non-text format" menu. Then, click on "OK" to save the preferences selected. There you have it. Now you have learned the ABC of Web page design. If any one of these steps still isn’t clear to you after reading this guide, be sure and let us know!