Creating a Website

Thanks to today's Web authoring tools and all the Web authoring resources on the Internet, you can create a great-looking Web site without knowing any hypertext markup language (HTML) code. Of course, if you want to learn the technicalities of HTML, there are plenty of places for you to turn for information. This chapter will get you started.

Getting a Domain, or Web Presence
It's Easy with FrontPage® 98, Office 97, and Publisher 98
Liquid Motion™
Beginner Definitions
The Microsoft® DHTML Editor
How to View Source Code
How to Save Microsoft Office Documents as HTM Files

Before you can post a Web site to the World Wide Web, you need a unique address for the site. This address is your domain name. Microsoft's domain name, for example, is "microsoft.com," and the uniform resource locator (URL) for Microsoft's home page is http://www.microsoft.com

Some Internet Service Providers set aside portions of their hard-disk space for subscribers' Web pages that require no domain registration. Check with your service provider to see if this is an option; it might be included in your monthly access fee.

What is InterNIC?
To ensure each Web site has an address that no other site is using, domain names must be registered with the domain administrator. In most cases, this is InterNIC. InterNIC administers domain names ending in .com (for commercial enterprises), .org (for nonprofit organizations), .net (for networks), .edu (for educational institutions), .gov (for government organizations), and .mil (for military services).

How to Register
You can search domain names to find out whether the name you want is taken and can register a domain name through InterNIC. The Registration Services section of the InterNIC site provides detailed information about how to register and what's required before you can register. The site's FAQ is particularly helpful.

Sites to Visit
Visit the InterNIC home page.

Find out about InterNIC Registration Services.

Consult InterNIC's FAQ.

Visit the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web site.

Several Microsoft® products make it easy for you to create your own Web site without any knowledge of HyperText Markup Language (HTML) coding.

Microsoft FrontPage 98
With the Microsoft FrontPage® 98 Web site creation and management tool, you can easily create and manage professional-looking Web sites, using content (words, pictures, and more) you already have in other applications.

Easily Create Great-looking Web Sites

• Easy-to-use, leading-edge features let you create professional Web sites without programming. There's no need to write code.
• Create frames and draw tables. Add rich, dynamic graphics to your sites using Microsoft Image Composer, Microsoft GIF Animator, and more than 2,000 image samples. Easily include powerful Web functionality by adding Java-based applets, ActiveX® controls, and browser plug-ins.
• Support for databases and Active Server Pages allows you to include database content in your Web pages easily and lets users perform dynamic database queries on your site, giving them direct access to the information they need.

Effectively Manage Web Content and Site Structure

• Comprehensive management tools let you quickly build and maintain well-organized Web sites. View your site's navigational structure, directories of information, hyperlinks, hyperlink status, or all files at once.
• With automatic hyperlink maintenance, you have the freedom to make changes without worrying about broken links. With site-wide thematic styles, you can easily update your site's look with the click of a button.
• Flexible collaboration features such as task lists and remote and/or local authoring let you work with others to create and manage your Web site.

Seamlessly Integrate Existing Content and Familiar Applications

• Seamless integration with existing content and with desktop applications you already have makes you productive from the start. And strong browser integration makes it easy to customize and view your Web site's content.
• For example, you can effortlessly manage Microsoft Office 97 hyperlinks and use familiar tools such as the spelling checker and thesaurus to ensure accurate, compelling Web site content.
• The power of FrontPage is now available on all popular Web servers running on a variety of operating systems.

Microsoft Office 97
If you're familiar with Microsoft Office 97, you know about its sophisticated tools for word processing, spreadsheet and database management, presentation-slide production, and more. With Office 97, you get the versatility of an entire integrated suite of applications for creating effective Web sites.

What You Can Do
Office 97 is fully compatible with Microsoft Web Publishing Wizard, which you can download and use to post your site on an available Web server. Following are some of the additional features that make Office 97 a useful tool for Web authoring:

• Microsoft Word 97 word processor allows you to create and view documents as they will appear on the Internet. Word provides custom templates to design Web pages and will save your documents in HTML format with the click of a button.
• Microsoft Excel 97 spreadsheet gives you an easy method for linking a spreadsheet to a Web page so that viewers can see the data presented in its intricate, tabular format.
• Microsoft Access 97 database management system will convert your data or reports to HTML so you can post dynamic, interactive database pages on the Web.
• Microsoft PowerPoint® 97 presentation graphics program makes it possible to publish presentations on the Internet as Web pages, complete with animation and narration.

Microsoft Publisher 98
The Microsoft Publisher 98 desktop publishing program makes it easy to create professional-quality Web sites, newsletters, flyers, brochures, business cards, and more. Publisher lets you choose from several Web site creation options:

• You can design your Web site from scratch.
• You can start with one of more than 1,600 professionally designed, customizable templates.
• You can let AutoConvert automatically convert another of your Publisher publications, such as a brochure or newsletter, into a Web site for you. Then make changes to the site, if you want.

Create a Unique Site
Publisher has more than 10,000 high-quality clip-art images, 1,500 photographs, 1,000 Web-art graphics, 175 fonts, 340 animated GIF files, 60 color schemes, and many other design elements to create publications that are one of a kind. You can apply the look you create for one publication to other types of publications, so it's easy to design a coordinated set of marketing materials-for print and the Web.

Sites to Visit
Find out about Web style with these style guides:

• Guide to Web Style - Comprehensive guide put together by a group of people at Sun Microsystems who are experienced in building Web pages.
• Gareth Rees's Style Guide - A much smaller guide, dealing primarily with content presentation.
• World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Style Guide for Online Hypertext - W3C's guide to presentation style and Web page etiquette.

The Microsoft® Liquid Motion Web multimedia application tool makes it easy for novices and experts alike to create and publish animation on the World Wide Web. Animation can bring your Web site to life for users, attracting their attention, engaging their interest, and communicating your message.

With Liquid Motion, you can create exciting animation without knowing any programming. Because it's easy to learn and use, you get results quickly. And Liquid Motion works on any browser that supports Java on any platform. This includes Microsoft Internet Explorer browser v4.0 and 3.0. So you can be confident that visitors to your site will be able to see the animation you create.

These common Web-related terms and their definitions will help you understand Web authoring basics.

HTML - HyperText Markup Language, a programming language used to build Web sites. It contains standard codes, or tags, that determine how a Web page looks when your browser displays it. For example, tags are used to create headings, paragraphs, and lists. HTML tags also make possible the hyperlinks that connect information on the World Wide Web. With help from programs like the Microsoft® FrontPage® 98, Web site creation and management tool, you can create Web sites without knowing HTML. But it may be helpful for you to understand the basics. To learn more about HTML, read A Beginner's Guide to HTML.

DHTML - Dynamic HTML is an extension of HTML. DHTML gives you more control over the appearance and position of everything on your Web page. It's considered dynamic because it gives you a way to include elements on your page that download to a user's Web browser along with the page but don't become visible until the user interacts with them. This means that when the user interacts with the elements, they activate without requiring anything of your Web site's server.

XML - Extensible Markup Language, a data format that makes it easy to define types of documents, author and manage documents, and share them over the Web. It's an abbreviated version of Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), the mother of all languages to describe documents, so it's easier to use, understand, and write programs for.

ActiveX® - A Microsoft technology that facilitates interoperability, or sharing, among applications. ActiveX controls (or component applications) let you embed smart objects in the site. Once a user's browser downloads an ActiveX control from a site, the control remains on the user's computer. So when the user visits another site (or another page on your site) using the same control, it doesn't have to download again.

Java - An object-oriented programming language developed by Sun Microsystems to create applets, or programs that can be distributed as attachments to Web documents. An applet can be included in an HTML page, much as an image can be included. When you use a Java-capable browser to view a page containing a Java applet, the applet's code is transferred to your system and executed by the browser.

Scripting - A programming shortcut that gives non-technical users a way to create richer content on their computers and gives programmers a quick way to create simple applications. Scripting enables you to set and store variables, and work with data in your HTML code. Many Web sites now employ scripting to check the browser a user is running, validate input, work with applets or controls, and communicate to the user.

Sites to visit
To learn more about DHTML, ActiveX, Java, and other Web site development basics, visit ZDNet's InternetUser, a resource for Web users and developers.

Visit the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web site.

The Microsoft® DHTML Editing Component allows Web authors and application developers to add HyperText Markup Language (HTML) editing capabilities to their Web sites and applications. The editing component uses Microsoft's component object model (COM) technology to make editing services such as basic HTML formatting, tables, undo/redo, find, and absolute positioning readily available.

Applications that use or output HTML (for example, Web authoring, electronic mail, or Help applications, or HTML forms) can use the DHTML Editing Component to provide rich editing capabilities. Web authors and developers can use any language to access editing services and provide a user interface for editing features. They can also access the Document Object Model to add more sophisticated, custom editing features to their applications.

One way to learn about HyperText Markup Language (HTML) and how to create the Web site you want is to view the source code of a Web site that contains a feature similar to the one you'd like to create. Microsoft® Internet Explorer v4.0 makes this easy. On the View menu, click Source. Source code for the Web page you're on will appear in a Notepad window.

Sites to visit
To learn more about HTML, read A Beginner's Guide to HTML.

Visit the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web site.

To save a Microsoft® Office document, such as a Microsoft Excel or Word file, as an HTM file:

1. On the File menu, click Save As.
2. In the "Save as type" drop-down list, select HTML Document and click OK.