A step by step process for publishing
a web page on http://chapters.sme.org/

Getting packed

Default Chapter Web Page

In the beginning, all Chapters who have applied for Web Page space will be given the same 'Default Web Page.' It's up to the new owner to alter the webspace to fit their desires. Here's an example of what you'll find as a default set of homepages...


A 'default' Chapter Web Page

Reference the sited URL for this case...

The objective of this document is to introduce the process by which SME Chapters can effect changes to their Chapter Web Page. Herein, we will create a very simple HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) document as an exercise to support instruction in this process. What we will create is our first HTML document we'll call (Hello World).

The "Hello World" document

HTML documents are simple ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) TEXT documents that can be created on Windows (Intel) machines with NOTEPAD or WORDPAD and Macintosh (Motorola) machines using TEACHTEXT or . This ASCII text file will contain HTML Tags that are used by World Wide Web browsers to display their content information.

Done in the privacy of your personal desktop you'll create the following HTML file and display it on your World Wide Web browser of choice. All this can be done without leaving your personal desktop and connecting with the World Wide Web.

FIRST STEP - Build a file...

This "Hello World" document must be given an unusual name - 'homepage.htm' or (Traditional 'index.htm' is used on UNIX based servers), not 'HelloWorld.txt' or 'HelloWorld.html', as you might naturally assume. This file IS your 'HomePage' or main page that is first to load from your Chapters web space into visiting World Wide Web browsers. The file name is unique and should always be named as one or the other of these possible names.

Your first assignment:

    PROJECT: "HELLO WORLD"
    FILENAME: 'homepage.htm'

      <HTML>
      <TITLE>Hello World!</TITLE>
      <BODY>
      <CENTER><H3>Hello World!</H3></CENTER>
      <B>My Name</B><BR>
      My Address<BR>
      My City, State and ZIP<BR>
      My Phone<BR>
      My Email Address<BR>
      My O My<BR>
      </BODY>
      </HTML>

    It's important that when you save this file that -


    1. You save it to a directory/folder that will contain your work.
        we'll need to locate the file on your hard disk in our next step;
    2. You give this file the name 'homepage.htm'
    Your Chapters Web Space may have multiple pages, not just this one, but this main page must be named 'homepage.htm'.

In the content of the HTML document you'll notice a fundamental point of such files. The HTML tags come in pairs. If one is envoked at some point it is revoked, as in <HTML> and </HTML>. This rule holds for all HTML documents with very few exceptions, one here being the <BR> or line break tag.

There are several commercially available HTML Editors on the market that you can use; MS-Frontpage (www.microsoft.com), Adobe's PageMill (www.adobe.com), Claris Homepage (www.clarishomepage.com) to name a few. Use of such products will go a long way toward removing the tedium of coding a page.

You should note that the http://chapters.sme.org/ server is a WindowsNT system and that it supports the MS-FrontPage extensions (Active Server Pages- [.asp]).

SECOND STEP - Check your work...

Now with the file creation behind us you'll need to check your work. For this new HTML document we are using Netscape Navigator browser.

First - Start Netscape Navigator. Don't worry about having a connection to the internet at this time.
Second - At the menu bar, select  File drop down menu and the Open File ( [Ctrl]+[O] ) option.
Third - Remembering where you 'Saved' the HTML document 'index.html' navigate the 'Open File' dialog box to select it.
Lastly - Open the 'index.html' file with a double-click...

Take a moment to view the page. Note any exceptions, mistakes and such and go back with your ASCII Text editor and make the necessary changes to the 'homepage.htm' HTML file. Save the changes to disk, over-writing the file. Then going back to the browser, Netscape Navigator, click on the 'Reload' toolbar button. The browser should reload your HTML document from disk and show the newly made changes.

Repeat this process as many times as it takes to get your Chapters Web Page and it's content just the way you want it. If you are already satisfied with the page content then you are ready to move to the next step of connecting to http://chapters.sme.org/xxx/ and uploading the file with the FTP utility.

Optionally - If the 'homepage.htm' document and the open browser window are both visible, there on the desktop, you can do a click and drag on it to the open browser window. This is a much quicker means of opening the file from the disk.

Embellish - Some more HTML tags

Okay,  it's time to start making our text appear in different ways.  Let's start by giving you some more HTML tags to work with:

<B>  </B>   This is the tag for bold text.
Example:
<B>Howdy</B>
This will show up on your page like this:

    Howdy

Here are a few more to start working with:

<U></U> Underline text
<U>Underline Me!</U>

    Underline Me!

<I></I> Italics
<I>Isn't this fun?</I>

    Isn't this fun?

<STRIKE></STRIKE> draw line through text
<STRIKE>You're Out!</STRIKE>

    You're Out!

<CENTER></CENTER> center a line(s) of text
<CENTER>This centers text on the page</CENTER>

    This centers text on the page

    Having fun yet?  You can also use more than one tag at a time.  Let's say you wanted something in bold anditalics.  To do this, just place both opening tags before the text.....and remember to close both tags afterwards....