Artronic Development (ARDE)

(Note: This was presented first at the InterWorks conference held April 12-17, 1997 in Philadelphia.)

Outline For "Web Site Secrets"

This presentation assumes you already have a working knowledge of the Web and HTML. It will cover some of the more advanced topics. The abstract provides an overview of the topic and the outline is below. Presentation slides are available.

Other presentations covering related material are also available on this Web site.

Web Site Secrets

Introduction
- What Will We Cover?
  - InterWorks Web site techniques
  - How the Web is changing
  - Tricks to try on your site
  - Automation and interactive features
  - Converting content for Web viewing
  - What is next?
How the Web is changing
- HTML 3.2 Reference Specification (Details)
- InterWorks Web site upgrade (Details)
  - Suggestions submitted by readers
  - Team effort
  - New (lean) graphics
  - More content
  - Improved navigation
  - More ties to Interex Web site
- Browsers then and now (Details)
  - InterWorks access August, 1995 through February, 1996
    - Netscape used 66% (increasing)
    - NCSA Mosaic at 13% (decreasing)
    - Lynx just under 3% (decreasing)
    - Others well behind these
  - August, 1996 through February, 1997
    - Netscape used 63% (maintaining)
    - Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE) at 7.5% (increasing)
    - NCSA Mosaic at 1.6% (decreasing)
    - Lynx just over 1.3% (decreasing)
    - All others (26% of accesses) less than a full percent
      scattered across more than 50 browsers and robots
      - NetManage Chameleon started growing, then dropped
  - Access logs from other sites similar, those with
    heavier PC accesses show MSIE to as much as 20%
- Updates on issues from last year (and others) (Details)
  - Tables - Not in NCSA Mosaic, Lynx got some help
  - Java - Use is increasing, "cute", applets, applications, JVM interpreter JBC, and the C++ subset source notation, other methods to create JBC
  - Backgrounds - Moving back to simpler or plain - lots of white, test, information vs backgrounds
  - BODY colors - set any, set all
    - BGCOLOR - background color
    - LINK - hyperlink which has not yet been visited
    - VLINK - hyperlink already visited
    - ALINK - active hyperlink (while it is being selected)
    - TEXT - page text
  - Font specifications - No letters hanging, extending off right side
  - Image maps - Client-side image maps, including Lynx still provide both client and server forms
  - Active-X - Microsoft OSs, potential security risks
  - Comments - More strict, completely blank pages, correct comment tag syntax:
    
  - MULTICOL - <MULTICOL COLS=n> </MULTICOL>
- Watch your server logs (Details)
- Browser projects, Mnemonic, others (Details)
- Drawing attention to your pages (Details)
  - Netscape extension tag <BLINK> (avoid)
  - animated GIFs (most are annoying)
  - "JavaScript" ("LiveScript")
  - "look at me, I'm new to the Web"
  - Try less intrusive advertising
  - Aim for content - reader already has reason to be there
  - Get listed on search engines, keep checking
Tricks to try on your site
- Highlighting new or updated information (Details)
  - new or recently changed
```
  <IMG SRC="/Images/new_small.gif" WIDTH=26 HEIGHT=15 ALT="[New]">
  <IMG SRC="/Images/updated.gif" WIDTH=43 HEIGHT=15 ALT="[Updated]">
```
  - Comment dates notification
  - Date page was last changed search facility cache
- Controlling what search sites report (Details)
  - "Standard for Robot Exclusion" page
    - robots.txt
      User-agent: * Disallow: /
  - Certain "META" tags
    - <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW">
  - Password scheme
  - By IP address
- Pages for internal or limited use only (Details)
  - Buzz words: "Intranet", "Extranet"
  - Company proprietary information
  - Firewall
  - Passwords - individual or group
    - InterWorks 97 conference
    - Interex and InterWorks surveys
    - Complete copy of InterWorks Web site under test
    - Other information
- Checking HTML syntax
  - "weblint: Quality Assurance for Web Pages"
  - Commercial packages now available - quality varies
- Formatted Web pages for e-mail or print
  - Lynx -dump switch
- Think maintenance (Details)
  - Web can be changed easily
  - Highlight significant changes on "What's New" pages
  - Don't use "errata pages" - Yes, I've seen them
  - Gradually building Web pages
    - InterWorks conference information
    - Automated schedule
    - Section templates and consistent page naming
    - InterWorks vendor directory
    - Unique "flags" contain year
Automation and interactive features
- Forms and feedback (Details)
  - Questions and comments to the webmaster
  - On-line membership form and records update form
  - "Thank You"
  - Advocacy form
    - Pull-downs for easier identification
  - Simple e-mail message to appropriate staff or volunteers
- Saving data and generating pages (Details)
  - Conference abstract submissions
  - Committee members create summary, change status, etc.
  - Automated schedule
  - Personal conference schedule
  - Worldwide Advocacy survey
  - Engineering Investments Survey
    - Partial on-line analysis
- Think generality (Details)
  - Maintenance accepted practice
  - Reuse often overlooked
  - "hidden" fields on form indicate use
  - Configuration file specifies details
  - InterWorks abstract submission 1996 and 1997
  - Worldwide Advocacy Survey and Engineering Investments Survey
- Image maps (Details)
  - "All" InterWorks pages
    1. header logo - "home", Interex, other
    2. footer graphic - all major portion
    Provides:
    - Maximum information, minimum bandwith
    - Both client-side and server-side implementations
    - See Navigational Notes
  - Geographical local chapter maps
  - Exhibit floor plan
Converting content for Web viewing
- Wide variety of submission formats
  - Most common: simple ASCII text e-mail
- Templates
  - publication page discussion
  - Sample templates
- Some authoring tools now save in HTML (Details)
  - MS Internet Assistant
    - Application add-on available free
    - Simply do a "save as", specifying HTML
      (without it, try save as "Text with format")
    - Good job on text, but fairly poor job on graphics
    - Output tailored toward MS Internet Explorer browser
  - Word Perfect
    - Linux version (probably others) can save in HTML
    - Fair job
  - W3 mode in emacs
  - Others - more all the time
- Cyberleaf (Details)
  - Interleaf tool
  - Available for several UNIX and MS Windows 95 and NT
  - Converts native Interleaf, Framemaker MIF, MS Word RTF, ASCII
  - Custom construct definitions available
  - Structured - results best when input style structured
  - Lends to repeat publishing
  - "transient" web for easier cleanup
  - Better job on RTF graphics than MS Internet Assistant
    better yet: paste into "paint", save as TIFF, convert for Web
- Other tools
  - Freely available on Internet
  - More commercial tools every day
  - Quality and capabilities vary
  - Investigate, test, ask others
- Editing the output from translators/editors
  - Necessary for general use by all browsers
  - Could be limited with more time in setup
- Experiences with Netscape Gold editor (Details)
  - Can reduce some frequent novice HTML errors
  - begin and end forms for paired tags
  - Can read HTML pages it didn't create
  - May help you
  - Use caution
    - Bad HTML generated
    - Physical vs. logical fonts
    - Method of centering
    - Re-wrapping of lines
    - Difficult to maintain HTML (if you hand edit, too)
What is next?
- Can't predict
- Hope for more HTML 3.2 support
- Hope for lossless Portable Network Graphic (PNG) support
- Other hot new topics by next year
Where is this paper?

This presentation was prepared by Artronic Development for the benefit of our prospective clients and our associates.

Outline For "Web Site Secrets"

Web Site Secrets

(Updated 20 OCT 99)