Users with accounts on the RCI and Eden computing systems may maintain a personal website. This document will give basic instructions on how to create a website and transfer it to the web.

What is a website?

A basic website is really a just document written in HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). HTML is a set of "markup" symbols contained in a file intended for display on a web browser (Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, Safari). To create a website you simply create an HTML file and put it on a computer that can be accessed by the Internet via a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) which is a global address for resources on the World Wide Web.

How do I make a website? (i.e. How do I create an HTML document?)

An HTML document is really just a text file which has embedded "markup" symbols. There are two popular ways to produce an HTML document:

• Using a Text Editor

  There is nothing to stop you from creating an HTML document directly with a text editor (notepad, wordpad, emacs, vi, pico). Some people prefer to create their websites this way since HTML is fairly simple and it gives them more control.

  HTML is not a difficult language to learn. One easy way to learn it is to edit an existing HTML file, save the changes, and click the "reload" button on the browser, to see the changes take effect. You can expand upon your template by learning more HTML from the links to the resources below.

• Using a WYSIWYG Editor

  Some people prefer to not edit their HTML directly and instead use a piece of software called a "Web Editor", such as Macromedia Dreamweaver or Netscape Composer to write their HTML for them. Such editors are called What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) Editors, since what you see in your GUI (Graphical User Interface) is approximately how things are supposed to look when someone visits your site.

  There are a variety of software packages available for users who prefer to use a WYSIWYG Editor. Netscape Composer is a popular choice for beginners since some users already use Netscape to access documents off the web. For information on how to use Netscape Composer see the NBCS online tutorial.

How can my website be accessed via the Internet?

For any site to be accessed via the Internet that site needs a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) which is a global address for resources on the World Wide Web.

What is my URL?

• http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~jqdoe
• http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~jqdoe

How do I make my website come up if someone goes to my URL?

Your RCI or Eden account contains directories. If you create a directory called public_html and put your HTML documents in that directory then anyone who goes to your URL will see your website.

How do I put my website (i.e. HTML documents) in my public_html directory on RCI/Eden?

• Using a WYSIWYG Editor's Publish Feature:

  For information on using a WYSIWYG Editor's Publish Feature see this.

• Using Command Line Tools:

  If the page-to-be isn't already on your RCI or Eden account, use a Secure FTP client to copy it to your account. For information on how to do this please see this.

  If your public_html directory does not exist you can create it by doing the following:

  1. SSH into your RCI or Eden Account.

  2. Issue the following UNIX commands while in your home directory. 

  mkdir public_html
  chmod 755 public_html

  3. Check the protection of your public_html subdirectory with the following command:

  ls -ld public_html

  If the protection does not read drwxr-xr-x, you should reissue the command

  chmod 755 public_html

  4. Transfer your edited home page template into the public_html directory and rename it as index.html. If you have it in your main directory, the command is 

  mv pagefile public_html/index.html

  where pagefile is the name you've given the template while editing it. 

  5. Check the protection of your index.html file with the following commands:

  cd public_html
  ls -l index.html

  If the protection does not read -rw-r--r--, you should give everyone read access to the file with the command

  chmod 644 index.html

Additional Resources for Creating Websites

I. Rutgers Support for Web Publishing

Here is a more detailed list of Rutgers services in support of web publishing:

• The Rutgers Web Toolkit includes templates and instructions to help you create web pages following the official Rutgers format.
• Applying the Toolkit to Dynamic Pages
• Web servers you can use
• Resources for creating web pages and sites
• The Rutgers Frontpage Toolkit
• CGI, Counters, Forms, etc.
• Web-based instructional services
• Fee-Based Web Development/Database Design Services

II. General Information on the World Wide Web

• About the World Wide Web an introductory document by the The World Wide Web Consortium
• The World Wide Web Consortium Home Page

III. Publishing Documents on the World Wide Web: Beginners

• A Beginner's Guide to HTML, by NCSA.

IV. Publishing Documents on the World Wide Web: Advanced

• HTML Tutorials and Guides
  • An Introduction to HTML
  • HTML Style Guides: Don't just write HTML, write it well! Here is a collection of style guides to help you do that.
  • Yale C/AIM Web Style Guide
  • HTML 4.0 Specification.

• Cascading Style Sheets
  • The World Wide Web Consortium's guide to Cascading Style Sheets.

• Tables
  • W3C Table Guide

• Page Layout
  Instead of using overly complicated tables or out-of-date frames, you can control your page layout with with CSS. For more information see:
  • CSS Layout Techniques
  • Designing Without Tables Using CSS

• Forms
  • Forms with PHP on RCI/Eden
  • CGI Forms on RCI

• Color
  • Lynda Weinman's Browser-Safe Color Palette contains 216 colors out of a possible 256. That is because the remaining 40 colors vary on most computers. By eliminating the 40 variable colors, this palette is optimized for cross-platform use.