For Web Developers



What is the Web?

The World Wide Web (WWW) is a system for organizing and navigating information on the Internet. Developed in 1989 at the Particle Physics Laboratory in Cern, Switzerland, it utilizes Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP) and the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) to present text, graphics, sound, and video as well as incorporating traditional Internet protocols like gopher, FTP, WAIS, and telnet.

The mechanics are simple. A client program (commonly called a browser, eg Netscape, Mosaic, Lynx) requests a WWW resource using an address called a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). The URL specifies: 1. the protocol (http, FTP, gopher, telnet), 2. the Web site where the resource is located, and 3. the full directory path of the resource. In the URL:

http://www.montana.edu/~ousxx/netscape/net11.html

"http" is the protocol
www.montana.edu is the Web site
/~ousxx/netscape/net11.html is the full path

A Web server at the stipulated site accepts the request and returns the information.

HTML is a simple markup language used to control the appearance of Web pages and to "link" pages to one another. If you use the "view source" option of your browser to look at this page, you will get a good idea of what HTML looks like. It has tags for: six levels of headings, bolding, italics, underlining, a horizontal rule to separate sections of text, bulleted and unbulleted lists, and cross-reference links which can be used to include images/video/sound or to link to other Web pages. Depending on the browser, links may be indicated by highlighted text, text in a different color or underlining. A collection of Web pages linked together to form a coherent whole is called a Web presentation. Every Web presentation has a "home" page. Home pages are simply starting points for Web exploration. They can belong to organizations or individuals and may be linked to other home pages. In fact, the WWW is really a web of webs.

Getting on the Web

If you would like to develop a home page and do not have access to a departmental server, contact the University Web Coordinator at www@montana.edu. Departments, colleges, and research and service centers will be allocated 5Mb of disk space on gemini under a "www" account. There is no charge for this initial allocation. The Web Coordinator can also provide:

The content of the home page is, of course, up to you. An existing brochure or publication may provide an excellent starting point. Browsing the Web for the home pages of organizations similar to your own is another source of inspiration you should take advantage of. Like any other presentation, a Web presentation should have an objective. Ask yourself what you want to accomplish with your home page then begin to organize your information. What are the main topics? How do they interrelate? Storyboarding your web can be very helpful. Just sketch out each page: its topics, graphics and links. Then try to navigate through them. It will give you an excellent idea of how the presentation will work on the Web.

There are hundreds of HTML guides on the Web. The HTML Primer written by Mosaic's developers is a good place to begin. Or you can refer to the HTML Sampler developed for training here at MSU-Bozeman. For advice on style, take a look at the World Wide Web Consortium's Style Overview, Remember, while the interface may be new, the basic elements of good writing style are timeless. Concentrate on producing concise and well written web documents. Use sound, video and images carefully. Large images may load very slowly and can discourage those attempting to browse your web. Make the viewing of large images optional by showing them as links and forewarn your audience of their size.

Departments and organizations will have a "www" account on both Terra and Gemini. The Terra account cannot be logged on to and exists only to allow the server to find your web pages on Gemini. Please log on to the Gemini account as soon as possible to change your password. It runs the UNIX operating system and is therefore case sensitive. Username and password must be entered in lower case. All of your images and pages will go in a subdirectory called "public_html". You can put all of your files here or organize them into subdirectories of public_html.

Your home page should be in a file called "index.html" or "index.htm" or "default.htm". This is the file that the web server will look for if no file name is specified, as in this URL: http://www.montana.edu/wwwxx/.

If you are comfortable with UNIX tools, feel free to develop your web on Gemini. Until you are linked to the MSU-Bozeman home page, only those who know your "www" account name can access your pages. Your web can also be developed on a PC. On your C drive, duplicate the directory structure that you plan for Gemini. When defining links, use forward slashes and the full file extensions that Gemini will require (e.g., .html). To test on your PC, run Netscape and select "Open File" from the "File" pull-down menu. When you copy or FTP your files to Gemini, HTML files may have either .html or .htm extensions.

Students' free e-mail accounts are on TREX2 and may be set up for use as websites using the "Create Your Page" guide.

Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer dominate the graphical browser market. Use both to test your pages whenever possible. Features supported in one browser may not be supported in another. Also, it is very important to review your web using a text only browser like Lynx. If you use an image to deliver content, for instance as a heading, remember to include alternate text (with the ALT= parameter of the IMG tag) for display on text only browsers. One good example is the MSU-Bozeman logo. Always include "Montana State University-Bozeman" as alternate text.

Colleges and departments may use the University logo anywhere in their web design. Please do not scan your own. Several sizes of the offical logo are available for download. There is also a "link back" button for the MSU-Bozeman home page. Depicting the cupola, it can be used to link your home page back to MSU-Bozeman's. You may also wish to use the official MSU-Bozeman colors in your page design. Now that we have three affiliated campuses sharing the same name, please refer to the Bozeman campus as MSU-Bozeman or Montana State University-Bozeman.

Finally, remember that your web represents Montana State University-Bozeman. The Web Coordinator will review all home pages linked directly to the MSU-Bozeman home page. The object is not to control content or appearance, but rather to ensure proper use of HTML, provide a final spell check and verify links.


Updated February 2, 1999