tag. Two or more
s will be
treated like multiple spaces - only the first will be used.
A paragraph of text.
Another paragraph. In this example, the
tag tells the browser a new paragraph has started. There are occasions when you will come across a
tag. You can ignore it for now. Links (pointing to other web pages) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The next thing to look at is links. Links allow you to jump from one page to another, not necessarily in the same user directory, or even site! A link (or anchor) is denoted by the token "A". This token is more complex than the previous one, as it has some extra parameters inside the "<>"s. An example link is : To find some information, click here The HREF indicates where the link is going to go. If you were to insert this into the HTML file, the "here" text would be coloured blue, and underlined. You can have links to other pages inside your directory very easily. For example, the lines : and would be the same, and would also have the advantage that you can test out your web pages before putting them on our web site, using Voyager's web browser. These references could also be to email addresses, for example, you could use : ArgoNet Technical Support which would create a link on the text ArgoNet Technical Support, so that when you click on it, an e-mail window will appear. Images ~~~~~~ Images form a major factor of web pages. You can place images onto your web pages, using the token "Img". This token is used in a similar fashion to the link token, in that it takes other parameters. An example link would be :
The SRC extra parameter is where the image is stored. The ALT parameter is
some textual element which is displayed if the web browser has images turned
off, or it is a text-only browser.
Note that images should be GIF format files, and CANNOT be Acorn sprites. If
you have a sprite you wish to convert to GIF, use !WebGIF, !Creator,
SprToGIF, all of which can be downloaded from our FTP site, inside the PD
directory.
At a pinch, you could use JPEGs, but some (early) browsers do not accept
JPEGs as a file format. In general photographic-style images are best
saved in JPEG format, drawings with simple blocks of colour (such as cartoons
or simple diagrams) must be GIF format or you will get strange interference
patterns on the final image.
File names
~~~~~~~~~~
For HTML documents, you will have to adhere to some naming standards:
Under Unix, filenames are case sensitive, so "Acorn", "acorn", "ACORN" and
"AcOrN" are different files. However, there is an informal convention of
sticking to lower case filenames for HTML documents.
Like PCs, filenames can have full-stops (".") in them.
GIF files should end in ".gif", JPEGs in ".jpeg", and HTML files in ".html".
However, WebLoad II allows you to choose which convention to use -
UNIX machines have extensions like ".html", ".jpeg" but PCs use three letters
such as ".htm" and ".jpg" - you must stick to one style or the other, and
make sure that WebLoad II has been set up correctly.
When referring to them inside HTML documents, use the full-stop, but when you
are naming the file on your hard disc you have to be careful: Acorn's can't use
full-stops in filenames, you will have to replace the "." in the filename with
a "/". To demonstrate this, an image would be referenced in an HTML document as
"piccy.gif". On the Acorn machine, this is stored on your hard disc as
"piccy/gif".
The first page of your home page is called "index.html" (which would be stored
on your hard disc as "index/html"). You MUST have a file called index.html (or
index.htm, home.html or home.htm) because if you don't people will go to your
web site and just find a list of files rather than being automatically given
the first page of your site.
On previous versions of WebLoad you were restricted to one directory, and
because Acorn machines only allow 77 files in a directory this was a limit to
the size of your site unless you used a "patch" to break the 77 file limit.
However, you can now have sub-directories in your site. We recommend a limit
of nesting these no more than three deep off the main directory ("nesting"
means a directory within a directory) - as this makes it theoretically possible
to have over 35,000,000 directories we don't think this will be too limiting!
Filenames can be very long. If you want to simulate this, use !LongFiles or
X-Files, available from our FTP PD site (go to the FTP site at
ftp.argonet.co.uk and look in the directory pub/Acorn/PD/ for the index file)
If you want to find some links, or some resources for your web site, then
you could try some search engines, such as Yahoo, or Excite, and look up
graphics, or something like it. Their addresses are :
http://www.yahoo.com/
http://www.excite.com/
Testing the web pages
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Create a directory which you will put your web pages in. You will need an
HTML file called "index/html", otherwise your page won't work. All you need
to do is double-click on the HTML file. This "index.html" page is referred
to as your 'home page', because it is the first page someone looking at
your site will see.
All references within your directory shouldn't have any form of pathname at
the beginning of the reference, as shown above. These references should be
in Unix format, so that on your hard disc, a GIF file would be represented
"ADFS::HardDisc4.$.WebPages.mypiccy/gif", whereas the reference stored in
the HTML document will be "mypiccy.gif".
Note that all files are case sensitive, so you can't put it as "MyPiccy.GIF"
which would work when testing using RISC OS.
If the filename, including the extension (e.g. ".jpeg") would be longer than 10
characters, you can truncate it to 10 characters, so the file "voyager.jpeg"
would be stored in your directory as "voyager/jp". However, in your HTML code
you should use the proper version, "voyager.jpeg"
Adding binaries (archives) and text files
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can include binaries which can be FTP downloaded, for example, to
contain some software you've written you wish to release. To create the
link, use the same method for referring to other pages, ie :
To download my software, click here.
You will need to be careful with the filenames - an ArcFS archive would
have a ".arc" extension; a SparkFS archive ".zip" and a PackDir file as
".pak". If you want to put other types of files, archive them using one of
these archivers instead. It'll also make your site smaller as well.
If you want to have any text files, they MUST have the extension "/txt",
otherwise, they end up with the extension "/map" for image maps. Because of
the 10 character limit, WebPack will use just "/t" to see if you want it as a
text file, so "image/txt" and "imagine/tx" would end up as text files
(assuming they were file-typed as text files), but "imaginate/" would be an
image map file.
WebLoad II will expand known extensions to the following :
File type &695 (GIF) - /gif
File type &faf (HTML) - /html
File type &c85 (JPEG) - /jpeg
File type &fff (Text) - /map (unless it has /txt after the name)
SoTIMM will convert the further types :
File type &3fb (Archive) - /arc (ArcFS)
File type &ddc (Archive) - /zip (SparkFS)
File type &c46 (Tar) - /tar
File type &68e (PackDir) - /pak
File type &fb1 (PC .WAV) - /wav
File type &ae4 (JAVA) - /class
The example web pages
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you find that this sounds really daunting, then you can look at the
example web page included. This has all the elements you need for a typical
home page. You are free to edit it, and to view it, simply double-click on
the index/html file. If it's already in the web browser window, click on Reload.
Sending us the web pages
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
With this document, there is program called WebLoad. This will package
up your directory containing your web pages and images. Webload is a VIX
(Voyager Internet eXtension) file - if you are familiar with this type of
program then simply install this and put the keycode you should have been given
into the relevant space on the choices window. If you're not familiar with
this procedure, or if you need further instructions with the setting up or use
of this program then go to the web page at http://www.argonet.co.uk/Webload/
When you have uploaded your pages, and depending on how you have configured you
copy of Webload II, you can see a link to your page by going to the following
web page: http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/
The date and time your site was last modified, along with a short message of
your choosing, will be displayed.
Please note that the files MUST be the correct file type - GIFs are filetype
&695, JPEGs are &C85, and HTML pages are &FAF. !WebPack will use this to
determine what extension to add, if the correct one has been truncated.
Because WebLoad II keeps track of you web site, once you have uploaded your
site once, any subsequent uploads will only be the files that have changed.
You will be emailed when your site has been uploaded, telling you the date and
time it was updated and the total size of your site. It should only take about
half an hour between the completion of you uploading your web pages and them
appearing on you web site, but this depends on how much you are uploading and
how many other people are doing the same thing. If your pages do not appear
within half a day or so it could be because the upload was corrupt, or because
the automated system for processing files has stopped working - email
support@argonet.co.uk in this case.
Validating the web pages
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There are a number of servers available which will take your uploaded web
pages, and validate them. These are generally very fussy, and will give
errors for the slightest of problems.
One of these can be found at :
http://ugweb.cs.ualberta.ca/~gerald/validate/
There's an FAQ also accessible from this site regarding the vaildator. There
are also a number of programs which will do this job for you on your Acorn -
look at the Support web pages and visit the software section for more
information.
Finally
~~~~~~~
The world wide web is a large beast, and there is a huge wealth of
information available on it. If you want people to look at your page, then
try to make it look pretty, or unusual. If it looks bad, conversely, you
may even end up on someones "worst sites to visit" list!
If you want, you can register your page with a search engine, so that other
people can access it, and you could add it to the bottom of your signature,
so when you post on newsgroups, or e-mail people, others can visit it.
If you want more information about such items as web counters, forms,
or stores of ready-made images, then please visit the Support web pages
and look at the Web section.