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Putting your Home Page on the Web |
Creating Your Home Page |
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First, you'll have to create a home page.
How do I create a home page? The quickest way for you to do this is to create a document in Microsoft Word. In that document, place all the information about your course, section, or whatever information you want the public to be able to view. Once I create a Microsoft Word document, how do I “turn it into a Web document” (i.e., turn it into a ‘homepage’)? After you create the document in Microsoft Word, you will have to save it as a “Web” document (this web document is ‘equivalent’ to your homepage).In order to do this, in MS Word, to save it click on “File” in the top left corner of the MS Word window. Then, drop the mouse down until you see the words “Save As Web Page”. Select this. After you do this, a “new window” will pop up. Toward the bottom of the “new window” you will see the words “File name”. To the ‘right’ of that name, is a box in which you will see some words, that may look like the ‘title’ of the document you just created. Replace those words with the words “index.html”. To the right of that box, you should see a box with the word “Save”. Click on that box (“Save”), and the file ‘index.html’ will be saved in the location indicated by the location next to the words “Save in” at the top left of this window (please pay attention to this location BEFORE you click on Save). If you have pictures on your homepage, then you will also see a ‘folder’ in the same location where you saved the ‘index.html’ file. This folder is also part of your homepage. Why am I saving this document as a web file called ‘index.html’? Because all web browsers on the internet are programmed to read files called ‘index.html’ as the MAIN page on a given website. It’s a ‘standard’ name, and it is easy to simply name your document that name, and have everything work easily and correctly |
Publishing Your Home Page |
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Next, you will publish your home page.
What does “Publishing Your Home Page” mean? Publishing your home page MEANS putting it into the correct place, so that it appears on the web. What is the ‘correct place’? The correct place is a ‘directory’ located on one of the computers in the math department, within the place where your ‘home’ directory is located. What is my home directory? And, where is my ‘home’ directory located? Your ‘home’ directory is your unique ‘unix’ directory, on a specific machine in the math department, which is owned by you. To find out where it is located, you will need to know the ‘name’ of the machine where you usually check your email. You were given this name by one of the members of the Mathematics Computing Group (who you will usually see on the helpdesk), or someone in the Student Affairs Office. Briefly, if you are grad student, this machine is called ‘walnut.math.ucla.edu’. If you are a staff member, this machine is called ‘julia.math.ucla.edu’. If you are a faculty member, visitor, or guest, this machine is called ‘cedar.math.ucla.edu’. Your ‘home’ directory is located on one of those machines, in a ‘very specific’ place which we will discuss shortly. Within that place (i.e., the home directory), there is ‘another’ directory which needs to exist (if it already isn’t there).That directory is called “public_html”. You will be shown later how to see if it’s there, or create it if it isn’t there. How do I put my homepage I just created into the correct place? Into the place on one of the machines listed above? In order to do this, you will have to use one of the following resources: Secure Shell (called SSH), or Sambamath (**use ONE or THE OTHER, but not both**). What is Secure Shell (SSH)? Secure Shell (SSH ) is a program that lets you copy any files on your computer, to the ‘CORRECT’ location on the machine which is listed above. To do this, you will first have to download a copy of Secure Shell onto your computer. On our website, we have a copy of Secure Shell that you can download. Just go the following site: http://www.math.ucla.edu/computing/software/ssh/index.shtml
What will I be doing, once I have Secure Shell on my computer now? How do I “Transfer Files”? Go to http://www.math.ucla.edu/computing/software/ssh/instructions.html , and then click on the File Transfer link, to learn how to transfer files from your computer to the ‘machine’ where the ‘correct place’ is located. Remember that your machine name should be one of the ones listed above, and the username should be your ‘email’ name in the math department. Now I have the File Transfer window open. What should be on the left side pane, and what should be on the right side pane? On the ‘left side’, you should see a list of files and directories, and your ‘newly created’ index.html file, and that folder that might have been created, should be there. If they’re not there, you should navigate to where the file index.html is located. On the ‘right side’, you should see what is, FINALLY!, your ‘home directory’. Now that you know that, try to find a ‘directory’ called ‘public_html’. If it’s NOT there, you have to create it. How do you create it? To create it, there is a little icon that looks like a folder, next to the “X” symbol, on the right side. This is ‘create new folder’. Click on it, and then a window pops up so that you can type in a name. Type in the name ‘public_html’. Hit return. Once you create it, then ‘click on it’. NOW YOU HAVE FOUND THE CORRECT PLACE! This should be on the right side pane. OK, what file or files am I transferring, and where? You will be transferring the file “index.html”, and that ‘folder’ that was created when you created your “Web files” above, from the left side window of the Secure Shell File Transfer window, to the right side. I’ve
transferred my files, but they still don’t show up on the web.
What do I do? There’s
a good chance that the permissions on the files are not set correctly.
The files are there, but the
permissions have to be set properly so that the files are readable from the
web. If you don’t know how to
change permissions, please see the following page: |