Edit and Improve Your Web Page

How to Edit your pages

Now that your first website is available on the web, you may want to refine it. Keep in mind that you should have two copies of your web page: One in your Polaris web space, the other in a folder on your hard drive. To make changes to your Polaris page, you open the copy from your hard drive into Windows Notepad. Make the desired edits then FTP the changes to Polaris. So long as you don't change the names, the newer versions of your page will overwrite the older. Should you ever lose the copy of the site on your hard drive, point your browser to your Polaris webspace and save each page by clicking the FILE button on your browser, then SAVE AS. If you've lost the graphics as well, you'll need to go through your site and right-click each graphic then pick "SAVE AS".

View your page online

Your page address (called a URL) will be
http://polaris.umuc.edu/~userID/pagename where UserID is your Polaris ID and pagename is the real name of the page ending in .htm or .html Pages called index.htm or index.html have a special property. These pages load automatically when your webspace is browsed. That's cool because it shortens your url to just:
http://polaris.umuc.edu/~userID/ It's good to call your main page index.htm or .html. It's not good to call other pages things like index2.htm or indexpage2.html. The "index" name only works for your main page. Other pages should have page-descriptive names such as page2.htm or myphotos.htm

Troubleshoot Problems

The most common problem we see is that graphics don't appear on your page. Instead, there's a little white box with a red X in it. To fix this, check your HTML code and make a note of the exact name of your graphic including the extension (.gif or .jpg). Next, Telnet back into Polaris and examine the files in your www and images folders. Is your graphic listed? If not, upload it (as a binary file) using your favorite FTP program (WSFTP, Netscape, etc). If it is listed, check the name. It has to match the name you used in your HTML *exactly*. Case counts so dog.gif and DOG.gif would not match.
Look for formatting errors. Are there instances where an entire page is showing up in bold or italics due to a missing closing tag?
Check all links to make sure they work. Make sure that any link you follow offers a means of getting back to either the page linked from or your main page.

Critique your page

How does your page look to you? Are you having trouble reading the text or seeing some of the graphics? If so, considering changing your background and text colors so that they're contrasting and easier to read. Link colors should also be easy to see. If you use a background graphic, make sure it isn't so "busy" that it obscures your text. Make sure there isn't too much blinking, spinning and scrolling on your page. Everybody has fun with animated gifs but using too many can detract from the main message of your page. Finally, consider your audience. Who is your page created for? Put yourself in your audiences place. Does your page offer all of the you want your audiance to have? Is the tone and readability of your page appropriate for this audiance?

Next, check the load time for your page. How long from when you type in your URL and hit "GO" does it take for your page to be fully loaded. If you use a 56k modem, multiply this number by 2 to find out the load time for those using a 28k modem. Research suggests that people will only wait about 45 seconds. If a substantial part of your page isn't loaded by then, they may bail out and close your page. There are some tricks to improve your load time:
-Avoid huge graphics
-Avoid super-high res graphics. In most cases, 256 colors are plenty for web pages
-Don't try to put all your stuff on one 75ft long web page. Break pages up logically
-If using background sound that autostarts when your page is opened, avoid huge sound files as this will slow page loading to a crawl. In general it's a better idea to go with a very small and fast loading midi file. Placing such a file near the top of your page (just below your tag will help keep people interested in your page because the sound will load and play almost immediately letting them now there's something going on while the rest of the page is loading).
-Avoid embedding video. Instead, offer a link to a video telling your visitor the format of the video and the filesize. These are good things to know before deciding to click the link.
-Avoid those "Under Construction" graphics. All good sites are updated frequently and thereby always under construction.

Once you're satisfied with your site, you'll want to let the world know that it exists. So please continue to the topic How to Publicize your website. -or- Return to our Main Page