Mary's Techie Tips

First -
Create a New Folder in which to save all of your web pages (html), graphics, music, videos, and anything else associated with you web pages.
Using Netscape Composer to create web pages is much like using any other word processor.

Or, Open Your Previously Created Bookmark, AppleWorks, or MS Word File
From Netscape, go to File and select Open a Page in Composer.

Go to File and select Save As. Give your file a meaningful name consisting of 8 characters and the extension of .htm and save it into the designated folder. For example

mummies.htm
texas.htm
(It's best to use all lower case when saving files for the Internet.)

HTML does not readily recognize the TAB key or multiple ENTER/RETURN presses.

• To indent a paragraph use the "Increase Indent" selection from the menu bar. 
• To outdent a paragraph, use the "Decrease Indent" selection from the menu bar. 
• To  create a bulleted list, use the "Bulleted List" selection from the menu bar. 
• To create a numbered, list, use the "Numbered List" selection from the menu bar. 
• To align an image or a paragraph left, right, or centered, use the "Change the Alignment" selection from the menu bar. 

To add a link, highlight the words that will be the link and select Insert a Link (from the menubar or click on the Link icon ). Type in the URL (address) in the URL field.

Adding a Target

A target is a designated place in a file to which you want to link. It makes navigation in long pages more efficient. Links to targets are many times placed in tables. To create a target, highlight a selection at the selected "target" position in your file. Select Insert a Target (from the menubar or click on the Target icon ).

After a target is created, create a Link to the Target.

Citing Images

According to the Fairuse Guidelines for Multimedia ,

ì6.2 Attribution and Acknowledgment:
Educators and students are reminded to credit the sources and display the copyright notice © and copyright ownership information if this is shown in the original source, for all works incorporated as part of the educational multimedia projects prepared by educators and students, including those prepared under fair use. Crediting the source must adequately identify the source of the work, giving a full bibliographic description where available (including author, title, publisher, and place and date of publication). The copyright ownership information includes the copyright notice (©, copyright holder's name, year of first publication, and All Rights Reserved. It is helpful to also include a Last Edited with date line.)

The credit and copyright notice information may be combined and shown in a separate section of the educational multimedia project (e.g. credit section) except for images incorporated into the project for the uses described in Section 3.2.3. In such cases, the copyright notice and the name of the creator of the image must be incorporated into the image when, and to the extent, such information is reasonably available; credit and copyright notice information is considered "incorporated" if it is attached to the image file and appears on the screen when the image is viewed.î

On the first page must appear the following sentence:
Certain materials are included under the fair use exemption of the U.S. Copyright Law and have been prepared according to the multimedia fair use guidelines and are restricted from further use.

Incorporating a Citation with Image

To create an image with an ìincorporatedî citation,
1. Open AppleWorks Draw document (or a MSWord document)
2. Select File to Insert the desired image.
3. From the Options menu, Turn the Autogrid Off.
4. Select the Text Tool  and type the copyright symbol (Mac: option G; PC: alt 0169)
5. Type the URL source, date and any other copyright information.
6. From the Edit menu, Select All.
7. From the Arrange menu, select Group.
8. From the File menu, select Save As...
9. Change to type from AppleWorks to GIF (if using MSWord, you will have to use a graphic converter or a program such as Microsoft Photo Editor to change the Word file to a .gif file.)

10. Save with a one word name and the extension.gif or jpg.

Saving Images from Internet

To save an image from the web (Mac), hold the mouse button down on an image, (PC) hold the right mouse button down on an image. Choose Save As... and select the folder holding your web pages, images, movies, and audio files.

Images to be incorporated into web pages work best if in the GIF or JPEG file format. If a picture is scanned or obtained from a digital camera, the resolution need not be more than 75 lines per inch (lpi), the resolution of the monitor. Images with high resolution result in larger images and take too long to download. Images saved in the bitmapped format (.bmp) must be converted to .gif or .jpg. Images can be inserted into a Draw file in AppleWorks for the Macintosh and Windows based computer and then saved as either .gif or .jpg files. Other programs that can be used on a Windows based machine are Paint Shop Pro and Microsoft Photo Editor.

Position the cursor where you want the image to be inserted. Either go to the Insert menu bar and select Insert Image or click on the Insert Image icon  on the button bar. The Image Format window will be displayed. Select Choose File and navigate to the desired image. (Remember: the image must be in the same folder with the html page into which it will be inserted.)

Important: You must delete all of the pathname inserted except the actual image name.

Example: file:///MacintoshHD/PatsyData/GRAPHICSSOUNDS/angels.jp

Once the image is inserted, the attributes (size, wrap, link, etc.) can be changed by double clicking on the image. The above Image Format window will again appear.

Sound, Video, and QTVR

Inserting QuickTime files

To make a sound file play automatically when your page is opened, the addition of tags (raw HTML) is necessary. Netscape uses the <embed> tag while Internet Explorer uses the <bgsound> tag. Below is the scripting necessary to enable the sounds to play:

<embed src="filename.mov" autostart="True" hidden="True">
<bgsound src="filename.mov">

The controller is only visible with QuickTime files. The QuickTime resource is cross platform for both Windows and Macintosh environments and plays over 80 different file formats. Other extensions (such as .wav or .mid can be substituted for .mov).
To continuously play the sounds, add these tags:

<embed src="filename.wav" loop="True" hidden="True">
<bgsound src="filename.wav" loop="infinite">

QuickTime Virtual Reality (QTVR) can be added in the same way sound and video is added. The additional attribute of size should be included:

<embed src="filename.mov"width=512 Height=342>

Tables can be inserted into a web page from the menubar Insert of by clicking on the Table icon, . Once a table is inserted into a web page, columns and rows can be inserted by selecting the Insert menubar and select Table or deleted by selecting Edit and Delete Table. Slide over to the desired option.

Parts of a table can be changed by selecting Format and Table Info. From this menu, one of three additional menus can be selected.

Cell Info Row Info Table Info
Many different formats can be selected from the Table Info selection. Choices can be made from the tabs across the top of the Table Info screen.

Finishing Touches

Page Colors

On a Macintosh, properties of a page such as the background color of the page, can be changed from the MenuBar Format -> Page Properties.
In a Windows environment, click on Format and select Page Color and Page Properties. Select Use Custom Colors and click in the rectangle to the left of Background.

Page Title

To create an appropriate title, from the Format menu, select Page Title (Mac) or Page Properties (PC) and type the desired title.

Design hints

1. Leave enough white space on your page so that it ìbreathes.î
2. Use the Enter key (not the Return) key on the Macintosh to create row spaces.
3. Use the Indent icons on the menubar to indent, not the Tab key.
4. Do not underline text or make it blue or purple unless it is a link.
5. Use the Indent icon to place graphics. However, for effective ìword wrapî around graphics, use tables.
6. Be sure there is enough contrast between the background color (or background image) and the color of the font you have used for text.
7. Too many animated GIFs makes your page ìwiggleî and sometimes irritating.
8. Sometimes ìLess is More.î
9. Spell Check!!! There is a built-in spell checker in Netscape Composer.

Alternate Characters in Windows Environment

Press the Num Lock key to toggle the numeric keypad on.
Hold the Alt key down while you press the number on the numeric keypad to get:
 

Numeric Key Pad	0149	0150	0151	0169	none	0162	0186
Result	bullet	en dash	em dash	copyright symbol	trademark	cent mark	degree symbol

Numeric Key Pad	0161	0191	0174	0145	0146	0147	0148
Result	Spanish !	Spanish ?	registered mark	Single quote	Single quote	Double quote	Double quote

Alternate Characters in Macintosh Environment
 

Option key plus	8	-	_	g	2	4	0
Result	bullet ï	en dash ­	em dash ó	copyright symbol ©	trademark ô	cent mark ¢	degree symbol º

Option key plus	1	?	r	]	}	[	{
Result	Spanish ! - ¡	Spanish ? - ¿	registered mark ®	Single quote ë	Single quote í	Double quote ì	Double quote î

Graphics and Layout by Lookit