COMPUTER APPLICATIONS IN THE GEOSCIENCES -- FALL 2008 -- LLABA B 11  WWEBE B PPAGESA G E S The purpose of this lab exercise is to create your own web page that will be hosted on the Geology Department web server http://www.geo.utep.edu, commonly referred to as “geo”. If you already have a web page on the Department server (let me know), please work through this lab as directed and use any extra time to update your existing website accordingly. If you do not currently have a website, this lab will walk you through the basics of web page editing and posting pages to the Internet. Note: I will use the terms “web page” and “website” interchangeably. Technically, a “website” is a collection of “web pages”, however I will not likely hold to this definition. We will use a free webpage editor called NVu for creating/editing web pages. NVu is available on both PCs and Macs and has been installed on the classroom PCs and 5 Macs in Geol 409. You can also download NVu software for your own personal computer at http://www.nvudev.com/download.php 1. Mount the class workspace directory. Before you begin working on your web page, you will first need to connect to, (or “mount”), a common workspace directory that has been set up for this course.  Macs: In your Finder Menu  Go  Connect to Server Enter Server Address: smb://geobase/GEO5215 Click Connect button If prompted, enter your Miners login or username & password Navigate to your own folder  PCs: Start  My Computer  Tools menu  Map Network Drive In Folder, enter: \\geobase\GEO5215 If prompted, enter your Miners login or username & pass word Navigate to your own folder Warning: if you recently registered for the course, you may not have a user folder. Let me or Carlos know if this is the case, or if you have any other problems connecting to the server.COMPUTER APPLICATIONS IN THE GEOSCIENCES -- FALL 2008 -- 2. Create a Web folder in your folder on /geobase/GEO5215 If you haven’t already, double click on your own directory, add a new folder, and name it ‘Web’  Macs: In your /geobase/GEO5215/username folder, Finder Menu  File  New Folder Re-name this folder We b  PCs: Menu  File  New  Folder Re-name this folder Web 3. Introduction to HTML code for web pages Web pages are written in a computer language called HTML. HTML is not a WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) language, but rather is a set of symbols and commands that is read and translated by a web browser (like Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, etc.) and displayed on the Internet in a readable format.  To view the original HTML commands (or “source code”) for a web document, launch your favorite web browser (Macs: Safari, Firefox; PCs: Explorer, Mozilla/Firefox) and navigate to the UTEP Geological Sciences homepage: http://www.geo.utep.edu.  Depending on your web browser choice, from the top, click on View  Page Source (or View Source) (or Source). This will pop up a new window with lots of text and symbols. This gibberish is actually HTML code. You can also execute this command by clicking on the 3rd mouse button from within the document window (if you have a 3-button mouse). 4. Writing your own HTML code & introduction to NVu It is important to note that there are many software applications that will allow you to create and save files as HTML for the web (i.e., MS Word, Mozilla, Adobe DreamWeaver, etc.). Thus, it is thus not necessary to learn the HTML language in detail, however it is useful, in the least, to recognize some of the basic commands.COMPUTER APPLICATIONS IN THE GEOSCIENCES -- FALL 2008 -- Today we will practice using the NVu editor application to create a web page. NVu is a great program, as it is freely downloadable, fairly easy to learn, and reasonably flexible. NVu also has several “modes” for developing web page. Here we will first practice entering commands in the “Source mode”, then will edit in the “Preview/Normal mode”, which displays test in a WYSIWYG format. To create your own simple HTML code, will need to start up the NVu software.  Macs: From your desktop, Macintosh HD  Applications  Nvu For future convenience, drag and drop the NVu icon to your desktop “dock”. Please let me know if you don’t know how to do this. Double click on NVu  PCs: Start  All Programs  Nvu After NVu is launched, close any extra windows that display “Tips” and ask for your permission to track your use of their software. You should then be left with a large NVu window, which may remind you of the layout of Microsoft software.  At the bottom of the window, click on the Source tab  Highlight all of the text that appears and hit the delete key on your keyboard  Now type in the following HTML commands in place of the text that you just deleted: <html> <head> <title> My first HTML document </title> </head> <body> <h2> My first HTML document </h2> Hello, <i> WWW! </i> <p> Greetings from the <br> <a href=http://www.geo.utep.edu> UTEP Geology Department </a> <p> Composed with care by: <cite> (enter your name here) </cite> <br> Last updated: August 28, 2008 </body> <html>COMPUTER APPLICATIONS IN THE GEOSCIENCES -- FALL 2008 -- Note that most commands begin with <…> and end with </…>. Paragraphs are separated with <p>. Web links are represented by <a href=http://……> Text-2-be-linked </a>. ** For basic information on HTML language commands (or “tags”), please refer to the handout “Basic HTML Tags”. **  Take a good look at what you just typed and try to guess what each command does or represents….  Click on the Save icon in the top menu bar. Name the file test.html and make sure you save it to your Web directory on the /geobase/GEO5215 server. If you need help with this, please let me know. Congratulations. You have now officially created a web page using HTML code. Next you will display your page as you might see it on the Internet:  If your file has not already been re-displayed, click on the Normal tab at the bottom of the NVu window. Now you