Xitami 1.3c

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A Beginner's Guide

Setting-up a Web Site

General Remarks

Xitami does the same work as any other webserver (only faster and more reliably), so this section covers general information that you can probably find on the Net, in a hundred books, and in documentation for other web servers. Since you chose to look here, we'll feel free to mix our opinions with our advice.

You must of course have a good idea of 'Why?' before you start building a web site. Who is going to access it, how often, and to get what information? A web site is basically an exercise in publishing. So be prepared to spend a lot of time writing and editing material. Web sites that look like video games may be fun to build, but are usually painfully slow to work with, and don't necessarily add any value to the information you're presenting.

There are many tools that help with the process of building and managing the many HTML files you will need. However, there is no substitute for a good knowledge of HTML (which is a simple language) and for some skill in managing complexity. The shareware HTMLib library is an excellent reference for the HTML language.

You may find that a tool like MS FrontPage is ideal for managing this problem. You may alternatively prefer a more mechanical solution, such as the htmlpp preprocessor that we use for our web site. Of course, we recommend htmlpp. It's simply more open and flexible than any do-it-all environment like FrontPage. Whatever choice you make, these are some of the issues you will have to manage when you start producing dozens, then hundreds of HTML files:

• Organising the files into directories. Don't go overboard; too many directories quickly becomes an exercise in futile complexity.
• Keeping a consistent look and feel. For instance, you may want a standard header and footer for most files on the site.
• Maintaining links between files. Nothing makes a worse impact than '404 Not found' messages when people try to navigate a site (except perhaps 'Host not responding').
• Maintaining links to external sites. You can use tools to check the site, and you can use mechanisms to reduce the cost of maintaining such links (htmlpp does this well).
• Updating the site and managing versions. You'd be foolish to edit the files in place, since any mistakes would show-up right away on the site. A good approach is to make a full test site (a 'mirror'), with a separate web server, where you install and test the pages. Then, you can copy the entire site across, or individual pages using the date/time settings on each file.
• We like to make HTML sites that can be accessed without a web server. This can be very useful, with the exception of image maps and CGI, which need a server to work. Do not use full URLs when referring to other documents in the site; rather, use relative URLs, which are filenames relative to the actual page. For instance, if a document in '/html/tools' needs to reference an image file in '/html/images/cover.jpg', it can use an URL like this: '../images/cover.jpg'. If you use full URLs, you'll need a server to access the files.

Top Ten Things To Do

1. Learn HTML - use a reference like HTMLib to keep up to date.
2. Write HTML that works with all browsers, including text-only browsers.
3. Learn the basic rule of publishing: keep it clean.
4. Keep your web pages simple so that they load quickly.
5. Your home page should fit on one screen.
6. Use an HTML validator tool to check your pages.
7. Use a good tool to manage the web site files.
8. Keep a test site, and test well before you publish.
9. Use the Xitami alias functions to access other resources such as HTML-driven CD-ROMs.
10. Use the Xitami errors.log file to detect and fix link errors.

Things To Avoid Like The Plague

1. Blinking text.
2. The bells and whistles offered by proprietary extensions - these are designed to lock you and your clients into vendor-specific solutions.
3. Lots of images, unless you are building an intranet site. Images can be very useful, but cost a lot in terms of preparation, maintenance, disk space, and network transport.
4. Java, JavaScript, ActiveX, PerlScript... unless you are very aware of the costs and benefits involved. All programming is expensive, and executable content is particularly costly. not least because it relies on untested, rapidly changing technologies. Like images, executable content is most often used for flash, not to solve specific problems.
5. CGI, unless you really need it and are aware of the costs and benefits involved. Badly-written CGIs will slow-down your entire site. Good CGIs can provide a very useful level of interactivity, but you must know what you are doing.
6. Cookies. Personally, I hate cookies, and I dislike sites that try to make me accept them. If you need persistent information, use encoded URLs.
7. All web servers except Xitami - why make your web site run slower?

Installing Xitami

Xitami is quite simple to set-up -- basically it runs with no configuration at all -- but your TCP/IP set-up must work first. You can start by making a stand-alone site (a browser talking to Xitami on the same machine), then connect your system to a network and let other people access your pages. This is a checklist of things to do:

• You need a network adaptor; under Win95, this can be the dial-up adaptor, rather than a physical card.
• TCP/IP must be installed and ready to use. You need to be able to do a 'ping 127.0.0.1' from the DOS command-line. If this does not work, you need to correct the network configuration. This can be complex - get help if necessary.
• Install Xitami and start a browser, then try address 'http://127.0.0.1'. It must show the Xitami home page correctly.
• Try the various links and clickable images. Only one won't work, since it links to http://www.imatix.com/.
• To connect your computer to a network, you need to give it a fixed IP address and a domain name. This is a job for a network administrator. On a dial-up PPP connection you get a temporary IP address which can be used (eg. http://193.23.54.12/) but it changes each time you connect. Some providers will give you a fixed IP address, sometimes at extra cost.

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