what you are actually
seeing is an image located on the Stemnet webserver under St. Joseph's All
Grade's parent file. Therefore, wile you see tulips, the computer sees the
following code: | What is the Internet? | What is the World Wide Web? | What is Hypertext? | What is a Webpage? |
| What is a Website? | What is HTML? | What is Front Page? |
Essentially, the Internet is a large number of computers connected to one another and communicating with one another. The term has two roots: Inter (meaning connection between) and Net (an abbreviation for network). A network is a group of computers that are connected together and which share information. You have a computer network operating in your school (most likely a "star network" where there is one central server and has all of the nodes (individual computers) connected to it). Your school's network can be referred to as an "internet" but it is not the Internet. When a lower case "i" is used, the term internet refers to any computers that are connected (i.e. a network). An internet is not necessarily connected to the Internet. An intranet is a private network inside a company or organization that uses the same kinds of software that you would find on the public Internet, but that is only for internal use. An intranet may be on the Internet or may simply be a network. It is important to note that the Internet does not contain any information itself... it is merely the transport system that carries information (in the form of packets) from computer to computer -- all information is stored on computers called servers. The information is able to be transmitted and received because of what is called TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol). Each connected computer has its own address called an IP (Internet Protocol) Address. An IP Address is an identifying number consisting of four parts and which are separated by dots/periods (eg: 10.250.39.254).
The most common uses for the internet are:
Most people consider the World Wide Web or, more simply, The Web and the Internet to be interchangeable terms. That is, they see no difference between them... but there most definitely is. The Web is actually all of the interlinked resources on the Internet. In other words, the Internet is the connection but the Web is what is connected. You might find it useful to think of it microcosmically: look at the computer which you are sitting in front of right now. What do you see? A Keyboard? A Monitor? A Mouse and Printer? A CPU (Central Processing Unit -- actually, this is contained within the "box" or "tower" but most people refer to it as the CPU)? What about what is displayed on the monitor? That is the information. Now, you would not call the monitor itself information... it is a piece of hardware. The program you are currently running (most likely a Web Browser) is called an application. The application works because of the hardware. The Internet and the Web are no different... the Web works like an application on top of and because of the Internet! For our purposes here in an introduction to making a basic website, it is enough to say that The Web is basically everything that happens on the internet through the use of HTTP. HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) comprises the set of rules which govern the transfer or communication of information over the Internet, whether that communication be text, images, video, audio, or other form of multi-media.
The term hypertext, coined in 1965 by Ted Nelson, basically refers to a collection of documents which contain cross-references or links which, with the aid of a browser program, allow the user to "jump" from one document to another or to different points within a single document. "Let me introduce the word hypertext to mean a body of written or pictorial material interconnected in such a complex way that it could not conveniently be presented or represented on paper." -- Nelson
A Webpage is essentially any document written in HTML (therefore making use of hypertext) which can be accessed through The Web. Let's consider a given "page" on the net... this one for example. We have been programmed (pardon the pun) from childhood to read from left to right, top to bottom. Virtually (again, pardon) everything we read is presented in this fashion. The words that you are reading right now exist in this linear (or straight forward) pattern. A webpage is similar to a page in a book... it can be read from top to bottom. Even those which are organized into a myriad of tables and columns, can be viewed through a top-down approach. Where it differs from a regular page is that it can be read beyond the confines of a linear document -- because it makes use of hypertext, links are involved which allow the reader to read laterally. That is, while you can read from the top to the bottom, a link such as this one can take you to another part of a document (known as a bookmark), or an entirely different document, where you will continue reading in a linear fashion. It is for this reason that the actual links are also called hyperlinks. It is important to note however, that in constructing a webpage, one ought to always keep navigation in mind. We want our links to make sense! The user, because of the sheer size of a page, will not spend a whole lot of time reading something s/he is not interested in and more importantly, s/he won't keep reading something with broken links. A broken link is a hyperlink which doesn't go anywhere!
Essentially, a website is what occurs when hyperlinks exist between documents under the same world wide web parent directory on a web server. This phrase, while accurate, is a little confusing unless one is aware of the terminology used within it. To understand parent directory, it is necessary to understand what is meant by a web server. The difference between internet, intranet, and Internet were discussed under the What is the Internet? section above. There, it was stated that an intranet and the Internet operate under similar circumstances. It was stated that no information exists on the Internet but is merely communicated over the Internet from computer to computer... network to network. The information which is passed over the Internet was said to be stored on host computers called servers. A server, therefore, is a computer that is configured in such a way that its files are readily accessible via the Internet. Most servers act as Daemon servers... that is, they run continuously and are always accessible. These servers often offer file space to users -- a file directory is created on the server's disk space specifically for a given customer/subscriber. This file space is called the parent directory or the www root directory. Most ISPs (Internet Service Providers) require payment for the use of space on their servers, although many offer free webspace, as it is also called, with the intent of signing the user up for a payment package once s/he begins to grow beyond the rather limited confines of the free space. Take this website (cool-teacher.com) for example -- my host ISP is geocities (Yahoo). I began with the address http://www.geocities.com/cjivany/index.htm and then upgraded my free account when I purchased my own domain name. Now, when you go to that site, you get cool-teacher... even though you haven't typed that address into the address bar of a browser. Cool-Teacher is a registered name that no one else can usurp easily... hence, when you type in cool-teacher.com in a search engine you will get information on my site. I upload my files to a parent directory on the geocities' server(s).
So, a website is a group of webpages which are all housed under the same parent directory on a server. It only makes sense, therefore, that a website is unified and cohesive. That is, the information in a website, the look of the site, the navigation, etc. will all be generally the same. The first page in a website is always called the index page. This page is recognized by a browser as page -1- of the site. For example... if you were to click on both of the following links, you will get to the same place even though "index.htm" hasn't been included on the second one: http://www.cool-teacher.com/index.htm http://www.cool-teacher.com . Unless you write in a complete file name for a page, an image, etc. following the dot com, you will always get the index page. If you upload a webpage or a website to a server without an index page, browsers won't know where to begin so they will simply say that they can't find the website. Users will have to type in full file extensions including individual page names (eg. http://www.cool-teacher.com/english_notes.htm) if they want to get to your site.
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is the language of the Internet. It is basically a code of tags and rules which allow Internet browsers to display text, images, ect. on webpages. There are a few important things to consider when examining HTML. Firstly, the point of HTML is that it is invisible... you don't see it. It exists to communicate to your computer the proper way that the website you are currently viewing was meant to be displayed. It plays a very minor role in terms of text... all that is basically required for an all-text page is to indicate paragraphing, the header, body, and the fact that the page is html. For example, the following bit of code is perfectly fine for two paragraphs of text to be displayed. Click HERE to see what this simple page will look like.
| <html>
<head> <title>Example</title> </head> <body> <p>Here is a short paragraph. Here is a short paragraph. Here is a short paragraph. Here is a short paragraph. Here is a short paragraph. Here is a short paragraph. Here is a short paragraph. Here is a short paragraph. Here is a short paragraph. Here is a short paragraph. Here is a short paragraph. Here is a short paragraph. Here is a short paragraph.</p> <p>Here is another. Here is another. Here is another. Here is another. Here is another. Here is another. Here is another. Here is another. Here is another. Here is another. Here is another. Here is another. Here is another. Here is another. Here is another. Here is another. Here is another. Here is another. Here is another. Here is another. Here is another. Here is another. Here is another. Here is another. <b>This is in bold</b></p> </body> </html>
|
While this may seem a little complex, it is quite simple in terms of how complex the code can get. We won't even get into javascript, vbscript, and other forms of coding systems on the Internet. The point is, without programs like FrontPage, we would have to put a lot of work into the code (more on this topic below). Tables, for example, are quite complex to create in HTML for a beginner. Consider the webpage you are currently reading... it is quite simple. However, the code is a different matter. To view the code for this page, go to "VIEW" on the menu bar and select "source". Your computer's NOTEPAD program should come up with a lot of "stuff" in it. That stuff is this page. The complicated looking material at the top is the header information and the contents table at the top of the page. Granted, a lot of that hidden material doesn't need to be there (it is generated to indicate that this page was constructed with FrontPage) but nevertheless, it is quite complex, even for a simple page like this one.
It is also important to note that when one views a webpage, no matter what is
seen, nothing actually exists on the page other than the code... the code tells
the computer what to display and where. That is, when you see a picture on
a site, the picture isn't actually there. The picture is located in a
sub-directory of the parent/www root directory on a server somewhere... the
computer is told by the HTML to look for the picture and display it on your
screen. Hence, when you look at the following: what you are actually
seeing is an image located on the Stemnet webserver under St. Joseph's All
Grade's parent file. Therefore, wile you see tulips, the computer sees the
following code:
<img src="http://www.k12.nf.ca/stjosephsallgrade/images/spring/tulips_pink_md_clr.gif"> Test this out for yourself: highlight the http:// address in the code and copy-paste it into your browser's address bar... you'll get a blank page with nothing but pretty tulips!
FrontPage is the name of the application that is available from Microsoft Corporation to provide users with a graphical interface for the creation of web pages. This type of program is commonly referred to as an "HTML editor" because its job is to generate HTML files based on the commands executed in the page layout interface available to the user. Other HTML editing packages include Adobe PageMill and Macromedia Dreamweaver. The alternative to using a program like this to create web pages is to either use a text editor and enter the HTML codes directly, or get someone else to make your web pages for you (definition taken from http://www.scotsmist.co.uk/glossary_f.html). Using FrontPage as the soul creation software for your work can be a little tricky if you don't know what you are doing, hence the need for this guide. While this is the case, it is a relatively easy program to learn and use and the majority of people whom I have taught to use the program have literally mastered the basics in only a few short sessions. Basically, if you can use a wordprocessing program like Word or WordPerfect, you can create a webpage using this application.
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