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How do I write a web page?
What do I do with a web page I've written to put it on the web?
How do I write a fancy web page?
How do I put a sample exam with lots of math symbols on
the web?
How can CCNMTL (aka Cinamatelly) help me make a course web
page?
With Netscape or Mozilla (its open source cousin) you can create and edit web pages pretty easily using its "Composer" feature because the interface is similar to a word processor. Using this method you do not have to know any HTML, you just have to know what you want the page to look like. There are buttons for boldfacing, indenting, making text larger, coloring the text or the background, inserting an image, etc. This program is installed on all of our own machines; it is not installed in the lab in 407.
On a Mac: Look under the Apple menu in the upper left of the screen.On Windows: Look under the Start menu in the lower left of the screen.
On Unix: Click on the browser icon or type mozilla at the command prompt.
While you are using Composer , you should of course save your document regularly. This means you are saving a local copy that resides on the machine you're sitting at. In the math department, web pages need to be stored on our server which is where you'll have to move this file to. See the next question for details.
What do I do with a web page I've written to put it on the web?
First, you must put the web page on our server. That is described below for each platform. After that, you should provide a link to these resources in the University-Wide Bulletin. That procedure is addressed in another question. The reason you should do the latter step is so students can find your web page. Often, students use these materials to assess their interest or ability to take a class, so it is important to allow them to find these resources without having to hear about it from you during class.
First, do this: Log in to your Unix account and make sure you have a directory called "html" in your home directory. You can do this by typing
ls
and seeing if one of the items in the list is called "html". If so, you're set. If not, type
mkdir ~/html
and now you're set.
To put a page on our server from a MacFirst, follow the steps in the next question to mount the volume "MyWebPages" on your desktop.Now, there is a new icon on your desktop. You have "mounted a remote volume." It represents the directory in your math account called "~/html", which is where you have to put your web pages. Put your new web page in there by dragging it in from wherever you saved it.
Advanced tip 1: Make an alias to the new icon somewhere convenient, perhaps your Apple menu. Recent versions of Mac OS have a menu under the Apple menu called "Recent Servers" that access it quickly as well.
Advanced tip 2: Mount MyWebPages before you start working. Then when you save, save it directly into MyWebPages. Your changes are visible on the web as you work!
Note: In the future, you can edit files in this folder directly. Just re-mount MyWebPages using the above procedure and open the document or documents that are in it. It's just like a Zip disk or a floppy, only you access it differently. Plus it's on the Web. Currently, Mary and Laurent use this exact system to update almost every page on our web site from their Macs!
From Windows
Follow the steps in the next question to find your home directory on the Unix machine. Inside is the folder called "html." It represents the directory in your math account called "~/html", which is where you have to put your web pages. Put your new web page in there by dragging it in from wherever you saved it.Advanced tip 1: Make a shortcut to the new icon somewhere convenient, perhaps your desktop.
Advanced tip 2: Access this folder before you start working. Then when you save, save it directly into your html folder. Your changes are visible on the web as you work!
Note: In the future, you can edit files in this folder directly. Just locate your html folder using the procedure described here and open the document or documents that are in it.
From Unix
This is the easiest. Since you're on a department Unix machine, your home directory on the math system is right there! Just save your documents in the directory called "html" inside your home directory. So if I am Peter Woit, the path to my web pages is /home/woit/html or ~/html, either one.
How do I write a fancy web page?
Some more powerful web page editors include Microsoft Front Page (PC only), Macromedia Dreamweaver (Mac/PC), and Adobe GoLive (Mac/PC). Dreamweaver and GoLive especially are for advanced users, containing features that allow you to make some fancy pages with layers, DHTML, animated GIFs, and pre-made JavaScript behaviors like image rollovers, buttons, and window management. All of these products are available at academic pricing. Contact our campus J&R store in 101 Philosophy Hall at 854-8108 (hours are M-F 10-6).
How do I put a sample exam with lots of math symbols on the web?
The powers that be wish that this question had a more satisfactory answer. Math markup, a la TeX and LaTeX, is not part of HTMLyet, though the World Wide Web Consortium is working on getting MathML, a proposal for just this sort of thing, included as a standard part of HTML and web browsers. For now, though, there are only some workarounds. The one most likely suited to your needs is to make a TeX document (a sample midterm, say) and just convert it to a PDF file and let the students download it from your web page. It is viewed outside of the browser by Acrobat Reader, a free viewer. This is an ideal solution for sample exams and homework solutions, because the file can be printed out anywhere (the computer modern fonts are embedded in the PDF file) and so looks like TeX output. Another option, though, is to use latex2html. To use this, put the .tex file in your html directory and run
latex2html file.tex
It will output a whole web site, with navigation links among your sections and chapters. Math symbols are turned into zillionsof .gif files, one for each appearance of each symbol. This method is really to browse large documents and is ill-suited to teaching, because it is almost unreadable in print and has no typographical quality, which is what TeX is all about. Usually you're just making sample exams and homework solutions and the PDF solution is better.
There are two steps to distributing a PDF file on the web: make the PDF file, and link to it from your web page. The first step is covered in the next question. Once you have the PDF file (midterm1.pdf, let's say), put it in your html directory in your home directory. Then, edit your web page and add a link to that file. The procedure to do this differs among the different products, but what you want to look for is adding a link to some text. Type something like "download the sample midterm here" and hilight it. Find the "add link" command (in a menu or on the button toolbar) and type midterm1.pdf for the link text. When the students click the sentence, midterm1.pdf pops up on their computer. To be polite, link them to the web page where they can download the reader if they don't already have it. It's at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/alternate.html.
How can CCNMTL (aka Cinamatelly) help me make a course web page?
Visit their web page. They will work with any instructor, by appointment or walk-in, in their Lewisohn or Butler lab locations. The will help you design and create a course site, and they have lots of equipment (CD burners, scanners, fancy web page creation software) you can use. Their services are free.
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