Make Your Own Web Page AnswerMan is frequently asked "How do I create a World Wide Web page on AOL?" This document answers that question in detail. Don't be overwhelmed, it's pretty easy. Before attempting to make your own Web page, you should be familiar with getting around AOL, and should have used the World Wide Web several times yourself. This is a long document, but I hope you will find it useful. You may want to print it for reference. Every AOL account includes the ability to let its user create a site, or "home page," on the World Wide Web. This isn't a difficult thing to do, but it does take a bit of practice and patience. The key to making a web page is learning HyperText Markup Language (aka HTML), a simple programming language that lets you design Web pages. *** How much does a Web page cost? How big can it be? Zero, zilch, nada. As long as you pay your AOL bill, your Web page costs nothing extra. Your Web page can be up to 2 megabytes is size. *** Can people who are not subscribers to AOL access my Web page? Certainly! Anyone who has access to the World Wide Web can see your Web page. They just need to know your Web page's URL. (More on this below.) *** What would I put on a Web page? Well, anything you want! Really, it's up to you. Try to create a Web page that is interesting to other people (not just you.) The problem with 80% of all Web pages is that they have no content, no real reason for existing. Maybe a few friends want to see pictures of you and your dog, but probably not people who don't know you. Try to think of things that you do that others might care about; an essay that you're proud of, or information about your hobby, or whatever you can think of. Be creative. *** The Basics of HTML Knowledge of HTML, plus perhaps some graphics created with your favorite graphics application, are all you really need for your Web page. HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. HTML is a simple programming language used to format documents for display on the World Wide Web. When displayed using a World Wide Web browser, documents created with HTML may include text and graphics, formatting, and HyperText links to other information. You can write HTML using a specialized HTML editor. They're available for Macs and PCs, but you don't need one. I write all my HTML stuff using a plain old word processor, or even Notepad (Windows) or SimpleText (Mac). I prefer using Notepad/SimpleText because it helps you to really know how HTML works, rather than relying on an editor to do the dirty work for you. If you use a word processor to create HTML, be sure to save your files *AS TEXT* instead of in the standard format of your word processor. For instance, saving a HTML file in Microsoft Word format will make for an unreadable web page, since Web browsers expect text. HTML is built from "tags," simple commands which effect your page: text size and style, onscreen graphics, links to other web pages and so on. For instance, if you want to "emphasize" text (which makes your text stand out) you use the tag. Your HTML file might look like this: This is plain old boring text But this is emphasized! Now we're back to normal. The turns on emphasis, the turns it back off. This is the way to do most tags. The slash turns it off. If you want bigger text (call a headlines) you can have those. produces the "biggest" headline, makes a slightly smaller one, all the way down to
, a tiny little headline. Once you turn on any style using a tag, you need to remember to shut if off (with or and so on) when you're done with that style, and want to return to "normal" text. Now all you need to know is what different tags are available. I'm not going to explain them ALL -- there are already several excellent online references which give all the details of tags and formatting. The following Web pages will help you to become an HTML expert in no time: A beginner's guide to HTML: http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimer.html An Introduction to HTML: http://www.utoronto.ca/webdocs/HTMLdocs/NewHTML/htmlindex.html HTML quick reference guide: http://kuhttp.cc.ukans.edu/lynx_help/HTML_quick.html The following guides are also worth a look. They concentrate on HTML "style." That is, creating good-looking, readable Web pages. Do's and Don'ts of Web Design: http://millkern.com/do-dont.html HTML Document Style Guide: http://www.che.ufl.edu/help/style1/index.html An index of many online style guides http://www.stars.com/Vlib/Providers/Style.html Netscape's pointers on creating net sites: http://home.netscape.com/assist/net_sites/index.html If you prefer get your information from a book, grab yourself a copy of CREATING COOL WEB PAGES WITH HTML by Dave Taylor (published by IDG books.) *** How should I arrange the Web page files on my computer? How can I preview my Web page before uploading it? When creating a Web page on my home computer, I usually create a directory, and put all my working documents in there: the HTML file, any images files that I want to add, and so on. You can use your web browser to preview that page before you even upload it to America Online. Your editor will show you the HTML version of your page, complete with tags. When you want to see what your page will look like on the Web: 1) Save your HTML document to your hard disk. 2) Load your Web browser. You DON'T have to be logged in to do this. 3) Pick "Open file" from the FILE menu of the Web browser. On some browsers this is called "Open Local." This will let you see a Web page on your hard disk instead of one on the Internet. Point it to your HTML file that you saved earlier. 4) Voila! Your Web page will appear, complete with formatting and graphics. 5) If you don't like what you see, you can switch back to your editor, make changes, save them, switch back to the browser, and "reload" the page to instantly see the results! (Assuming you have enough memory for both applications at once.) Once you are satisfied with your page, you can log in to AOL and upload it. *** Uploading Your Page to AOL Once your Web page is finished, you'll need to upload it from your computer to AOL's system. Since people might want to access your Web page any time of the day or night, the files need to be on AOL. AOL's computer is connected to the Internet 24 hours a day; your computer is not. Here's how to copy the files to AOL: 1) Log on to AOL. Go to keyword: FTP. Read the instructions on how to upload to your personal FTP space, if you haven't yet. Then press the GO TO FTP button. 2) Press the OTHER SITE button, then enter "members.aol.com" in the OTHER SITE box. You'll be looking at your personal FTP/Web site directory. 3) Press the UPLOAD button and follow the prompts to upload your Web page material. Use TEXT mode for HTML code files and BINARY mode for any images files. 4) When that's done, you can quit the FTP tool and run your Web browser. Your page is now on the Web! The URL for your home page is http://members.aol.com/YOURSCREENNAME/YOURFILENAME For instance, if your screen name is "answerman" and the main HTML file that you uploaded is called "welcome.html", then the URL of your home page would be: http://members.aol.com/answerman/welcome.html *** Can I put audio files and movies on my Web page? You can certainly do that, but how to do so is beyond the scope of this document. The online references I pointed you to earlier should help with this. Keep in mind that sound and movie files can take up a LOT of disk space, and you only have 2 megs to work with. Make it count. *** Wow, this is a lot of information! Yes it is, but don't worry. You can learn most of what you need to know in just a couple of hours. The key to doing it right is just experimenting. See what works and what doesn't. Put up a personal Web page, or put an online ad for your business on the Web. The World Wide Web is a fantastic opportunity for creativity, so have fun with it. Good luck!A Beginner's Guide to HTML (http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimer.html) is THE place to start to learn hypertext markup language. It is an introductory level tutorial.You can read it online or download it for offline reference. A Beginner's Guide to Homepage Programming (http://members.aol.com/teachemath/class.htm) has four sections for your learning pleasure: Creating a Homepage - the ins and outs of HTML; List of Terms and Definitions; Homepage Template - which allows you to fill in your own information into a template and use it as your own homepage; and Publishing a Homepage - how to upload your finished product onto the Web. An Intermediate Guide to Homepage Programming is also available from this site. Thanks to CJ Purple for this site description.Bare Bones Guide to HTML (http://werbach.com/barebones/) lists every tag in the official HTML 3.2 specifications, as well as Netscape extenstions. This guide is available in English, French, Japanese, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Chinese, Turkish, Korean, Finnish, Russian, Danish and Swedish! You can read it either in a plain text version or in a formatted one. Thanks to CJ Purple for this site description.While anyone can write a Web page, only some can write a good Web page. :-) For help on style issues, try these sites: HTML Bad Style Guide (http://www.earth.com/bad-style/ for what not to do on your page; and Doctor HTML (http://imageware.com/RxHTML/) which checks spelling, image syntax, document structure, table structure, and forms structure and gives you an image analysis, a hyperlink analysis, a command hierarchy and a summary. Thanks to CJ Purple for this site descriptions.You can put a counter on your pages created with Personal Publisher and on your own pages you upload to AOL! This will explain four ways of doing the same thing: - Using AOL's Counter in Personal Publisher (Win Only) - Using an Offsite Counter in Personal Publisher (Win Only) - Using AOL's Counter in a page uploaded to MyPlace (Win and Mac) - Using an Offsite Counter in a page uploaded to MyPlace (Win and Mac) Here's how: Personal Publisher (Windows Only) ========================== Using AOL's "odometer" counter ==================== #1 : Goto Personal Publisher (keyword PP) #2 : Click on the "Create/Edit my home page" button #3 : Scroll down and click on the "Add" button #4 : Scroll down to "Add a link" a : Select "Inline Image URL" b : Enter http://members.aol.com/cgi-bin/counter? (use the question mark in the URL but do NOT use the <> around your screen name) c : Do not place anything in the "Clickable Text" text box #5 : Save your changes #6 : View your newly created counter at http://home.aol.com/ Note : Be sure to only run the counter from your own designed page (http://members.aol.com/) or your Personal Publisher designed page (http://home.aol.com/). To return the counter back to "0" or move your counter from one page to another, delete the ".odometer" file in your home directory (keyword: My Place). Using an "off site" counter (Personal Publishing) ================================== Here is an example of using the ever popular *free* counter from digits.com (http://www.digits.com/web_counter/). ** Remember, you must first go to digits.com to make your counter before you can insert the markup to reference it :) #1 : Goto digits.com to make your counter (http://www.digits.com/web_counter/) #2 : Goto Personal Publisher (keyword: PP) #3 : Click on the "Create/Edit my home page" button #4 : Scroll down and click on the "Add" button #5 : Scroll down to "Add a link" a : Select "Inline Image URL" b : Enter http://counter.digits.com/wc?-d&6& (where is what you named your counter while making it) c : Do not place anything in the "Clickable Text" text box #6 : Save your changes #7 : View your newly created counter at http://home.aol.com/ Examples of both types counters being used on a Personal Publishing page can befound at the following URL http://home.aol.com/cjgrizzly/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "My Place" (Macintosh and Windows) =========================== Using AOL's "odometer" counter (Uploaded Page) ==================================== The hypertext markup to add to your page: where screenname is the AOL screen name of the owner of this page. As an example, you can look at http://users.aol.com/ftpadmin/counter.html and then download the file via anonymous FTP (or on AOL do a "View File Now" after you have opened the description) to get the markup. The counter program uses the file users.aol.com:/screename/.odometer as its memory; deleting this file will restart the counter. Again, substitute the appropriate AOL screen name for "screename" here. You cannot use this counter from web pages that are not hosted on an aol.com server machine. Using an "off site" counter (Uploaded Page) ================================== ** Remember, you must first go to digits.com to make your counter before you can insert the markup to reference it :) #1 : Goto digits.com to make your counter (http://www.digits.com/web_counter/) #2 : Add the following HTML to your page: