Overview

Today's session will have three purposes:

1. Have you develop a page using a web authoring program (Netscape Communicator)

2. Have you save a file and upload it to Wilkes1

3. Have you change permissions and view your page on the web 

Explanation: You will need to create an HTML file that contains the desired content, properly formatted, with active links. Such files can be created in any text editor like MS Word or a "SimpleText: application, and saved as a "Plain Text" file. However, there are numerous applications that allow you to type a document and add formatting in a WYSIWYG environment, and a tagged file is automatically created.

We will use the Composer option within Newscape Navigator to demonstrate use of a web authoring program.

To do:

• Open Netscape Communicator.
• Under Communicator menu, select "Composer".
  Note that a blank page will come up with a toolbar.  The items on the toolbar will be explained in class.
• Type "Welcome to XXX's Homepage", where you include your name, but do not include the quotation marks.
• Hit return, then type a sentence or two of personal information about yourself.
• Save your page as "index.html" to a location you can easily find.
• Type, "Links to academically oriented webpages"
• Then type:
  • Wilkes Homepage
  • FRF 101O Homepage
  • BIO 121
  • BIO 122

    Note: the latter two links can be replaced by two other courses or links to other faculty.

• Highlight the Wilkes Homepage line, then click the "Link" icon in the toolbar.
• In the space below the "Link to a page location or local file", type "http://www.wilkes.edu", then hit OK.
• Go into Netscape Navigator (shortcut should appear at bottom of screen), and go to the course homepage for FRF 101O.  Copy the URL for that page.
• Go back to your Communicator file, highlight the "FRF 101O" line, and paste the URL in the appropriate space.
• Find the URLs for the other two sites, and create links as well.
• Save your changes.
• Add a H. Line (see toolbar).
• Type "Links to Favorite Sites" and hit return.
• Highlight those words and go to alignment icon in toolbar - select center justify.
• Provide a short list of three or four sites that you know you like.
• Find their URLs and provide links as you did previously.
• Save your changes
• Return to Netscape and find a picture that you like.
• Using the right mouse button, click that picture and select "copy image location".
• Return to your Communicator file, find a place where you want to add that picture, and click to position the cursor (you might need to hit "Enter").
• Go to the toolbar, and click the image icon.
• Paste the image location in the upper field, and then click the "Leave image at original location" button
• Hit OK.
• Save your changes

   

II. Uploading your webpage to Wilkes1.

Explanation: You will need to transfer the file that you created and saved on your hard drive over to the webdocs folder in your wilkes1 account. To do this, you will need to use a file transfer program like WS-FTP. You will then need to set the source window to the directory on your hard drive where you saved the file, and the target window to the webdocs folder in your wilkes1 account.

To do:

• Open WS-FTP and type your login and password (as you have done before)
• Navigate through the left window so you can see the icon for your "index.html" file
• In the right window, select the "webdocs" folder.
• Use the right arrow button to upload the file to your wilkes1 account.

III. Changing permissions

Explanation: All files on wilkes1 have three options for action: read (allows you to read a file), write (allows you to compose or change a file, and execute (allows you to make a program run). Unix has a set of commands that allows you to determine whether you or somebody else has the permission to carry out those three functions.

We define three levels of permission, user (the owner of the account), groups (the collection of users within which your account resides - like "users" or "staff"), and others (everybody else with access to the web).

You can check on the permissions status of your files by typing the command "ls -la". A listing of your files and their permissions will be displayed for you in a series of nine letters.

By default, most files that you upload to wilkes1 (or directories that you create) allow you (the user) to read, write, and execute them. However, such permissions are not automatically granted to others, either in or out of your group.

To publish on the web, you need to grant permission to allow everybody else to see and execute your files - but not to write them (you don't want people to change the content of what you post). Unix has the command "chmod" that allows you to change permissions.

The command "chmod 755 filename" will allow you to change the permissions to the desired set.

Note that once you upload a new file to the web, you must change permissions. You can make changes to that file, and re-upload as often as you want, without changing permissions. However, if you upload a new file, you must change its permissions before people can see it. Failure to properly change permissions is a common source of "404 error" messages.

To do:

• Log on to wilkes1 using Telnet
• Change your directory to "webdocs" (type "cd webdocs").
• Look at the permission codes by typing "ls -la"
  You want the permission code for your Web Page files to have "rwxr-xr-x" and Web Page directories to be "drwxr-xr-x".
  Do this by typing "chmod 755 filname.html" or "chmod 755 directoryname" at the wilkes1 prompt under the "webdocs" directory.
• Type "chmod 755 index.html" to change the permission code for your Home Page
• Type "ls -la" to be sure that your permission code is correct.

IV. Check demo

V. Review Assignment

This page posted and maintained by Kenneth M. Klemow, Ph.D., Biology Department, Wilkes University, Wilkes-Barre, PA 18766. (570) 408-4758, kklemow@wilkes.edu.