CUED Talk: Producing WWW files

There are many options available for producing HTML files - I use 3. It's unclear which is best, but it's increasing important to know how to produce WWW documents somehow. This talk won't go into the details of HTML file production but will show you how to publish files on the WWW. The issues I'm going to cover are

How to produce pages
Style and Design
Rules and Regulations
What Next

How to produce pages

First, a really easy method. This uses the Teaching System machines. Just create a folder called public_html. Any file there is on the WWW! If I (tpl) put a file called foo.html in my public_html folder, the world will see it as http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~tpl/foo.html. The files can be very simple (DEMO)

We can smarten this document up by using formatting codes

**Common HTML codes**
<TITLE> ... </TITLE>	Title
<H1>...</H1>	Big heading (also H2, H3, etc)
<B> ... </B>	Bold
<I> ... </I>	Italic
<P> ... </P>	Paragraph
<HR>	horizontal rule
<UL> ...</UL>	A bulleted list
<OL> ...</OL>	A numbered list
<LI>	Start of an item in a list

These codes form part of HTML (the HyperText Markup Language). Lists of them are online, but already you know enough to write a document. It's that simple! Note that you can see the HTML code that was used to produce a page by using the browser's "Page Source" or "View Source" option, so you can copy/paste code (if it's legal to do so). The computer services brief guide to HTML shows you more about HTML.

The only thing you need to remember is that the files need to be readable by everyone. I've set myself up so that by default all my files are readable by everyone, but you may prefer to work otherwise. Details are online.

Using Macs/PCs

The first approach was easy because we were producing simple files and the files were being created on a machine that's "on the Web". Usually it's a 2 stage process, producing the files on one machine then copying ("publishing") them to another. The final copying stage should be easy (it can often be automated) so I'll focus on the first (file-production) stage.

You can use Word or Notepad to produce HTML files as above, then copy them over to the Teaching System, but producing HTML code can be tedious, especially if you use tables, and besides, many documents are already written using Word. How can you get into HTML?

One option is to use "Save As..." to produce the HTML files. Unfortunately the resulting files don't always work well. You can try mailing a bug report to Microsoft, or mailing pc-support@eng.cam.ac.uk who have programs which will help improving things.

There are many specialised programs on the market nowadays for producing HTML files. Some are available free for a trial period. These programs do more complex things such as you see on pages like Varsity. Though I don't think we'll be using Frames and Animation for a while, these programs are cheap and powerful. If you intend to produce many online documents they're probably worth having, even for simpler tasks. They often have a "Publish" option which makes copying the resulting file onto the WWW easier.

Whichever method you try, it's important to consider paper and WWW output when deciding on the method. Though the 2 versions won't look the same, they should both contain the same information if possible. Don't worry about making the paper and WWW versions look exactly the same - use PDF if you really want that. And consider whether you really need paper output.

If you work with a networked PC, there are various ways that make it easy to copy files into your public_html folder on the Teaching System. Contact computer support for details, or see Accessing your home directory from a Windows PC. If you're using a specialised HTML editor then all you need to do is customise the "Publish" facility. All the secretaries should have already customised the "Publish" facility in Netscape - see the Creating your first WWW page for details.

If you're producing pages for a research group or university society rather than yourself, look at the instructions on our main page about Producing material for the WWW

Style and Design

As a reader of WWW files you have probably come to some conclusions as to what makes a page pleasant to look at and easy to use. The criteria are not the same as those used for paper documents. Some design guides are online.

CUED has a House Style based on the University's House Style.

Rules and Regulations

There are rules that you need to be aware of it you are putting material onto the WWW. In particular you should be careful about content (copyright, libel, etc) and you shouldn't use the House Style except on "official" documents. If you have queries in this regard, contact the Divisional webadmins (see the Web Strategy Committee page for details).

The recently passed Disability Discrimination Act requires material to be as accessible as possible to disabled users. Beware!

What Next

Produce some HTML files!

The help system's WWW page should lead to everything you need to know - if it doesn't, mail corrections to Tim Love. There's a page for admin staff as well as for those interested in Advanced WWW production. If you have any micro-related problems, contact pc-support@eng.cam.ac.uk or mac-support@eng.cam.ac.uk.

HTML is a rather limited "language". The Advanced WWW page production mentions various ways you can create more sophisticated pages that use java, databases, etc. VRML, TeachML and MathML are emerging to deal with particular requirements. I'd like to end by talking about Maths on the Web.

Updated February, 2003

Tim Love, tpl@eng.cam.ac.uk