Web Design: Concept, Context and Content
Unit 1 Considering Tools and Stockpiling Goods
1.0 Introduction 1.1 Objectives 1.2 Tools of the trade
1.3 Website creation and management tools 1.3.1 Templates
1.3.2 Basic web editors (HTML editors) 1.3.3 Mid range web editors
1.3.4 Advanced/ Professional web editors 1.3.5 Graphic Applications
1.3.6 FTP Utilities
1.4 Internet connectivity and server space 1.4.1 Free server space online
1.4.2 Purchasing server space and Domain name 1.4.3 Find space for your domain
1.5 Browsers and web extras
1.5.1 Purpose and functions of browsers 1.5.2 Web extras
1.6 Summary
1.7 Self-check Exercise
1.0 INTRODUCTION
The field of ICT and especially the Internet and web applications is a vast and dynamically changing subject field. We are witnessing the overnight changes in the tools, techniques and technology. In this unit of the course it is intended to familiarize you with the website creation and management. As stated this subject is very vast and ever growing which contains lot of tools and techniques. It is impossible and also worthless to try to have mastery in all available tools, but it is must to have competency to select right tool for right purpose at right time. This unit is prepared keeping this central idea in mind. It is deemed that you are already familiar with the basics of ICT tools like computers, printers, scanners, cameras, windows operating system, MS Word, Word-pad, Notepad etc applications and having good experience of internet/web browsing, moreover having access to these resources.
The unit deals with the tools of the trade, website creation and management tools, internet connectivity and server space, and Browsers and web extras. The unit will introduce you with the basics of the field to create and manage a simple website and familiarize with the basic idea and give tips to create and manage a complex web site.
Content is the central part of any form of communication, including web site. What you want to say is always more important than how you say it, but here we will focus ourselves on how to say something using world wide web as a medium. It is also presumed that you have digital copy of well written contents.
1.1
Objectives
After reading this unit you will be able to understand different aspects of website creation and management tools. Different issues related to Internet connectivity and server space have been covered in details. Browsers and web extras has also been covered in this unit.
1.2 TOOLS OF THE TRADE
Creating a Web site necessarily requires hands on experience and access to ICT (Information, Computer and telecommunication) tools including relevant software tools. In this block, our focus falls on the array of software that you can use to create, edit, and manipulate Web elements. You can frequently mix and match tools of your choice depending on the need.
Likewise, knowing your choices will help you create a working environment that best suits your needs and personal style. Creation of functional website necessarily requires the expertise to select and use the relevant software tools quickly. Web editors or html editors, CSS, (cascading style sheet) graphic applications and FTP utilities are the basic website creation and management tools competency to select and use appropriate tool in best possible
way is a necessity for a web developer. It includes a very long range of open source (free) and paid software. We will discuss some of the important tools in coming section of the block.
Knowledge about internet connectivity, domain name registration and server space is also important to upload a functional website. The access to type of Internet connectivity is depends on the local infrastructure and availability of type of internet connectivity which varies from dialup, broadband to V-SAT based, Leased line based internet connection but to create and manage a simple web site a broadband connection is sufficient. Another important requirement is the URI or web address (Domain name) and server space to upload your website. It is must to store your web site on the internet server to make it accessible 24X7. In coming paragraphs we will discuss it in details.
Knowledge of browsers and web extras is another set of competency required to develop a functional web site, basics of the browsers and web extras will also be discussed in the unit.
Due to development of Unicode support now it became possible to create and host websites in all most all major languages of the world, therefore you must be aware about it. You can very easily create a website in Hindi or any other language if you know typing in that language using Unicode. This is not the part of the block but you may try it by activating language pack on any Windows XP, Vista or Windows 2007 operating systems, it will give you a new kind of pleasure to do things in your own language using ICT.
To get started, let‘s look at the most basic competency, after internet connection, you‘ll need during your Web creation attempt i.e. website creation and management tools. It is presumed that you have internet connection and some browsing experience.
1.3 WEBSITE CREATION AND MANAGEMENT TOOLS
Website creation is a creative as well as technical job. You must have competency to try and use new software tools to get the desired results and creativity to present contents in best possible way. As you know creativity is an insight which can‘t be developed only by lectures or texts. Therefore leaving creative part to you, in this section we will discuss the software tools required to create and manage the website.
1.3.1 TEMPLATES
A template is a preformatted page layout that incorporates graphical components, font styles, colours, and other design elements. You have to enter the required information in specified fields and select the any of the available template. If you create a Web presence using a blogging site or an online group, you‘ll most likely start by using templates to set up your site. Templates are also available online and with software applications that you can use to design your Web pages. Most of the web sites, which provide the free web site creation and hosting services, provide templates to create webpage. You can try on webxgeneration site to have hands on experience of using templates. http://webxgeneration.in
You may download the web template of required category from
http://www.e-webtemplates.com view of one such template is given below.
If you download and extract the template file you will get the detailed list of html and css files and images used in this template. You can open the html file in notepad or word pad and enter your desired test instead of already entered text, provided that you have basic knowledge of html tagging. You may replace the jpj and gif files from your own files having same file name. Templates are good for understand the structure of the web sites and to practice. You can get lot of free templates from many websites.
1.3.2 BASIC WEB EDITORS
A basic Web editor is a text editor like notepad, word-pad etc. If you have good hands on experience on HTML, you can use any basic web editor. When you use a text editor to create a Web page, you type your Web page‘s text and all the HTML commands and into a blank document and save it as HTML document. The most basic of the basic text editors is the Notepad application that comes with the Microsoft Windows operating system.
There are many web editors called WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor which automatically encode HTML tags to your document, you can try MS-WORD to save your word document as html document using save as option of file menu. You might wonder why Web developers opt to manual HTML coding of their Web pages when the WYSIWYG editor can do it readily. The answer varies, but for the most part, Web developers hand-code their Web pages due to following reasons, these reasons also be said as Merits of the manual HTML coding.