Organization
The domain
name for our new server is inside.wi.mit.edu. The best way to
organize your pages is like this:
1.
Create a folder on your hard drive with the name of your lab. Don't
use spaces.
2.
Name your homepage "home.html". This will make your page
easier for surfers to find.
3.
Create two new folders within your lab folder, one named "wi"
and the other named "pub"
4.
Put all internal only files in the WI folder, and all the files
open to the public in the "pub" folder. (If you have no files
for Whitehead eyes only, you don't need a WI folder).
.
Now the
question is how to organize the bulk of your web page files within the
WI and pub folders. Do you put the images in their own folder, or leave
all the files together in the "WI" folder? Do you need a folder
for each of your HTML files and all the images that go with it? The
tradeoff is between organization and a shorter path.
In the
example above, this is the path for any of the files in the "WI"
folder. The path is how the browser will find and display the correct
files on your web page. For the sake of your sanity as you manage your
pages, shorter paths are always best. Each folder within a folder you
create adds one more step in the path. However, as you fix broken links
and renovate your page, you will need to be able to find your files
easily, so some grouping into folders may be necessary. Consider the
complexity of your site, and arrange it so that you find the happy medium
between path length and organization.
Decide
how your page will be structured at the beginning. If you
decide to move files to different folders after you have begun creating
your page, the path or link will be broken, and you will have to manually
fix it. This is easy but can be annoying and time consuming.
Naming
your files............
When naming
your files, a short name is always better. Spaces are not allowed. You
can use an underscore _ instead of a space if you want. Also avoid any
ASCII characters, such as slashes.
Adding
Images to your page ...........
You
can use any image on your web page as long as it is saved as a JPEG
or GIF. Both of these formats compress files so that they take
up less disk space and will download quickly. JPEG stands for "Joint
Photographic Experts Group" and as you might guess, it is a
compression method used most successfully on photographic images.
GIF stands for
"Graphic Interface Format". It will look best when used with
vector graphics (Illustrator).
Creating
GIF and JPEG files in Photoshop.
It
is best not to save an image as GIF or JPEG more than once because
it will compress more with each save, and the quality will break down.
Instead, if you need to alter a GIF or JPEG, go back to the original,
make the change, and save or export it again.
Web
Design Resources
Here
are some good resources online on web design:
http://www.ascid.com/basic/index.html (basics
of html)
http://www.webstyleguide.com/index.html (style
basics: layout, fonts, interface design, navigation)
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