Web Tools Reference
There are a number of different tools that you can use for creating and
editing Web pages. These tools range in price, complexity, and features.
For this course you will only need basic features. You will need:
 | Ability to view and edit HTML. |
| Control over the HTML code to add PHP scripts. |
| Spelling checker. |
We are not going to do:
| Frames or Dynamic HTML |
| Sophisticated graphics, image maps, or client side programming (Java,
Javascript, etc.). |
Here is a summary of some acceptable options:
| Text Editors like Ultra Edit
(recommended, be sure you get the 32 bit version), Notepad or Wordpad allow you to edit HTML. |
| Netscape Composer provides a basic page development environment.
Note that automatic upload using PUT may not work. |
| Microsoft Front Page Express (available free) provides
the basic Web page editing functions from Front Page. |
| Front Page 2000 can be used as a page editor, see FP
Notes below. |
| HTML Editors like SoftQuad's HotMetal. |
| Options for both Windows and Mac:
 | Adobe Go Live, Web site management tool |
| Macromedia Dreamweaver (specify Passive FTP) |
| AOL Press free tools |
|
Note:
| Adobe Page Mill, at least in the version on the lab machines, does not
work because it will not
allow scripts in .php pages. |
| Front Page 98 (or earlier) and the Mac version are not recommended. |
| NetObjects Fusion can be used as an HTML editor only. Many Fusion
functions are Windows NT specific and not compatible with our server. |
| Microsoft Office, Word, Publisher, etc. can save documents as
HTML files. They tend to put a lot of junk in the HTML. |
Many of the authoring tools provide the ability to automatically publish your
files to the Web server, however:
| Even with the automated tools, you will should have FTP software to view
file information on the server. |
| Publishing using HTTP PUT (Netscape Composer) may not work with AOL
server. |
Photo Programs
If you are include any photos in your Web you may need a program to change
the size, adjust the color, etc. Make sure your program includes:
| The ability to generate Web formats like JPEG (.jpg) and GIF.
Programs that only support Bit Map (.bmp), TIFF, EPS, or PCX formats aren't
useful. |
| Support for Web safe colors. |
Here are some of the available options:
| Adobe Photoshop, the high end photo manipulation program. Good news,
available on many machines at USF; bad news, it may be hard to learn. |
| Adobe Photoshop Elements, a light version of Photoshop. |
| Microsoft Image Composer, included free with Front Page (install from the
second FrontPage CD). A
powerful image program with a really cryptic user interface. Read the
Help instructions to figure it out. |
| Microsoft Photo Draw 2000 included in some versions of Office. |
Note regarding File Names
The server we are using for this class is running the Linux operating system.
Linux uses different file naming rules that Windows or Macintosh. See the file
name rules on page ref-ftp.htm.
Be sure your filename includes the correct extension:
| .htm for HTML pages |
| .php for pages that contain PHP scripts |
Many Front Page
functions require Front Page Server Extensions and will not work with your
server account. These include: Components on the menu Insert/Component, Themes,
Navigation Bar, Page Banner, etc.
Publishing using the FTP support built into Front Page 2000 does not seem to work.
You can build a disk based Web in Front Page and copy it to the server using
WS_FTP or other FTP tools.
Front Page can be used to create .php pages but there are a number of things
you have to be careful about:
- Be sure that your Windows system is set to display
file extensions.
| In Windows 98: Open Windows Explorer, on the top menu bar select View,
then Customize This Folder, select the View tab, clear the check box in
front of "Hide file extensions for known file types" and click
Apply. |
| In Windows 2000: Open Windows Explorer, on the top menu select Tools,
then Folder Options, select the View tab, clear the check box in
front of "Hide file extensions for known file types" and click
Apply. |
In Front Page, in order to save a file with the .php extension, you must
first select a Save As Type of All Files (*.*). Otherwise the file will be
saved as name.php.htm.
Click the HTML tab (bottom left part of the Page view) to
add the PHP scripting to the HTML and save the file with the .php extension.
You may get
a warning message about changing file extensions.
When using FrontPage to edit .php pages in the HTML view, PHP script enclosed
in <% %> should appear in red. Avoid having any %> within your PHP
script (even in a quoted string), as the editor incorrectly considers this to be
the end of the script.
Using Front Page to create Forms:
| Use Insert, Form, Form to create the overall form. This creates a dashed
line outlining the form areas. |
| To add fields to the form, position the cursor within the form area and
select Insert, Form, and then select the field type from the menu. |
| Switch to HTML view to edit the form and field names. You will see
something like this for the form tag:
<form method="POST"
action="--WEBBOT-SELF--"
onSubmit="">
<!--webbot bot="SaveResults"
startspan U-File="_private/form_results.txt"
S-Format="TEXT/CSV" S-Label-Fields="TRUE" --> |
| Edit this HTML to use GET and go to your page-2.php as shown below.
Use the name of your next page where page-2.php is shown and remove the
"<!--webbot ... -->)" tag. The results should
look like this:
<form method="GET"
action="page-2.php"> |
|
