The Help Page



Welcome to the Help Page. Here you can find help on how to fill out the categories for your Web Site. When you are done with Help, click on "Return" to go back to creating your site.

You can also access the Help subjects by using the menu below:


MENU


  1. Menu Help ...........................................Help with using the menu
  2. Title ..............................................The title of your new site
  3. Headline ........................................The name of your site, on-screen
  4. Background Colors & Images ..........Choose the background color or image
  5. Text Attributes ...............................Select the text size, color, etc.
  6. Images ...........................................Here, you can add your own image
  7. Links .............................................Provide links to your favorite sites!
  8. Paragraph 1 ...................................The body of your site
  9. Paragraph 2 ...................................The body of your site
  10. Layout ...........................................Choose the layout of your page
  11. Submit ...........................................When you're all finished, go here
  12. Saving Your Work ..........................Using an image program to save


MENU HELP


To navigate through the various sections it is helpful to use the menu. By clicking on the topic in the left column (in dark blue and underlined) you can go directly to that section of the program. When you are done, click on "Return to Menu" and you will do just that - and be ready to move onto the next section.


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TITLE


The title of your Web Page will be shown in the upper left corner of the screen beside the words "Netscape". For example, if you give your page the title "My Favorite Places" the title bar will look like this:


Netscape - [My Favorite Places]


The title of this page is "The HELP Page". One purpose this serves is to identify the page if someone adds the site to their Bookmarks. It will be a lot easier six months down the road to recognize what site the name "My Favorite Places" corresponds to than "http://www.somedomain.com/demo/sites/etc/".



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HEADLINE


The headline of your page will be displayed at the top of your screen. It is the first visual part of your site. Since this usually is the name of the site, it is a good idea to keep it short and prominent.

When choosing a color for the headline text try to remember what it is so you can avoid making your background and default text colors the same. Also, try to make the colors complimentary: blue text on a red background is an eye sore, but blue on gray is quite pleasant.

The size of text is also important. Since the headline relays information about the content of the site it is a good idea to make it big. It is recommended a size 1 or 2 text for this. Below is a sample of each:

Headline Size 1

Headline Size 2

Headline Size 3

Headline Size 4

Headline Size 5
Headline Size 6

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BACKGROUND COLORS & IMAGES


Your first choice here is to decide whether to use a plain color for the background of your page or tile an image. "Tiling" and image simply means that the same image will be placed side by side, row by row for the entire page. Suitable images for this purpose are simple patterns or textures. I have included one with this program ("back11.gif") which you may like to try.

If you decided on a color, select one from the list. Black and gray are the most popular but steel blue, gold, and teal can liven up a page.
IMPORTANT: Remember what background color you choose, when it comes time to select a color for the text and links make sure the colors are different or you won't see anything !

If you'd rather use an image, type in it's exact location on your hard drive or disk (Even if it's in the current directory). Don't forget that directories must be separated by a forward-slash (/) and include one at the very beginning:


/c|/windows/clouds.gif


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TEXT ATTRIBUTES


Here you choose a default color for the text. Later, when you type in the actual paragraphs of information, this will be the color it's displayed in. Remember to keep it in line with the background color so your page will be pleasing to the eye.

Below are examples of each size of text. Note that the font size 7 is larger than size 1 of the headline text:


This is Size 1
This is Size 2
This is Size 3
This is Size 4
This is Size 5
This is Size 6
This is Size 7


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IMAGES


Do you have an appropriate image you would like on your site? If so, click on "yes" and then enter the location of the image in the box. Use the same method as above for entering the path and file name:


/c|/mydir/flowers.gif


Don't forget that you must type out the full path, even if the image file is in the same directory.

Finally, you have an option to center the image. If you choose "no" the image will be displayed at the left margin.


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LINKS


Hyper-links are text that when clicked on with your mouse, sends you to another location in the site or anywhere on the Web. If you have a favorite site you can place a link to it here.

If you decide to add hyper-links select how many to include. There is a maximum of five allowed.

Next, for each link type in the URL (Universal Resource Locator) of the site. This is the "address" of the site on the Web. For example, Sun Microsystems, the developers of Java, have a URL of:


http://java.sun.com/


The leading text for the link is something that tells the viewer that what is immediately below is a hyper-link. Provide one for each link. An example might be:


The link below takes you to my favorite site:


The next area asks you to provide the text that will serve as the actual link, the text the viewer clicks on to go to the next site. You are prompted for the color of this text which should be different than your default text color. For example, if your background color is black and your text color is white, red would stand out nicely as a link.


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PARAGRAPH 1


If you decide you want to add some meat to your site, here's where you can do it. There is a second paragraph section immediately below this one if you decide you want to separate two sets of text (see "Layout" below for more information).

Below the text box you have several options on the paragraphs appearance. You can make it all italic, bold, in courier font, or plain.

Please note: When writing text into the box do not worry about line breaks and tabs, etc. When your page is being created all formatting will be removed and the text will be "wrapped" to the next line where appropriate.


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PARAGRAPH 2


This area is provided should you decide to separate your paragraphs (see "Layout" below), or use a different style.

You can leave this section blank if you do not require a second paragraph.


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LAYOUT


You have a choice between two options for how all your elements will be displayed on your page. This is entirely up to you. If when you are done you don't like the appearance of one, return to the main screen and click on the other option before re-submitting it.

Note: If you did not add images, links, or a second paragraph, the options you didn't include will be ignored.


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SUBMIT


Now that you are all done with your creation it is time to publish! Simply click on "Create Site" to see the end product. If after viewing the site you don't like something, simply change the option and re-submit it.

Once your page is on-screen you cannot close it down by (Windows '95 users only) clicking on the 'X' in the upper right corner. The "Close Window" button is provided as an alternate way of doing this.


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SAVING YOUR WORK


Unfortunately, after all this hard work you cannot save your creation ... Well, not exactly. No, you cannot save the page to disk and show it to your friends but, if you have a good graphics program you can use the Screen Capture function to get a "picture" of your site which can be saved as an image file.

Programs like PaintShop Pro allow you to click a function key (eg. F11) to automatically capture the entire screen and bring it up as an image in the graphics program. Consult the manual or help file of your program to see if it has this capability. Also, several shareware programs are available for exactly this purpose.

For more information or tips on how to save your work, as well as comments or suggestions, please contact me at:

71374.37@compuserve.com


Other JavaScript programs, Java applets, and VRML worlds can be obtained by visiting my Web site at:

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Designs_Alive/


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This site written and designed by Kevin Little, Designs Alive, 1996