Publishing on the World-Wide Web

Fashioning a web page has become a quick and easy way to distribute information to the world via the Internet and World Wide Web. Your ISP or a free home page site may offer storage space for your web pages so learn the basics and build from there. They will come!

1

HTML tags
4 highlighted frames of a moviestrip HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is the low level programming language/code that browsers understand to display text and graphics. A web page, in its simplest form, includes HTML tags that describe placement or alignment of these elements on the page. No matter how complex these instructions may become, the basic elements of a web page always include the preliminary tags seen at left. The HTML tags to include your artwork /images or movies on your pages are added between the <body> </body> tags along with your descriptive and scintillating text.

For still images and graphics:
<IMG SRC="NameOfImageHere.gif" ALT="Brief description of image">

The HTML text file must exist in the same folder as the artwork, otherwise a path must describe its location. The ALT tag describes your image for those that browse without loading images or on older text based browsers. If you've saved your image to the .jpg or .jpeg format, the suffix .jpg or .jpeg will replace .gif.

For Quicktime Movies:
<EMBED SRC="PutYourMovieHere.mov" CONTROLLER="TRUE" AUTOPLAY="TRUE"></EMBED>

This set of tags and parameters tell the browser to begin playing the movie file as soon as it is able. A movie's filename ends in .mov so the browser understands how to display it. CONTROLLER="FALSE" will tell the browser not to show the movie controller. Likewise, if the movie shouldn't start playing immediately, change that parameter to AUTOPLAY="FALSE"
2

Test, test, test!
Pose and grab a sequence of images You can practice and test your web page locally from your hard drive before it goes 'live' - assuring that the world will see things the same way you intended. Fire up your favorite browser, open your file and scrutinize how it is displayed to make sure it appears and performs properly. If you have more than one type of browser, try your page in each one to get an idea of its performance.
3

Upload the page to your Internet Service Provider (ISP)

GifBuilder's Interframe delay dialog box

Once you've created and tested your page, transfer it to your Internet account using an FTP software tool. Your ISP or free web page provider will have detailed instructions on how and where to 'upload' your finished web page in its directory of files.

The 'path' to this web page now located in their directory becomes the URL or address/ location of your page on the World Wide Web. The 'http://' of a URL stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol, followed by the site address (www.happyvideo.com). The forward slashes represent another level (or 2) of folders followed by the file's name (usually with a suffix of .htm or .html). When you have successfully placed your page on your ISP's server, tell your friends to visit the URL/address, sit back, and bask in their compliments.