- If you are starting from scratch: Load FrontPage 97 (it's available for Mac and PC) If Virtual Memory is not on, Front Page will not work. You can check by going to control panel under the apple menu. Choose "memory" click on at Virtual Memory. (You will have to restart the machine to make this change take effect.) New Macs have "Open Transport". If you are using an old Mac you will have to dowload it from an Apple site.
- Always load the Explorer part of FrontPage first. Go to > Create new web > From a Wizard or template > choose "normal web". OK. Name your web a simple name. (I suggest naming the teacher webs their e-mail user name) Front Page will create a folder on your drive called "FrontPageWebs". Make no changes to this folder. I'd suggest staying out of it unless you want to back it up to a zip drive.
- Now you have your index page called "index.htm"
- Double click on your index.htm to go to it. Oops, nothing there... so you have to add stuff.
- Background --Under format click on "background image" and browse. Click "clip art" and pull down category to find background. (there are many other backgrounds available from other sources) Look around at other pages, if you like garish, it's available. My favorites are grey weave, or a tan sand look. You can then add color with your photographs, borders, or text. Later when you have time do a "search" on the internet for backgrounds. Many people make and give away great backgrounds. After making a choice, click OK.
- Title -- Type in your title, then enlarge it using the Large A. Center it, Italicize it if you wish. Color it, using the coloring tool. Most of these tools are just like the tools in Microsoft Word and Power Point, but don't tell anyone. Let them think you are learning a whole new foreign program. You can use different fonts, BUT mostly the viewer's browser chooses the font, so what you use doesn't matter unless they have that font installed on their computer.
- Table --I make most of my pages using tables. For a class homepage I would select a table with 3 col, and 2 rows for a start, I set it at 100%. It will automatically set the % of each cell at 33%. You can change this by going into "cell Properties" under Table and changing the %. You can add more rows or columns later, but it is best to do it first. I use borders sometimes, and sometimes I go borderless. Experiment with various color borders. My fastest method is this:
- Start with a title "Onekama's Fourth Grade
- Add a table (3 columns, 2 rows is a start)
- Start putting labels in! Remember you can delete anytime you want!
- Oh yes, and you can move things with apple X, and apple V, unless your computer is one of those without an apple key. (then use control)
- Spend time on the Internet looking at other school pages. Get ideas the easy way!
Onekama's Fourth Grade Class
Michigan History: The Voyagers
Class Photographs Beginning Band
Art Class
Spanish Class
Class Schedule
Math: Our Towering Project Winning Team has both strength and height
Crystal Mountain Trip
Kindness Week
Accelerated Readers Our Best Writing
and lots and lots more.......
So, there you have it, your first page. Now you have to pretty it up, make lots of new pages (get a new page under File > new, and be sure to hyperlink to them from your index page. Save your pages. Give them a simple name so YOU can find them. Try to put in some gifs and maybe a jpg from your digital camera. You can scan some student art......
- Get backgrounds under "Format".
- Find all those digital pictures you took by looking under "insert" > "image" and then navigating to wherever it was you saved the picture (I try to keep my images sorted by grade level and event. They are all in my Adobe PhotoShop folder) Make a plan on where to keep yours. Attempt to make your jpgs less than 25K or they take too long to load. (The program PhotoDeluxe which came with the Ricoh camera will help prepare your photo for the web. Just follow the guided instructions. Decide how large you want the photo in inches. You can have "thumbnail size" (3" wide is good to fit in a column).
- Add color to your table border or background under "Table" > "table properties". By choosing "cell properties" you can make each cell a different color. There are the typical 10 or so colors or go to the very bottom and select the word "custom". Then you get to pick from the crayon box, or invent your own color. The sky's the limit on color. The same goes for text color. You can make the cells different sizes using %
- Save your page often: The "file path" of your first one is automatically named index.htm, but the page title is your choice. For your index page I would suggest a useful one such as "Mrs. Brown's Fourth Grade"
- Add new pages by pulling down "file" > "new" > "normal". Make it great. Save it with a short "file path name" (that's the one that ends in .htm) plus a "page title" which describes the page so you can find later. Get yourself a naming plan early on and eliminate "what did I call that?" headaches. "gr4_band.htm" is a great file path name for a page with a title like "Our Fourth Grade Loves Band".
- Now go back to your index page. You can find it by pulling down "File" to the bottom and selecting "Index.htm" or if it isn't there, pull down "File", >"Open" and browse for it.
- Now that you are back on your index page, you want to hyperlink to your second page, "gr4_band.htm" so people can find it. Go to the spot on your main page about band. Highlight the words, Pull down "Insert" > "Hyperlink" > then browse for the page you want to link it to in your current web. Should be easy to find, especially if there are only two pages! click on "gr4_band" to choose it, click Ok. When you get back to your index page their should be a hyperlink on band. Don't bother trying to use it. It doesn't work in FrontPage. It waits until the big time when it gets out on the web.
- You will spend more and more of you internet time checking whether your links work. If they don't, go back and fix them.
- Look around the house now to see if your husband and children are still with you.
- Did I mention you need plenty of text so the viewer has something to read while the graphics load? The BOOK says viewers will only wait so long before pressing the "back" button. I think it was 20 seconds. Probably they studied a fifth grade class to get their statistics.
- You will notice I haven't gotten to FTP (file transfer protocol yet) where we launch this web into the sky. You just keep making pages and we'll get to it.Making Changes to your web
