How To Maintain A Web Site At CSUC

Originally Prepared For GST By Kent Nichols

Last Modified Wed May 3 17:08:37 PDT 1995

This document is an attempt to dispel some of, if not all of the mysteries of web page maintenance as it stands today. It will discuss all of the tools used in Web page construction. It will also discuss the necessary protocols that go along with those tools. This document is meant to get the average over-worked professor/department chair up to speed and on the Web. Consequently, the language contained herein is highly UN-technical. That's not to say that it won't be confusing or intimidating, this is still the Internet after all.

This page was orginally crafted for the Professors of GST. Therefor most commentary will be centered on how I created the GST home page. Most of information will still pertain to you and your department. As time goes on I will be adding information that reflects the current state of the electronic jungle.

This page assumes a few things. The first assumption is that you have access to Macintosh computer running Netscape 1.ON or greater (I suggest 1.1N for both speed and coolness factor). You will also need a copy of Fetch. Both of these programs are availble from on campus resources. I realize that I am ignoring the Windows/Pc people out there, but I haven't yet had the need to support that platform. I assure you when the time comes I will be ready to rise to the challenge.

The second assumption is that you have played with your computer and the Net before. I don't expect you to be a wizard but I do expect a level of comfort with that warm gray box on your desk.

How Your Department's Home Page Came To Be

I built the GST page the hard way. I started out with the text files provided by Department Head, Kirk Monfort. Once Kirk and decided on the direction and content of the page I got to work converting the provided text files into Hyper Text Mark-up Language (HTML). What this means is, I took Kirk's documents and added little codes through out. These little codes tell a World Wide Web (WWW) browser (such as Netscape) how to format the text for viewing.

For Example:

This is the code to make something appear bold:

<b>Hello<b>

After I went through the files and added the special codes for formatting I then went back into the files and made Hypertext links to each others.

What is a hypertext link?
A hypertext link is basically an standardized Internet address. When this address is written into a web page it directs Netscape to whatever is at that address. Hypertext links can be to graphics, sounds, movies, and most importantly other web pages.

Here is a good example of what a hypertext link looks like. I took this code from the bottom of this current page.

<center><b><a href="index.html"><img src="pictures/abomb.jpg" width=64 height=69><br>Return To INFOKENT</a><i/center></b>

Here is what that whole mess means. The first part is just formatting the text.

<p> Adds a return before the line.

<center> Centers the line.

<b> Makes the text appear in Boldface.

Here is where the actual link starts.

<a href="index.html"> This is telling Netscape to look in the same directory (folder) for the file named index.html and load it.

<img src="pictures/abomb.jpg" width=64 height=69> This tells Netscape to load the image (img) abomb.jpg that is located in the directory (folder) pictures. The width and the height tell Netscape how big you want the image to be displayed.

Next comes the end tags for the earlier formatting.

<br> Places a forced line break.

</a> Closes the clickable area of the Hypertext link. The clickable area in this link was the text "Return To INFOKENT" as well as the image abomb.jpg because they both were within the link tags <a href...> </a>.

</center> Uncenters the text.

</b> Ends the Boldface type.

After all of the formatting codes were added and the links were in place the (no small task) GST web page was finished except for a few minor adjustments.

The (Relatively) Easy Way

Just because I did it the hard way doesn't mean you have to do it that way. Presummably most of the hard work of setting up the original look and feel of your home page is finished. Now all that is left is routine maintenance. Things like changing names of faculty, adding new syallbi, and correcting any mis-information.

OK Here Goes:

  1. Turn on your Macintosh and launch your copy of Netscape.
  2. Once in Netscape go to the Options menu and make sure to select the "Show Location" option. You can tell the "Show Location" option is active by looking for a textbox just under the first row of buttons at the top of your screen.
  3. Proceed on to the page that needs revision.
  4. When you are at your destination page, write down what comes after the / in the location box located at the top of your screen.

    EXAMPLE:

    http://www.csuchico.edu/gst/index.html
    In this case you would write down index.html.

  5. Now select the View menu.
  6. Once the View menu drops down select the "Source..." Option.
  7. The "Source..." option will launch the Teachtext program on your Macintosh.
  8. Once in Teachtext, go to the File menu and save the document as the name you wrote down earlier.
  9. Now edit the file with any wordprocessing program you like.
  10. When you are finished editing the file be sure to save it as plain text. In Word 5.1 you are able to do this in the "Save As" option within the file menu. If you use teachtext you needn't worry about saving it as a straight text file because it already does it for you.
  11. Once you have finished the revison and you have it saved as a straight text file you are ready to proceed with replacing the file.
  12. Launch your copy of Fetch.
  13. Place the following information in the following fields:

    Place New Data in the Proper Field
    Host:quasar
    User Id:Put Your User ID Here
    Password:Put the password assigned to you by Information Resources Here
    Directory:/user/webdocs/Your Dept. Centrex Code/

    A few things to remember about this step. Make sure that you are using the User ID and Password assigned to you by the Information Resources people. You password may be different from your MS Mail password.

  14. Now click the button in the middle of your screen called "Put File". Locate the file that you have revised and send it of as text. IMPORTANT NOTE: Delete the .txt BEFORE clicking ok. If you fail to do this any document with a link to that file will not work.
  15. Now the file is sitting safely on quasar. In order for the world to see your newly revised document you need to do one final thing.
  16. Launch your copy of Telnet.
  17. Once in telnet go to the File menu and select the "Open Connection" option. Place quasar in the hostname textbox and click ok.
  18. At the login prompt type your Information Resources supplied User ID, and at the Password prompt type your IR supplied password.
  19. At the $ type 'newgrp Dept. Centrex Code'

    Example: newgrp gst

  20. Now type 'cd /user/webdocs/Dept. Centrex Code/'

    Example: cd /user/webdocs/gst/

  21. You are in the home stretch. Type 'chmod a+r new revised file name'

    Example: chmod a+r index.html

  22. You are done. Type Exit at the $.
  23. Launch Netscape again to make sure everything was done properly.
  24. Either pat yourself on the back for a job well done or go back and relaunch Fetch.

How Do I Actually Make Revisions?

That is a tricky question. The simple answer is you will have to have at least a basic understanding of HTML, so that you will be able to look at the code and have a general idea of what is going on. In order to get that basic knowledge here is some required reading.

Once you have those two documents read you should have a pretty good idea of what HTML codes look like and what they're functions are. If your revisions are only light (name changes and adding a few links here and there) you should be fine with keeping the majority of the page intact and you needn't worry about learning HTML indepth.

How Departmental Web Pages Are Setup

All of the Departmental Web pages physically reside on the campus computer named Quasar. Quasar is owned and operated by the lovely folks over at Information resources.

On Quasar all of the pages sit in the folder (directory) /user/webdocs/. Within /user/webdocs/ there are sub-folders (directories) for each Department that has a Web page. These Sub Folders are named according to the Centrex abbreviatons for each department. The page itself sits in the directory (folder) /user/webdocs/gst/.

View My Journal Behind The GST Web Page


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