Web Page Creator (WPC) 3.1 is an easy to use program for creating your own simple web pages. If you want to create your own page on the web without learning a speck of HTML, this is for you!
Getting Started
The minimum requirements of WPC are as follows...
Any Macintosh with a 68020 processor or higher, or a PowerPC processor
Mac OS 7.1 or later
512k of free RAM
If you aren’t sure if your computer meets these requirements, switch to the Finder and select About This Macintosh... from the Apple menu. If you see a picture of the Earth from outer space, or the words “System Software” followed by a number equal to or higher than 7.1, and the number next to “Largest Unused Block” is higher than 512K (1MB=1024K), you’re a-okay. However, if you have an ‘020 or ‘030 processor, you may need Apple’s Thread Manager extension installed. If your computer looks fine in the About This Macintosh... window but the program still won’t run, install Thread Manager and give it a try. You can get it at most shareware sites out there.
Wonder if WPC is Power-PC native? Well, it’s not. I really didn’t think that the speed boost PowerPC users would get would be worth increasing the size of the program, since it’s not a program that needs a lot of horsepower. But it should run just fine on any of the computers that fit the above requirements.
If your computer meets the above requirements but the program still won’t run, contact me. The info’s at the bottom of this page.
Okay, so you’ve started the program up. Now you’ll see a lot of text fields (white boxes you type text into). Fill in what you want and leave out what you don’t, then click one of the tabs at the top and fill out some more fields. If you wonder what any of the fields do, activate Balloon Help, which is in the Help menu with Mac OS 8 users and in the menu that looks like a question mark in the upper right for users of previous versions. Once you have all the stuff filled out you want, simply click the Save button at the bottom, and your page will compile! Quit WPC and open it in a web browser to see what you’ve accomplished.
Filename Notes...
In order for your web pages and images to be as widely compatible as possible, use these rules when choosing a filename (the name of the file that goes below the icon) for your web pages and images; Use only lowercase letters, don’t use punctuation (but the dash (-) and underscore (_) are okay), and make sure web pages end with “.html” and images end with “.gif” or “.jpeg” (see below). Also, whereever you are uploading your web page to might have more rules... contact them (see below again).
A note about pictures...
In order to have a picture on your web page, it must be in either GIF or JPEG format. To convert it to one of these formats, I suggest using the free program clip2gif, which you can get at just about any shareware archive. For best picture quality and small files, use GIF format for simple drawings and JPEG for complex pictures and photographs. (There are other formats for pictures on the web, but these are the most widely supported.)
Rename the file so that it has “.jpeg” at the end if it’s a JPEG, and “.gif” at the end if it’s a GIF.
Now move the picture into the same folder that your web page will be saved in, and when you go to upload your page, make sure it’s in the same folder as your page on their server as well.
Getting your page on the web
Okay, so you’ve created your page. Now how do you get it on the internet? Good question.
First, contact your internet service provider, the company that is servicing you internet. Ask them if they have web space for their members. If they say yes, ask them how to do it. Most likely, it’ll involve using an FTP program, such as Fetch, Anarchie, or NetFinder, to upload your page and image to their server (a server is a computer that serves web pages out to browsers who want to view them).
If they say no, things are more difficult. Fortunately, there are a couple companies on the internet that provide you with free web space. The four biggest are GeoCities (http://www.geocities.com/), AngelFire (http://www.angelfire.com/), Tripod (http://www.tripod.com/) and Xoom (http://www.xoom.com/). Sound familiar? You’ve probably visited sites on these companies’ servers before. I suggest using Xoom (although I’m not sure how you pronounce it), because both GeoCities, Tripod and AngelFire use pop-up advertising; that is, when you go to a site on their server, they use a special script to pop open a new window in your web browser and display an advertisement in it. This is so annoying that some people won’t even bother to visit a site anymore if they see it’s on these companies' server! Also, it is impossible to leave GeoCities. I made the mistake of joining a long time ago, but then I came to a better offer and tried to close my account, but either they won’t let me or I can’t figure out how. So they keep sending me their annoying newsletter thing...UGH!
Anyway, as you sign up to these companies, they’ll give you instructions on how to upload your files.
Once you get your page on the internet, email me the address! I want to see what people have done with my program.
Version History
1.0 through 1.3 - The earliest versions of WPC were text-only programs that ran in Chipmunk BASIC (http://www.nicholson.com/rhn/basic). They worked fine, they just weren't real pretty to use.
2.0 - Version 2 was again going to be a Chipmunk BASIC program, but it would have a graphical interface, with custom dialog boxes and other stuff hard to do in Chipmunk. It was never released, because before I finished I found REALbasic (http://www.realsoftware.com/) and started on...
3.0 (May 22, 1998) - This version was the first version that was actually a compiled program instead of a BASIC script! It did pretty much the same thing, but it was much prettier.
3.1 (June 4, 1998) - This version has the following changes...
-Nasty NilObjectException crash when you clicked Cancel after clicking Save fixed
-You can now have up to eight links instead of the original four
-Annoying progress bar and status update removed
-WPC now searches for line breaks and quotes in the Content field and replaces them with their HTML equivalent
-WPC can put a banner advertising itself at the bottom of the page, but the user can turn this off if they don't want it there.
Distribution and License Information
Web Page Creator is freeware. You can use it with absolutely no cost to you! But of course, if you want to send me anyway, that's okay... You can also distribute copies of WPC to anyone and post it anywhere...just please be sure this Read Me is included when you do.
Contact Information
If you have a problem, think you’ve found a bug, have completed a page with WPC and put it on the internet or just want to tell me how cool or pathetic my program is, don’t hesitate to contact me! Just email me at galbright@fuhsd.k12.ca.us and I’ll get back to you.
Also, the web site for all of my programs is at http://albright.home.ml.org/ If you’ve think you’ve found a bug, check here to see if it’s already been discovered by someone else before you mail me, if you can.
