When using the Internet’s World Wide Web, don’t be just a looker; be a creator! Create your own Web pages and let everybody else in the world see them!

 

The easiest way to create your own Web pages is to use a Web site called Angelfire. It’s free!

Angelfire is at www.angelfire.com. It used to be an independent company, but now it’s owned by Lycos.

Angelfire’s main competitors are Tripod (which is at www.tripod.com and also owned by Lycos), Geo Cities (which is at www.geocities.com and owned by Yahoo) and Talk City (which is at www.talkcity.com, partly owned by NBC & Hearst & Cox & Intel & New York Life Insurance & Softbank & John Sculley, and affiliated with Microsoft & Compaq & AT&T & Bell South & Borders). I prefer Angelfire because it’s the fastest, easiest, and least restrictive. If you’re adventuresome, go ahead: experiment with all four of those sites.

Restrictions

Angelfire lets you create any Web pages you wish, as long as you keep them “clean”, so they don’t contain content or links to anything that’s:

Unfortunately, Angelfire will automatically put an ad on your Web page and restrict you (to 20 megabytes of Angelfire’s disk space, with a limit of 1 gigabyte of transfers per month between Angelfire’s disk and people viewing your Web page), unless you pay extra (to get a fancier plan):

Launch Angelfire

Using your Web browser (such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator), go to “www.angelfire.com”. Here’s what to do next.…

Register

If you haven’t registered with Angelfire yet, do this:

Create a simple Web page

The computer will say “WEB SHELL”. Click “index.html” then the Edit button.

You see a form. To create a Web page, just fill in that form! It’s organized into 12 steps.

In step 1’s Background box, you see “white”. If you want your Web page to have a yellow background instead, click the box’s down-arrow then “yellow”.

Don’t bother fiddling with steps 2-4. Skip past them.

In step 5’s Title box, type the title that you want to appear at the top of your page (such as “Joan’s Home Page”).

Make step 6’s first box be blank (by triple-clicking in it and then pressing the DELETE key).

In step 7’s Title box, type the title of whatever simple list you want to put on your home page. (For example, type “Here’s a list of my favorite foods:”.) The computer assumes you want the list to include 3 items. If you want the list to include more items, change the “3” to a bigger number (by clicking the 3, then clicking how many items you want, then clicking the “refresh” button, then scrolling down to Step 7 again). Then in the numbered boxes below, type each item that you want on the list. (For example, type “ice cream” in box 1, “strawberries” in box 2, and “turkey” in box 3.)

In step 8’s Title box, type the title of whatever list of Web sites you want to put on your home page. (For example, type “Here are Web sites you might enjoy:”.) The computer assumes you want the list to include 4 items. If you want the list to include more items, change the “4” to a bigger number (by clicking the 4, then clicking how many items you want, then clicking the “refresh” button, then scrolling down to Step 8 again). Then for each pair of boxes below, type a Web address (such as “http://www.realtor.com”) in the left box and type an English description (such as “house hunting”) in the right-hand box. Make sure you type the “http://”.

In step 9’s box, type whatever paragraphs you want to put on your home page. If you’re typing more than one paragraph, separate the paragraphs from each other by doing this:

While typing paragraphs, you can use these tricks.…

Those tricks are called the HyperText Markup Language (HTML). Those tricks won’t take effect until you finish inventing your page.

Don’t bother fiddling with step 10. Skip past it.

Click step 11’s “Yes” button. Click step 12’s “Yes” button.

Congratulations! You finished filling the form!

Preview Click the “preview” button. You see how your Web page will look to the public.

At the top of the page, an ad appears. That’s how Angelfire makes money: by selling ads. The ad will change often, automatically; you have no control over which ad is shown.

Near the page’s bottom, you see a counter, which temporarily says “999999”. Later, when you finish designing the page, the counter will reset itself to 000000. Each time a person views your page, the counter will increase, so it will count how many times your page gets viewed by the public.

Below the counter, you see your e-mail address, which the public can click to send you e-mail messages.

Do you like how your Web page looks?

Click your browser’s Back button. You see the 12-step form again. To improve your Web page, make any changes you wish on that form.

Save When you’re satisfied, click the Save button.

Congratulations! You’ve created a Web page! Tell your friends! For example, if you chose “jazz” for your category and chose “joan” for your site’s name, your site’s full name is “www.angelfire.com/jazz/joan”.

You can visit the Web site I created for The Secret Guide to Computers using that method. My site’s full name is “www.angelfire.com/nh/secret”.

Edit your Web page

Afterwards, here’s how you can edit the page you created.

Using your Web browser, go to “www.angelfire.com”. Click “LOG IN”.

The computer should say “WEB SHELL”. If the computer doesn’t say “WEB SHELL” yet, do this log-in procedure:

Click “index.html” then “Edit”, then edit the 12 steps however you wish.

Extra Web pages

The first Web page you created has “index.html” at the end of the name. For example, if your site is named “www.angelfire.com/jazz/joan”, the first Web page you created is named “www.angelfire.com/jazz/joan/index.html”, though you don’t have to bother typing the “/index.html” to access it.

You can create extra Web pages. Each page’s name must end in “.html”.

For example, here’s how to create a page called “fun.html”:

Using your Web browser, go to “www.angelfire.com”. Click “LOG IN”.

Make sure the computer says “WEB SHELL”. (If the computer doesn’t say “WEB SHELL” yet, do the log-in procedure, to make the computer say “WEB SHELL”.)

Click in the Name box. Type “fun.html” then click Create. The computer will say “Create a New Page”.

The computer will offer 3 special steps, but you can ignore them and just click “Submit”.

Then you’ll see the usual 12-step form. Fill it in and then click Save.

Once you’ve done that, congratulations: you’ve created a new Web page called “fun.html”. Anybody on the Internet can access it. For example, if your site is named “www.angelfire.com/jazz/joan”, people can access your
fun.html page by asking for “www.angelfire.com/jazz/joan/fun.html”.

Better yet, make your main page link to fun.html, by mentioning “fun.html” in your main page, in form 2’s step 8 or 9. In those steps, you can mention just “fun.html” without having to type “https://www.angelfire.com/nh/joan/fun.html”.

Every page on the Internet’s Web is written in a computer language called the HyperText Markup Language (HTML).

Warning: if someone claims to know “HTML”, it could mean “HyperText Markup Language” or “How To Make Love”. Ask which!

Simple HTML programming

Suppose you want to create a Web page that says:

Notice that the word “love” is italicized (slanted).

To create that Web page, write this HTML program:

Here’s what that program means:

How to type the program Here’s the easiest way to type that HTML program if your computer contains Windows 95, 98, Me, or XP.

Launch Notepad. Here’s how:

Make the Notepad window consume the screen’s bottom right quarter. Here’s how:

Make Notepad do word wrapping. Here’s how:

Click in the middle of the Notepad window. Type the HTML program, like this:

Save the program Save the program onto your desktop, and give it a name that ends in “.html”. Here’s how:

Your program’s icon arrives on the desktop but might be covered by the Notepad window. Move the Notepad window (by dragging its blue title bar) until you see your program’s icon.

The icon has an “e” on it. The “e” means the program works with Microsoft Internet Explorer. It works with Microsoft Internet Explorer because the program is written in HTML and ends in .html.

Run the program Double-click your program’s icon. That makes the computer run your program.

If a “Connect To” window appears, click “Cancel” once or twice, to make the “Connect To” window go away.

If your computer’s been set up properly (to use Microsoft Internet Explorer as the main Web browser), you’ll see a Microsoft Internet Explorer window that shows the result of running your program; it shows a Web page that says:

Edit the program If you typed and ran the program recently, here’s how to edit it.

At the screen’s bottom, to the right of the Start button, you see a wide button for Notebook. Click it. That makes the Notebook window appear and be the active window. Then make any changes you wish to your HTML program. For example, if you want the Web page to say “We tickle you”, change “love” to “tickle” (by dragging across “love” and then typing “tickle”).

Go ahead: make that change and any other changes you wish! Experiment! Go wild!

After you’ve edited the program, save the edited version (by clicking “File” then “Save”).

To run that program, click in the Microsoft Internet Explorer window (which hides behind the Notepad window), so the Microsoft Internet Explorer window becomes the active window. Then click the Refresh button, which makes Microsoft Internet Explorer re-examine your program and run your program’s new version.

Edit old programs Here’s how to edit an old program that you haven’t typed or run recently.

If you’re using Windows Me or XP, do this:

If you’re using Windows 95 or 98 (which lack the “Open with” command), you must do this instead:

Then you see your HTML program. Edit it. When you finish editing, click “File” then “Save”.

Simple HTML commands

Here are simple HTML commands you can give.

Italicize To make a phrase be italicized (like this), type <i> before the phrase; type </i> after the phrase.

Bold To make a phrase be bold (like this), type <b> before the phrase; type </b> after the phrase. To make a phrase be bold italic (like this), type <b><i> before the phrase; type </i></b> after the phrase.

Paragraph If your document contains more than one paragraph, put <p> at the beginning of each paragraph. For example, if you want a paragraph to begin by saying “Motherhood is maddening!”, begin the paragraph by typing this:

At the end of each paragraph, press the ENTER key twice. Then when you run the program, the computer will put a blank line below each paragraph.

Title To create a title, type <title> before it and </title> after it. For example, to make your title say “Joan’s Home Page”, type this:

When you run the program, the computer will put the title in the blue title bar at the Web page’s top.

Fonts

You learned to italicize by saying <i> and </i>, and to create bold by saying <b> and </b>. Here are other ways to change the text’s font….

Size You can make the computer can produce text in 7 sizes. Font size 1 is the smallest; Font size 7 is the biggest. Here’s how big they are:

That’s how big the font sizes and point size look on paper and a 14-inch monitor. (On a slightly bigger monitor, the font sizes and point sizes look slightly bigger.)

Normally, the computer makes your Web page have font size 3. To make a phrase be font size 5, say <font size=5> before the phrase; say </font> after the phrase.

You can make part of a phrase be one size bigger, by saying <big> before that part and saying </big> after that part. For example, if the computer is making a phrase be font size 5 because you said <font size=5>, you can make part of that phrase be slightly bigger (font size 6) by saying <big> before that part and saying </big> after that part. To make part of a phrase be one size smaller, say <small> before that part and say </small> after that part.

If you said <font size=7> and then try to say <big>, the computer will ignore the <big>, since the computer can’t go bigger than font size 7. If you said <font size=1> and then try to say <small>, the computer will ignore the <small>, since the computer can’t go smaller than font size 1.

To make a phrase be subscript (_{like this}), say _{before the phrase,} afterwards. To make a phrase be superscript (^{like this}), say ^{before the phrase,} afterwards.

Heading To create a heading (such as a chapter title or a newspaper headline), say <h1> at the heading’s beginning and </h1> at the heading’s end, like this —

or like this:

To do that, make sure you type the symbol “<”, then the letter “h”, then the number one, then the symbol “>”, then the rest.

The <h1> makes the computer automatically create a new paragraph in font size 6 and bold. Saying <h1> is similar to saying <p><font size=6><b>.

If you want the heading to be centered (instead of at the screen’s left edge), say <h1 align=center> instead of just <h1>.

If you say <h2> instead of <h1>, the computer will make the font size slightly smaller (5 instead of 6), so you’ll be creating a “less dramatic heading”, a subheading. If you say <h2> at the heading’s beginning, say </h2> at the heading’s end.

You can create headings in 6 sizes:

To create a heading in font size 7, say <h1><big> at the heading’s beginning, and say </big></h1> at the heading’s end.

Tt Normally, the computer makes the text’s typeface be Times New Roman (which looks like this). If you want a phrase’s typeface to be Courier New (which looks like this and imitates a typewriter and a Teletype), say <tt> before the phrase, </tt> afterwards.

Arial If you want a phrase’s typeface to be Arial (which looks like this), say
<font face=Arial> before the phrase, </font> afterwards.

If you want a phrase to be font size 7 and Arial, say <font size=7 face=Arial> before the phrase; </font> afterwards.

Warning: the typical Mac or Unix computer comes with Helvetica instead of Arial. If a person using a Mac or Unix tries to view your Web page, that person’s Web browser might ignore the <font face=Arial>.

Compliance

If you want to create a Web page whose title is “Joan’s Home Page” and whose body says “We love you”, you can write this HTML program:

Although that program works with most versions of most Web browsers, you’re supposed to add some extra lines, for 3 reasons:

Head & body You’re supposed to divide the program into two parts. The first part, called the head, begins with <head> and ends with </head> includes the title. The second part, called the body, begins with <body> and ends with </body> and includes the paragraphs. So your program should look like this:

The <html> warning To make your program even better, you’re supposed to begin the whole program by saying <html> and end the whole program by saying </html>, to emphasize that the whole program is written in HTML rather than a different computer language. So your program should look like this:

Is code compliant? You should include all those extra lines — <head>, </head>, <body>, </body>, <html>, and </html> — to make your program comply with the standards that people expect. Those lines help make your program be compliant.

I usually don’t bother including those lines, since I’m my own boss; but if you’re employed, you should include those lines to keep your job.

Title To be compliant, your program must include a <title> line.

DOCTYPE To be compliant, you’re supposed to also put this line at your program’s top, above the <html> line:

That line brags that your program document is of this type: it obeys the HTML standard, which is publicly available from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), using the document type definition (DTD) for HTML version 4.01 — except that you’re allowing yourself to include some older HTML commands also, to be transitional and help older Web browsers understand your Web page; and you’re doing all this in English (EN).

Actually, you’re supposed to include another line below that, saying what Web site reveals the HTML 4 and 4..01 specifications; so your program is supposed to begin like this:

Hardly anybody bothers to include those two lines about DOCTYPE. For example, Yahoo’s Web site (www.yahoo.com) and Microsoft’s Web site (www.microsoft.com) omit both lines.

Even the inventors of HTML 4.01 don’t bother including the second line in their own Web pages.

XHTML HTML 4.01 was invented in 1999. Now committees are working to develop fancier programming language, called the eXtensible HTML (XHTML), which is influenced by the eXtensible Markup Language (XML).

If you want to be compliant with XHTML, adopt these habits:

In XHTML, the top lines say:

Lists

If you want your Web page to contain a simple list, say <br> at the beginning of each list item.

For example, suppose you want your Web page to say:

To do that, say <p> at the beginning of the paragraph, <br> at the beginning of each list item, like this:

The <br> stands for “break out a new line”.

In XHTML, instead of saying <br> you must say <br /> and make sure to put a blank space before the slash.

Bullets Suppose you want your list to show bullets, like this:

To do that, say <p> at the beginning of the paragraph, <li> at the beginning of each list item, like this:

Suppose you want the bullets to be indented, with a space above the list, like this:

To do that, say <ul> above the list, </ul> below the list, like this:

The <ul> stands for “unordered list”. When you type <ul>, make sure you press the U and L keys on your keyboard (not the number one).

The <ul> accomplishes two goals:

In XHTML, the end of each list item must say </li>.

Numbers Suppose you want your list to be numbered, like this:

To do that, say <ol> above the list, </ol> below the list, like this:

The <ol> stands for “ordered list”. When you type <ol>, make sure you press the O and L keys on your keyboard.

Tables

You can create a simple table or a fancy table.

Simple table Here’s how to create a simple table:

For example, suppose you want your Web page to say:

To do that, say <pre> above the table and </pre> below the table, like this:

The <pre> makes the computer use Courier New, as if you had typed <tt>. Courier New is a convenient font for tables, because it makes every character and space have the same width, so you can easily align the table’s columns by pressing the SPACE bar several times.

The <pre> also makes the computer copy each ENTER and SPACE onto the Web page, unedited. (If you don’t say <pre>, the computer turns each ENTER into a SPACE and turns each pair of SPACEs into a single SPACE.)

Fancy table Let’s create a fancy table, so the Web page says:

Here are the bowling scores:

NAME	SCORE
Jacqueline	200
Ann	137
Ed	75

To do that, say <table border=1> above the table, <tr> at the beginning of each table row, <th> at the beginning of each column heading, <td> at the beginning of each data item, and </table> below the table, like this:

The computer automatically makes the columns wide enough to hold their headings and data. The computer automatically makes the column headings be bold and centered.

The border=1 makes the table have a normal border. If you say border=12 instead, the table’s outer border will be much thicker and shaded, forming a beautiful 3-D picture frame that makes the table seem to pop out from the screen and into the human’s face. Try it! You’ll impress your friends!

Links

You learned:

Link to other Web sites To make the phrase “house hunting” be underlined and link to www.realtor.com, say this:

Notice that before “house hunting”, you say what
“house hunting” is linked to, by saying
<a href=http://www.realtor.com>, which means “anchor (link) with a hypertext reference to http://www.realtor.com”. After “house hunting”, say </a>.

Make sure you include the “http://”. If you omit that, the link doesn’t work.

Don’t insert extra spaces. For example, don’t insert a space after “http:”; don’t insert a space after “//”.

Most text on your Web page is black (on a white background). Links are underlined and typically blue; but that if the link refers to a Web page that was visited recently, the link turns purple (instead of blue).

Link to your own Web pages To make the phrase “funny jokes” be underlined and link to Web page you created and called “jokes.html”, say this:

That works just if you earlier invented a Web page named jokes.html and put it on the same disk and in the same folder as the new Web page you’re inventing. For example, if you’re inventing a new Web page on your hard disk’s Desktop, jokes.html must also be a Web page on your hard disk’s Desktop.

Suppose you create a Web page that’s too long to fit on the screen, so when a human tries to read the page the human must scroll down. To let the human avoid scrolling, do this: near the page’s beginning, put a table of contents that links to later parts of the page. Here’s how. To make the phrase “my joys” be underlined and link to a part of the page that discusses your joys, say this:

Tell the computer which part of your page discusses your joys, by beginning that part like this:

Link to e-mail This book was written by Russ Walter, whose e-mail address is russ@secretfun.com. On your Web page, you can let people write to Russ Walter. Here’s how.…

To make the phrase “write to Russ” be underlined and link to creating an e-mail to “russ@secretfun.com”, say this:

Then when a person accesses your Web page, “write to Russ” will be underlined. If the person clicks “write to Russ”, the computer will automatically run the person’s e-mail client program (such as Outlook Express), automatically click “New”, automatically type “russ@secretfun.com” in the “To” box, and then wait for the person to type an e-mail message to Russ.

Try it! Go put that in your Web page, run your Web page, and write an e-mail to Russ! If you don’t know what to say in the e-mail, just say, “Hi, Russ, I’m testing my Web page’s e-mail link to you.”

Be brave! Let people accessing your Web page write an e-mail to you. For example, if your name is Joan Smith and your e-mail address is “jsmith@secretfun.com”, say this:

Custom colors

You can change colors.

Change a phrase Normally, the computer makes your text be black. To make a phrase be red, say <font color=red> before the phrase; say </font> after the phrase.

The computer knows the names of 16 colors:

If you want a phrase to be font size 7 and red, say
<font size=7 color=red> before the phrase; say </font> after the phrase.

Change the whole Web page On a normal Web page, the background is white, the text is black, each typical link is blue, and each viewed link is purple.

Your program is supposed to be divided into two parts, called <head> and <body>. Instead of saying just <body>, you can say:

That makes the background be yellow, the text be red, each typical link be green, and each viewed link be fuchsia. Choose any colors you wish, from the list of 16 colors.

Usually, the background should be a light color (such as white or yellow) and the text should be a dark color (such as black). If you want to be shockingly different, do the reverse: make the background be a dark color (such as black or navy) and make the text be a light color (such as white or yellow). For example, try this:

Warning: the human eye gets dizzy when it sees red next to blue, so don’t choose “red text on a blue background” or “blue text on a red background”. If you make the mistake of choosing those combinations, the people viewing your Web site will get dizzy and fall asleep without reading your words. Your Web site will put them into a hypnotic trance. The human eye also has difficulty reading red (or maroon) next to black.

Style sheets

To change the appearance of your whole Web page, create a style sheet.

For example, suppose you want red characters on a yellow background. You learned you can do that by changing <body> to this:

Here’s a better way: in your <head> section, below the <title>, say this:

That creates this style: throughout the body, make the text color be red, the background yellow. That makes most of the text be red (though normal links will still be blue underlined and the viewed links will still be purple underlined). When you type the second line, make sure you type braces, which look like this: {}. Don’t type parentheses, which look like this: ().

Normally, the text is font size 3, which is 12 points. If you want the text to be slightly bigger (so people can read it more easily), request a bigger point size, such as 13 points, by saying font-size=13pt, like this:

That makes most text get bigger, but headings will be unchanged. For example, <h1> headings will still be font size 6 (which is 24 points).

Should you use style sheets? Style sheets were invented recently. They’re new, hip, cool, and recommended.

For example, to get a yellow background, you ought to say background:yellow in the style sheet, rather than bgcolor=yellow in the <body>.

Using style sheets is recommended. Giving older types of commands, such as bgcolor=yellow, is deprecated (which means “pooh-poohed”).

But many people still use older types of commands, such as bgcolor=yellow, since they work even on old computers whose browsers were invented before style sheets.

Links You can change the color of links:

That makes most links be green, recently visited links be fuchsia, and each link temporarily turn navy while the mouse hovers over it.

Headers You learned that you can create big headers by saying <h1>, smaller headers by saying <h2>, and even smaller headers by saying <h3>, <h4>, <h5>, and <h6>. Normally, headers are the same color as the body text. For example, if you made the body text be red, the headers are automatically red also.

To make <h1> headers be blue and all other headers be maroon, say so in the style sheet, like this:

To make <h1> headers be blue and also centered (instead of at the screen’s left edge), make the style sheet’s h1 line be this:

Frankly, I hope you don’t choose those colors! Your Web page will be too wild if you actually make the body text red, the background yellow, the links green, the visited links fuchsia, the hovered links navy, the big headings blue, and the smaller headings maroon. Choose more reasonable colors.

Normally, <h1> headers are font size 6, which is 24 points. To make <h1> headers be even bigger, give a bigger point size, such as by saying:

Paragraphs You learned to put <p> at the beginning of each paragraph. Normally, the <p> makes the computer put a blank line above the paragraph. If you want the computer to omit the blank line and indent the paragraph’s first word, put this line in your style sheet:

Sharing Several Web pages can share a style sheet. Here’s how.

Using Notepad, create the style sheet, but omit the <style> and </style> lines. For example, create this style sheet:

Save it on your Desktop, but give it a name that ends in .css (which stands for Cascading Style Sheet) instead of .html. For example, name it mystyle.css.

Then create your Web pages; but on each Web page, tell the computer to use the style sheet you created (mystyle.css), by putting this line in the <head> part of the Web page:

That tells the computer to create a link, related to your style sheet, which is located at the HTTP reference “mystyle.css”.

Upload

To let the public use your Web page, you must upload your page (copy it from your computer’s hard disk to an Internet-connected hard disk).

Upload to Angelfire For example, here’s how to copy your Web page to Angelfire’s hard disk.

Using your Web browser, go to “www.angelfire.com”. Click “LOG IN”.

Make sure the computer says “WEB SHELL”. (If the computer doesn’t say “WEB SHELL” yet, do the log-in procedure, to make the computer say “WEB SHELL”.)

Click the Browse button. Double-click the file you want to upload (such as “joan” or “index”). Click the Upload button.

That file will now be on Angelfire’s disk.

For example, suppose your Angelfire category is “jazz” and your Angelfire site’s name is “joan”. If the file was joan.html, it’s now available on the Internet as “www.angelfire.com/jazz/joan/joan.html”. If the file was index.html, it’s now available on the Internet as “www.angelfire.com/jazz/joan/index.html” or more simply as “www.angelfire.com/jazz/joan” (since “index.html” is your main page) or even more simply as “angelfire.com/jazz/joan” (since the “www” is optional).

If your Web page includes links to other files (such as other Web pages you created and style sheets), make sure you upload those files also.

FTP The typical ISP lets you also copy your Web page to your ISP’s hard disk by using File Transfer Protocol (FTP). For example, if your ISP is Galaxy Internet Services (GIS), here’s how to copy your Web page to GIS’s hard disk:

That file will now be on the ISP’s disk. For example, if the file was joan.html, it’s now available on the Internet as “www.gis.net/~poo/joan.html. If the file was index.html, it’s now available on the Internet as www.gis.net/~poo/index.html or simply as “www.gis.net/~poo” or even more simply as “gis.net/~poo”. (The symbol “~” is at your keyboard’s top left corner, above the TAB key, and requires you to hold down the SHIFT key.)

If your Web page includes links to other files (such as other Web pages you created and style sheets), make sure you upload those files also.

Special symbols

To put special symbols onto your Web page, type these codes:

Comments

In the middle of your program, you can write a comment such as:

The computer will ignore the comment. The comment won’t affect what appears on the Web page.

To write a comment, begin with this symbol —

and end with this symbol:

The computer ignores whatever appears between those symbols. Whatever appears between those symbols is a comment. The comment can be short (part of a line) or long (many lines), but make sure you begin it with “<!--” and end with “-->”.

Write comments to help other programmers deal with your program! For example, give your name, the date you wrote the program, and your address or phone number. Also include any technical comments you wish to make about how your program works and what further improvements you hope to make.

Forms

You can make your Web page display a form and let the human fill it in. For example, you can make your Web page say this:

This program makes it happen (if your e-mail address is jsmith@secretfun.com):

If you examine that program, you’ll notice these rules:

When a person runs your Web page, here’s what happens. The computer shows the form and waits for the person to fill in the form. Each box is wide enough to show 20 typical characters. If the person types more that the box can show, the writing in the box automatically scrolls to the left, to let the person type more.

Below the form, the computer puts a button labeled “Submit Query”. The person is supposed to click that button after filling in the form. When the person clicks that button, the computer e-mails the box’s contents to the e-mail address mentioned in the <form> command. Here’s how:

When you receive the e-mail, try to open the attachment. The computer will ask whether you want to open it or save it.

If you’re using Windows Me, do this:

If you’re using Windows 98, do this:

Customize Here’s how to customize the form.

If you want a box to be 30 characters wide instead of 20, say “size=30” like this:

If you want the “Submit Query” button to say instead “Click here to transmit”, say so in the type=submit line, like this:

You can put a Reset button to the right of the “Submit Query” button:

You can make the Reset button say “Click here to erase and start over”:

Check boxes Your form can include check boxes, so your Web page says:

To do that, say this below the </pre>:

If the person clicks the “You have a pet dog” and “You can bark like a dog” boxes, check marks appear on those boxes and the e-mail will say:

Radio buttons Your form can include radio buttons, so your Web page says:

Each radio button acts like a check box, except that the button is round (instead of square), clicking it makes the middle get a dot (instead of a check mark), and just one button can be selected (since clicking a button makes all other buttons get unselected).

To create those radio buttons, say this below the </pre>:

If the person clicks the “You are male” button, a dot appears in that button and the e-mail will say:

 

You’ve learned how to create a simple Web page by using Angelfire’s 2-form process. To create fancier Web pages, use FrontPage instead, which is a program available from Microsoft.

Several versions of Front Page have been invented. The newest version is FrontPage XP. The previous version was FrontPage 2000, which came free as part of Microsoft Office 2000’s premium or developer edition. A stripped-down version, called FrontPage Express, came free as part of Internet Explorer 4. (Explorer 4 is no longer distributed, but it came free as part of Windows 98’s first edition.)

Here’s how to use FrontPage Express and FrontPage 2000. (If you’re using FrontPage XP, follow my instructions for FrontPage 2000, which is similar.)

Launch FrontPage

Get out of any other programs you’re in (by clicking their X buttons). You can also disconnect from the Internet, since FrontPage does not need an Internet connection.

Click “Start” then “Programs” then do this:

You’ll see the FrontPage window. If it doesn’t consume the whole screen yet, maximize the window by clicking the resize button, which is next to the X button.

Type your page

FrontPage resembles a word-processing program, such as Microsoft Word or WordPad. Go type whatever you want to appear on your Web page, as if you were typing an ordinary word-processing document. You can use typical word-processing techniques. You do not have to type HTML codes such as <p>, <b>, and <i>; FrontPage will generate the HTML codes for you secretly and automatically.

Here are some suggestions.…

Start by typing a title, such as:

At the end of that line, change the style to Heading 1 (by clicking the down-arrow that’s next to “Normal” and then clicking “Heading 1”). That makes the title become a big, bold headline. It becomes big instantly, before your very eyes. Wow! Afterwards, press ENTER.

Then start typing the next line of your Web page. The computer will automatically make it be a normal size, not big, not bold. Better yet, instead of typing just a line, type a whole paragraph. Do not indent the paragraph’s beginning. Write whatever you wish. For example, you can write a description of yourself, info about your favorite hobby, or your favorite jokes. If you’re feeling creative, start writing a story or novel.

At the end of that first paragraph, press ENTER just once. Then start writing your next paragraph. The computer will automatically put a blank line between the paragraphs.

To italicize a phrase, click the I button, then type the phrase, then click the I button again. To make a phrase be bold, click the B button, then type the phrase, then click the B button again.

Here’s how to make “house hunting” be underlined and link to www.realtor.com:

The computer will make “house hunting” be underlined, blue, and linked so if a person later clicks that spot on your finished Web page, the person will automatically be transported to the “http://www.realtor.com” site.

Save

When you finish typing your Web page (which can be many screenfuls long), click the Save button. Here’s what happens next.…

Pick a name for that file. Probably you want that file to become your main Web page; if so, that file should be named “index”; otherwise, invent a one-word name for the file (such as “joans”), using just small letters, no capitals, no spaces. Type the name (such as “index” or “joans”). At the end of the name, press ENTER.

The computer will put the file into your hard disk’s My Documents folder (for FrontPage Express) or My Webs folder (for FrontPage 2000). The computer will put “.htm” at the end of the file’s name.

Exit

Finally, exit from FrontPage (by clicking the X button at the screen’s top right corner).

Upload

To let the public use your Web page, you must upload your page (copy it from your computer’s hard disk to an Internet-connected hard disk).

Upload to Angelfire For example, here’s how to copy your Web page to Angelfire’s hard disk.

Using your Web browser, go to “www.angelfire.com”. Click “LOG IN”.

Make sure the computer says “WEB SHELL”. (If the computer doesn’t say “WEB SHELL” yet, do the log-in procedure, to make the computer say “WEB SHELL”.)

Click the Browse button. Double-click “My Documents”. (For FrontPage 2000, then double-click “My Webs”.) Double-click the file you want to upload (such as “index” or “joans”). Click the Upload button.

That file will now be on Angelfire’s disk, but with an ending of “.html” instead of “.htm”.

For example, suppose your Angelfire category is “jazz” and your Angelfire site’s name is “joan”. If the file was joans.htm, it’s now available on the Internet as “www.angelfire.com/jazz/joan/joans.html”. If the file was index.htm, it’s now available on the Internet as “www.angelfire.com/jazz/joan/index.html” or more simply as “www.angelfire.com/jazz/joan” (since “index.html” is your main page) or even more simply as “angelfire.com/jazz/joan” (since the “www” is optional).

FTP The typical ISP lets you also copy your Web page to your ISP’s hard disk by using File Transfer Protocol (FTP). For example, if your ISP is Galaxy Internet Services (GIS), here’s how to copy your Web page to GIS’s hard disk:

That file will now be on the ISP’s disk, but with an ending of “.html” instead of “.htm”. For example, if the file was index.htm, it’s now available on the Internet as “www.gis.net/~poo/index.html” or simply as “www.gis.net/~poo” or even more simply as “gis.net/~poo”. (The symbol “~” is at your keyboard’s top left corner, above the TAB key, and requires you to hold down the SHIFT key.)

I invented my own .com and called it “secretfun.com”, so you can access my Web page by typing just “www.secretfun.com”.

You can invent your own .com! Here are two cheap ways to do it.…

Method 1: pay Angelfire

Create a Web site on Angelfire, but make your site fancy by getting an Argon site (for $9 per month, plus $15 setup) or get an even fancier site (Xenon or Krypton). Those Argon, Xenon, and Krypton sites let you create your own .com.

(Page 317 explained how Argon, Xenon, and Krypton differ from each other.)

Method 2: pay Go Daddy

Create a Web site cheaply anywhere (such as a free Angelfire site or a cheap Neon Angelfire site or a free site anywhere else), then buy a domain name (such as a .com name) from a domain registrar such as Go Daddy, which charges:

Go Daddy was started by a famous nice guy (Bob Parsons, whose previous venture was called Parsons Technology). You can reach Go Daddy at www.godaddy.com.

Tell Go Daddy to charge you for the domain name (at $9/year or less) and set up a parked site (which is free because it just says “under construction — coming soon”). Then tell Go Daddy to do domain forwarding (which is free) from the parked site to the site you created at Angelfire. You can also tell Go Daddy to do e-mail forwarding (which is free) to your current e-mail address.

For example, I told Go Daddy to do this:

So now you can see my Web site (www.angelfire.com/nh/secret) by typing just “www.secretfun.com” (which is easier to remember), and you can send me e-mail by typing “russ@secretfun.com” (which is easier to remember than “poo@gis.net”).

If you wish, Go Daddy can also host your site (so you don’t need to involve Angelfire), but Go Daddy charges more for hosting than Angelfire does. Go Daddy will try to sell you many extra services (for surcharges), but you can decline them all: pay just $8, $7, or $5 per year for a domain name (with free domain forwarding and e-mail forwarding to your current addresses elsewhere).