BUILDING A
SIMPLE PERSONAL WEB SITE ON ANGELFIRE
October
31, 2008
GENERAL
There
are several web sites on the Internet that provide free space for building a
personal web page. The one we will be using is called ANGELFIRE (www.angelfire.com ) that is part of the
Lycos web site system.
.
Some
of the others are:
www.homestead.com, www.whowhere.com, www.freewebspace.net www.fortunecity.com, www.tripod.com , or www.theglobe.com
You
might want to try one of these at a later date. But I am not sure they are
still all available.
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
Web
pages use a special programming language called Hypertext Markup Language
(HTML). On this first web site that you will build on Angelfire you will not
have to know HTML to build your web pages. You will use the Basic Editor that
allows you to "fill in the blanks". If you choose to use the Advanced
Editor method you will have to learn some HTML. It is not really difficult. However
when you type some text on a word processor in order to upload it into your web
site you will have to save it as a web document. It is very easy to learn how
to accomplish that.
The
web site address for Angelfire is:
www.angelfire.com
USER
NAMES GENERAL
Angelfire
within the last few months has a new way of handling user names
The
old addressing scheme was as examples are:
https://www.angelfire.com/planet/richnelson
or
www.angelfire.com/planet/richnelson
On
this one it is not necessary to use the http:// in front of the address
On
the old scheme the user name was last in the address
The
new addressing scheme is:
http://mybitsnbytes.angelfire.com
On
this address you must use the http:// in the front of the address
On
the new scheme your user name is first in the web address. Also the http:// is
important.
DIRECTIONS FOR GETTING A NEW ANGELFIRE USER NAME
Once
onto www.angelfire.com , just below the
LOG IN on the right side where it says “SIGN UP”, click on Sign Up.
Before
you do that you might want to check out what you get with a free web site, by
clicking on “Learn More”
After
you have clicked on “Sign Up” You will be presented with the “LYCOS Sign In Information”. This form
is in several steps
First
you will be asked to select a USER NAME
Type
in a user name that you would like, I suggest you use all lower case.
(Examples
of user names I have on angelfire are: demoforsp and mybitsnbytes
Later
if you want you can use MyBitsNBytes to make it
easier for the people using it to remember it because angelfire user names are
not case sensitive)
Then
click on the Check Username Availability button
If
it says it is available proceed to the password
If
is says that it is not available try a slightly different one by adding a few
characters that will make it different
Now
type in a password in the boxes provided you have to type it in twice
I
URGE YOU TO WRITE DOWN BOTH THE USER ID AND PASSWORD AND KEEP IT IN A SAFE
PLACE.
Fill
out the name and address and other fields requested.
I
refuse all the “Marketing Preferences”. You can pick any of them that look
interesting. They will probably come to you on your email.
Fill
in the remainder of the fields. The Enter Confirmation Code is kind of odd but
it is used to keep automatic sign ups. At the very end click on “I Agree”.
START
BUILDING PAGE
On
the Start Building Page – Choose “Build a Web Site”
After
Angelfire has accepted you, you are ready to build your web page.
You
will only have to do what you did above once for each basic web site.
You can have more than one basic web site on Angelfire if you like. However you will find that inside a web site
you can build many extension web sites.
You
can start building your web page now or log off and do it later.
LOGGING
INTO ANGELFIRE
After
you have obtained a web page on Angelfire and come back at a later time here is
how you log into angelfire:
Go
to www.angelfire.com
When you get into the
homepage you will see two fields where you can type in your Username and
password.
My Username for one of my
angelfire sites is demoforsp. This is the same Username you used to get an
angelfire account.
Then you will have to put
in your password that you told angelfire you were going to use.
Once
you have logged in you will be presented with the angelfire home page. On the
left side of this page, click on “Web Shell”.
You
are now in a position to do editing, viewing, uploading text and graphics, etc
There are several screens
that you will have to deal with when building a web page on angelfire. Here are
three of the most used ones:
THE
WEB SHELL SCREEN
THE
BASIC EDITOR STANDARD SCREEN
THE
PREVIEW SCREEN
IMPORTANT! WHENEVER YOU LOGIN TO YOUR ANGELFIRE WEB PAGE YOU
WILL START BY CLICKING ON THE WEBSHELL SCREEN. THAT WILL GET YOU
IN YOUR WEB SHELL WHERE YOU WILL DO ALL YOUR EDITING (CREATING)
On the WEBSHELL screen,
scroll down until you see a rectangular box. In the box you will see a group of
identifiers, Click on the words “index.html” found in this rectangular with
several other identifiers. You may have to scroll down to find it. That will
highlight index html. Then click on EDIT just above or below the rectangular
box. There are several other possibilities such as: VIEW, RENAME, MOVE, ETC.
We
will learn how to use those later.
You are now in the “BASIC
EDITOR STANDARD” This is a “fill in the blanks” editor.
(Note:
there are several steps in all to the filling in the blank Basic Editor screen.
You will have to do some of them to personalize your web page but not all at
the beginning)
Now click on the “Preview”
button to see what the standard angelfire web page looks like. You have now
transferred to your web page. Because it is a free web page, you will have to
put up with the advertising at the top and sometimes at the bottom of the screen
RETURNING
TO THE BASIC EDITOR
To get back to the edit
screen, click the red X in the upper right corner of the preview screen
You
can click on the Back button in the upper left of your screen to get out of the
BASIC EDITOR STANDARD screen, but before you do that be sure to click on Save button on the upper or lower part of the screen
to get back to the Web Shell.
Now
go into the index.html BASIC EDITOR STANDARD and do more of the basic 12 steps
Choose
colors for your background and text.
Fill
out the form for the rest of the web page. You can make changes to the existing
text as you please to personalize it by just shadowing what you do not want and
typing over it with your text.
The
image boxes can be filled with images from the angelfire library, or you can
upload your own images. (See below).
When
you have finished filling out the form click on “Save” You can view your web
page by clicking on index.html and then the “VIEW” button. Be sure to save
before clicking on “VIEW”
It
you are satisfied with your web page or you want to quit for a while, click on
the “Save” button again
Be
sure to logout of your Angelfire editor before you shutdown. You have to be on
your web shell page in order to logout
LOGGING BACK INTO YOUR WEB PAGE EDITOR
Start Internet Explorer, and
click on File, then click on Open. Type www.angelfire.com
in the white space, and peck the Enter key. You are now in Angelfires
home page Type in your User Name and password
When you get to the Angelfire
homepage, you will have to click on "Web Shell" on the left column to
get into your web shell
The
Web Shell is where you do all your web page creation work
When
you login or after you save your web page you will be automatically transferred
to Angelfire’s WEBSHELL screen. Notice on this page
that your full web page URL is displayed.
THAT
IS THE URL YOU TELL PEOPLE TO USE TO VIEW YOUR WEB PAGE.
Also
notice on the WEB SHELL page that other information about how much space you
have used, and how much is still available.
WHEN
YOU ARE IN THE WEB SHELL THAT YOU CAN CREATE EXTENSION FILES AND UPLOAD BOTH TEXT
AND GRAPHICS FILES INTO ANGELFIRE WHICH WE WILL COVER BELOW.
CREATING AN EXTENSION
PAGE (FILE) ON YOUR PRIMARY WEB SITE
One of the great features of
Angelfire is that they allow you to create extension pages (FILES) on your
primary web site.
After you
have obtained an angelfire web site, Log into your angelfire using your
Username and password as normal. When you get in click on Web Shell. You should now be in
your Web Shell screen
CREATING A NEW FILE
(EXTENSION)
To create an extension web
page on your primary web page, go down to:
“Create”, and put a bullet in
New File if it is not already there, and in the blank space, type in a new
directory name. Be sure you add the .html. (That’s a period plus html)
Examples: spnews.html or
mypix.html or instructions.html
The extension name should
relate to the extension content.
Then click on the “Create”
button just below
This will put you on the
CREATE A NEW PAGE screen there you can make selections for your new web page as
follows:.
Select Basic by putting a
bullet in the circle by clicking in the circle. Basic is menu-driven and easy
to use for your first web page. Advanced requires a knowledge of HTML
CHOOSE FROM ONE OF THE
FOLLOWING FORMATS:
Standard
Lines
List
My Info
Photo Album 1
Photo Album 2
I suggest you select Standard
but if you want to put pictures select Photo Album 2
Choose a Styleset
Select styleset #1 by clicking on the bullet over one of them. You
can make changes later.
Click on “Submit”
This should put you in the
Web Shell screen for this new extension web page.
Look for your new web file
name (i.e. beginner.html) in the box with Index.html and other files and
directories.
Click on the new web
directory name (i.e. page2.html) to highlight it
That will put you in the Web
Shell of your new web page..
Now click on Preview just to
see what is on the formatted web page.
Now you can click on the Back
button to make the changes you want.
After you have made changes
and checked them using Preview, be sure you click the “Save”
button to save the new page. If you don’t, you will lose all the changes
including the new page.
NOTE:
You can add as many new web
pages (files) to your primary web page as your want; up to the limit angelfire
allows you. Which is about 50 megabits.
CREATING THE HTLM TEXT
If
you are going to use text on your web site it muse be in html format. You can
produce these files in either Microsoft Word or Works
Type
the text you want to use on your web site on MS Word or Works and save it as a
regular document
Then
save the same text using “Save As” and this time save it as a web page (htm or html). This is done by changing “Save As Type” to
Web Page at the bottom of the Save As screen.
UPLOADING
THE HTML TEXT TO ANGELFIRE
Now
go into angelfire web shell and go into “File Upload” mode. Click on Browse
Find
the web page saved from Word as a web page and open it. You should now see the
address of the web page in the box
Now click on the Upload button
You
will see the new web page in the box on the web shell screen. It will be an htm file.
Highlight
that file and click on Edit
The
following paragraph assumes that you have already created a new web extension
as covered above in the paragraph titled: CREATING A
NEW FILE (EXTENSION)
COPYING THE HTML TEXT FROM
THE .HTM DOC TO THE HTML EXTENSION WEB PAGE
When
you are still in the Editor for the htm document, put
the cursor at the beginning of the first line of the document.
Now
hold down the Ctrl key and at the same time peck the A key. That should
highlight the entire document.
Now
go up to Edit on the Menu bar and click, then click on Copy. That will put a
copy of the html document on your clipboard.
Now
go back to editing your html web page i.e. page2.html
Go
down to where you put text on your web page, and put the cursor where you want
to paste your document from the clipboard, and do a Ctrl A and a Delete.
And
now do a paste of the copied document. You will see that it is in html format
Since
it is in html format it will show up properly on you web page.
Click
on Preview to see if everything came out alright
LINKING FROM THE
INDEX.HTML PAGE TO THE NEW EXTENSION PAGE
Now
go back to your index.html and add the link to this new web page extension.
The
link extension address will look something like this
http://demoforsp.angelfire.com/page2.html
UPLOADING GRAPHICS
On the WEBSHELL page there
is a place where called File Upload where you can upload graphic images.
(It is the same place that
you uploaded text).
If you upload text, it should be in HTML format. You can create HTML text on
Word. (Please see the instructions above).
To
upload a picture (graphics) to Angelfire it must be in the proper protocol or
format. Angelfire does not like TIF formatted graphics. Gifs, jpgs and bmps are ok. If you have
a tif, you have instructions in another document for
converting from TIFs to BMPs (BitMap) using the Paint
program in Windows.
In
most cases it is best if you
have the graphics picture on a flash drive.
Put
your flash drive with the graphics on it in a USB port,
On
the File Upload space on Angelfire, click on Browse.
Find the graphics you want to upload. Then Click on the graphics you want to
upload to highlight it. Then click on Open. Back on the Angelfire Web Shell
screen, your file name will appear in the "File Upload" box. Click on
Upload button. Be very patient. This process can take several seconds. Once the
upload is completed you will see the identity of your file in the box above the
upload space.
Now
you can use this graphics identifier by typing it in any of the spaces that say
Image URL when you are in the Edit mode. ( it will
look something like this graphicsname.jpg or grphicsname.bmp)
Any time you want to change your web page you should
go first into angelfire.com, then into Angelfire’s
web page editor, using your Username and password. This will take you into you
Web Shell screen.
Once in, go down to the index.html and click. Then
click on the Edit button. This will put you into the editing screen where you
can make the changes you want to your web page.
You can also edit any of you extension files the same
way by selecting them in the box and then clicking on Edit
After you make your changes, click on preview to look
at your page.
Notice that you can go back and forth between the edit
screen and the preview screen by using the “Back” and “Forward” buttons on the
top of your screen.
You
go through this cycle until you are satisfied.
When you are satisfied, be sure to Save
your changed web page. Again notice when you save you go back to the Web Shell
screen.
NOTE:
ANGELFIRE HAS A GREAT HELP PAGE. TRY IT!
Using
Internet Explorer type in the full URL of your web page
When
the web page displayed on the screen,.
Just
go up and click on VIEW in the menu bar.
Then
go down and click on PAGE SOURCE.
The
HTML will be displayed on your screen.
This
is how you (and others) can view your free web site once it is built.
Start
a session of Internet Explorer.
Go
into your angelfire web site address
Examples
my web site addresses on angelfire is as follows: www.angelfire.com/planet/richnelson
http://mybitsnbytes.angelfire.com
or
http://demoforsp.angelfire.com
I
suggest your look at these before you completely build your own web page.
VIEWING
YOUR SUBDIRECTORY WEB PAGES
If
you have added a subdirectory to your web site the way you view it is as follows
using the same example:
www.angelfire.com/fl5/richnelson/webbuild.html
or
http://mybitsnbytes.angelfire.com/road.html
notice
above the subdirectory (extension) is added to the main web site address with a
/ before it.
*****
CREATING MORE EXTENSION
WEB PAGES (FILE) ON YOUR PRIMARY WEB SITE (this is a repeat of the insturcions above
You must be in your Web Shell
to do this
To create another extension
web page on your primary web page, go down to:
“Create ,
and put a bullet in Create File if it is not already there, and in the blank
space, type in a new directory name. - Example:
page3.html or better yet if the web extension will have specific
information give it a name like mypix.html or instructions.html
Be sure you add the .html.
Then click on “Create”
This will put you on a screen
there you can make selections for your new web page.
Select Basic by putting a
bullet in the circle by clicking in the circle. Basic is menu-driven and easy
to use for your first web page. Advanced requires a knowledge of HTML
CHOOSE FROM ONE OF THE
FOLLOWING:
Standard
Lines
List
My Info
Photo Album 1
Photo Album 2
I suggest you try Photo Album
2 and
experiment with using graphics (pictures) on our web site
Choose a Styleset
Select a styleset
by clicking on the bullet over one of them. You can make changes later.
Click on “Submit”
This should put you in the
Web Shell screen for your web page.
Look for your new web file
name (i.e. beginner.html) in the box with Index.html and other files and
directories.
Click on the new web
directory name (i.e. page3.html) to highlight it
That will put you in the Web
Shell of your new web page..
Now click on Preview just to
see what is on the formatted web page.
Now you can click on the Back
button to make the changes you want.
After you have made changes
and checked them using Preview, be sure you click the “Save”
button to save the new page. If you don’t, you will lose all the changes
including the new page.
NOTE:
You can add as many new web
pages to your primary web page as your want; up to the limit angelfire allows
you. Which is about 20 megabits.
Filed in Web Stuff C on cc
class stuff flash H and desktop computer
