IMPORTANT

No filename nor folder (directory) name may contain spaces (e.g. 'my page.htm'). While these names may work on your local hard disk, they will not work on the web server: it chops off names if it encounters a space. Use an underline (e.g. my_page.htm). or a dash (my-page.htm) or no gap at all (mypage.htm). Your normally cheerful and helpful webmaster will not repair sites that use spaces in filenames.

Uppercase and lowercase file names are different when uploaded to a webserver, even though they are treated as the same file by Windows.

e.g. if you upload index.htm, then locally rename it as Index.htm and upload it again, there will be TWO files on the server : index.htm and Index.htm.

Web page editors

1. Web editor: Dreamweaver.  We have a Dreamweaver site licence.

2. Tolerated: Word documents

3. Loathed: Web pages produced by MS Publisher or MS Word or Front Page

4. Not accepted: handwritten copy

There is a web page template (click here to download it) you can use for quick results. Use Dreamweaver.

Pictures

1. Pictures must be JPG, GIF or PNG formats. No other formats are acceptable. Photos must be saved as JPG, not GIF.

2. If you are putting several pictures on a page, the total picture size should not exceed approximately 100K. Use thumbnails linked to the larger images, reduce the size of the images, spread the pictures over multiple pages or increase JPEG compression. Use Photoshop, XNView, Powernail or similar utilities to auto-generate entire pages of thumbnailed pictures

3. Do not just reduce the size of a picture by dragging its corner - the picture is still the same size to download.  To reduce a picture's size, resize it in a graphics program like Photoshop or Image Composer.

Compatibility

1. Do not use browser-specific features (especially Frontpage extensions). Pages must be designed to comply with basic standard HTML. Plugins, Shockwave, Flash etc should not be used without a jolly good reason.

Assumptions

1. Assume visitors use 1024 x 768 monitors, but try to design for 800x600 if possible.
2. Assume visitors don't have broadband, so keep pages small so they load quickly.

Links

1. All pages should have links to the college home frame (/index.htm)
2. If you use multiple pages on the same topic, each page should have links to the other related pages.
3. External sites you link to must be vetted for appropriateness.
4. All links must be tested to see if they work after they are uploaded to the server.

Appearance

1. Keep pages simple where possible. Do not lay on a lot of fonts or colours.
2. Remember that if you use a weird font available on your computer, the same font may not be on the visitor's computer and the text will appear in a default font.
3. Do not use excessively large or small font sizes.
4. Use tables to keep text width reasonable: 75% of the screen width is good.
5. Avoid using cheesy, ugly, space-consuming animated GIFs.

For more information on designing web pages, read this.

Page submission

1. Do not submit files that are not used by your web pages ('orphaned files').
2. File names must be in lower case
3. File names and directory names must not contain spaces
4. Web pages may be submitted on USB Flash RAM drive or put in your U: drive and their location emailed to me.
5. Clearly indicate where the page is to be stored (e.g. SOSE/History folder)
6. Clearly indicate who created the pages.
7. Do not just submit a collection of photos without some explanatory text.  If you don't know what the pictures were about, how am I supposed to? Indicate what the event was for, who was there, when it happened etc. Get students to write something if you want to.   Remember that text submitted for the newsletter can be re-used on the website.

Cheers

Mark Kelly, Webmaster