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Webpage Design and Development, CPST-240-10
Spring 2009

News - Week of Monday, Jan 26
Assignment
Case Problem 4
Key Terms

Thanks for all your work.

Tutorial 1 - Developing a Web Page

Expectations
You did complete reading Tutorial 1 from our text? There are many important topics that you will need to use over and over in coming assignments. Learning proper HTML syntax is an important outcome of this class. For example,

  1. close all 2-sided tags,
  2. 1-sided tags end in " />" (i.e. <br />),
  3. all HTML is lowercase
  4. using inLine styles
  5. among many other important topics
  6. all covered in Tutorial 1

Comments (Documentation or Decoration)

Top of every webpage will look something like this: 

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<!-- 
New Perspectives on HTML and XHTML
Assignment: 
Author:
Date:
Text Editor: 
Filename: something_or_the_other.html 
-->

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
	<title>something_or_the_other.html</title>
	<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
</head>

Please note that it is important that the very first line of your HTML be the <!DOCTYPE ... declaration, as demonstrated above. W3C Markup Validation Service will NOT work properly if <!DOCTYPE ... declaration is not the first line. For an explanation of doctype declarations see this website ... and this one too. You may also want an understanding of "Content-Type" (charset=utf-8) here and here, and Wikipedia too.

In-line comments included in your HTML are also called documentation, and decoration. When I ask you to decorate your HMTL, I am asking that you include in-line comments. Comments remind you what your HTML code is supposed to accomplish. Comments allow others to more easily understand your HTML. Most importantly for our class, comments make it possible for George to grade your work. The grading rubric for most every assignment will require you to include in-line comments that document the graded elements of the assignment.

In-line comments like this: 
<!-- below demonstrates the use of inLine style -->
<h1 style="text-align: center">Chemistry Class</h1>

Hint: Submit your assignments early. If you turn-in before 11:59 PM, on Friday, I will provide you with feedback. You can make corrections and submit your work again ... no penalty -- until the due date (which is almost always 11:59 PM on Sundays). Remember, late assignments suffer a 20% penalty deducted from your grade (as explained in our Syllabus). Another way to think of this is that "C" is the highest grade you can earn for work turned-in late.


Required: All the HTML
you write for assignments in this class is expected to be error free as certified by W3C.org's Markup Validation Service. This is a graded element of all assignments. I suggest that you make a habit of checking your HTML as you write. Use W3C Markup Validation early and often. It is a lot easier to correct an error when you first make it. Remember - Strategy for editing HTML?


Required: FTP Client
Read what Wikipedia has to say about FTP ... and about FTP Client software. FTP is how I want you to copy the web pages you develop for this class from your own computer to your web space on Tulane's Student Server. There are many FTP clients. Wikipedia has a list of some. There are others. I like SSH - freeware FTP Client for Windows, and the one Tulane recommends. For Mac, I like Fetch ... although it is a commercial product, you can apply for a free educational license. There are freely available Mac and Windows versions of another good FTP Client -- FileZilla.

Most of our Assignments will require you to publish your web pages to a Web Server. That's what FTP allows you to do ... copy your files from your computer to the server computer, and back again. I recommended that you use Tulane's Student Web Server for this purpose.

Using an FTP client, you "connect" to Tulane's Student WebServer. To do so, you need to know the Hostname (the name of Tulane's computer), Username, Password, and maybe Initial Folder.

  • Hostname is : studentweb.tulane.edu
  • Connect using is : SFTP
  • User name is : your Tulane eMail user name
  • Password is : your Tulane eMail password
  • Initial folder is : public_html/
    •

    public_html/     folder is where all your Web Pages reside. As we go along, we will see that you can have as many sub-folder inside of public_html/     as makes sense for your web sites. If you already have web pages on Tulane's Student WebServer, I suggest you make a sub-folder named, for example, CPST-240.

    I expect that everyone will succeed using FTP. If you experience problems, you can attach your web page documents in an eMail message to me.


    Use the Web to learn HTML Syntax
    Use Google to search for Web Sites that help you learn HTML Syntax. One site I really like is W3 School -- http://www.w3schools.com/. Not only does it help your understanding of HTML, it allows you to experiment by typing HTML directly on their web pages. It really works.

    When attempting a Google search, just include "HTML" as part of your search string ... and Google will suggest 100s of sites with information. For example, this week you must include an ordered or unordered list. So, search string for Google would be "HTML ordered list" ... TRY IT !!!


    Remember ... ask for HELP ... ask early, ask often.