English 441/541A: Final Class Project

Making A Web Page

One option for your final class project for English 441/541A is to make a Web page on a subject that interests you. A web page is a site on the internet where you can present information or ideas: you are reading a Web page at this moment. The page can include quotations, pictures, and tables. You can click on words in a web page and it will take you to another web page--so for instance, you could click here to get back to our class home page.

What you see on this screen differs slightly from what I have typed in putting up this page. To see what I really typed, move your cursor up to the menu at the very top of the Netscape screen, under the blue bar, and click on "View" to open the drop-down menu. Move your cursor down to "Document Source" and click on it: you will then see what I actually typed in producing this web page. Do that now.

The codes in arrow brackets, <>, tell all web browsers (not just netscape, but all of them) to make the page look a certain way at that point. Knowing what codes to insert is just a matter of learning the language you need to use in making a web page: this language, this set of codes, is called HTML language. It is not at all difficult to learn to enter codes in order to make a web page look the way you wish it to look. In fact, each one of you can set up in your own VAX account a sample web page.

To set up your sample web page on which you can then make changes, perform the following steps:

  1. Log onto the VAX.
  2. At the dollar sign prompt, type NEWWWWSETUP
  3. At the dollar sign prompt, type CD WWW (it means "Change Directory to the World Wide Web directory," a directory on your diskspace on the VAX.
  4. Now type DIR to see your files in that directory. One of them should be INDEX.HTMLX (ignore the semicolon and the number that comes after it if indeed those things are added to it at this moment). If it is there, you have successfully created your sample web page.
  5. Get into your web page to edit it. To do so, type EDIT INDEX.HTMLX which will allow you to edit that file (a file in your WWW directory, but a web page if you go to it on Netscape). Do that now.

Let's compare what you are seeing in the VAX account with sample web page that you will see in Netscape. Open Netscape, and in the Location Bar at the top, type

http://www.muohio.edu/~[your user name]/

A Note on URLs

Now go up the View command on the top left-hand side of your Netscape Browser and click to open the drop-down menu: click on View Source or Document Source. Notice that the codes you see in your VAX account and the codes you see when viewing the document source in Netscape are the same. The sample web page shows you all of the basics needed for a web page:

<html>
<head><title>Laura's Home Page</title></head>
<body>
<p>Stuff that you say.</p>
<p>another paragraph.</p>
</body>
</html>

  1. Go into your sample home page and fool around: type things you want to show up on the screen in between <P> and </P> commands. If you don't like what you did and don't want to save it, hit Control F to exit and abort; if you do like what you did and want to save it, hit Control Z to exit and save.
  2. At the dollar-sign prompt, type DIR
  3. Now you should see INDEX.HTMLX;1 and INDEX.HTMLX;2. The first is the file before you went in and fooled around. The second is the new file you saved. The Web browser will always take viewers to the last version (#2). If you don't want to rename and keep the first file, type PU at the dollar prompt so that only one copy, on the latest version, will be left in your directory.
  4. Type DIR at the dollar-sign prompt; you should now see only INDEX.HTML;2
  5. You can create another Web page by typing at the dollar-sign prompt (after you have already changed to the WWW directory, step #3 above) EDIT [make up a name of 4 or 5 letters, adding ".htm" or ".html" to the end of the name: EDIT CLSWB.HTML
  6. Note that, in order to visit using the Netscape Navigator whatever other files/web pages that you make, the URL address you will use (that is, the location address that you put into the "Location" or "Go To" bar at the top of Netscape) will be: http://www.muohio.edu/~[your username]/[the filename].html)
A Note on URLs

A Note on URLs: A URL is the address that you enter into the "Location" or "Go To" bar at the top of Netscape. Your main Net address is: http://www.muohio.edu/~[your username, with no spaces] or http://miavx1.muohio.edu/~[your username] (both of those main addresses are the same). Note that, if the URL does not specify a filename, the default file is your "index.html" file. Once you have set up your WWW account (step #2 above), then you could type http://www.muohio.edu/~[your username]/ or http://www.muohio.edu/~[your username]/index.html and you would get to the same file/web page (it's a file to you, when you are in your VAX account; it's a Web Page to the people who visit it on Netscape). Any file you create will have the URL of your main address plus whatever filename you gave it: http://www.muohio.edu/~[your username]/clswb.html

For those of you who wish to go through the process of making a web page with me, two experts from the library, and Emme Thompson, a senior who did an independent study with me last summer to make a web page (Click here to see it), we will be meeting from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. in Havighurst Lab, 260 Bachelor Hall, on Wednesday, October 30.

More Information

GOOD LUCK!!

Click here to email me with your questions.

Click here to return to the Class Home page.

Click here to move onto instructions for the Web Final Assignment.

Laura Mandell, Dept. of English, Miami Univ., Oxford, OH 45056