1. Netscape Composer Tutorial Creating web pages with the web editor Composer P.D. & M.S. Krolak © Copyright 2005

2. Goals of the Lab Goals of the Lab: The goals of this are centered around creating interesting, attractive, and compelling web documents in an efficient and productive manner. To learn the Netscape web editor, Composer, an editor that makes creating web pages only slightly more difficult than creating word processing documents. To learn how to design tables and to use the table tags to create attractive two dimensional layouts. To learn how to find and create a web resource page to keep track of sites that contain free and shareware resources to make creating more attractive web pages easier.

3. WYSIWYG editor Writing Web Pages using Netscape 7's Web Editor, Composer Netscape HTML editor, Composer, works like a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) word processor, e.g. MS Word.. In the previous lab we actually used some of the HTML tags and created HTML documents. To use Composer one only needs to: –select the appropriate button in the composition toolbar, –answer the questions in the resulting dialog box and fill in the appropriate text boxes, and –click the [Apply] button to see what the change looks like and the [Close].

4. WYSIWYG editor (more) As we move into the era of dynamic documents, this becomes harder and harder to do. In newer Web page editors, much of the action is also buried in the source code. Thus, it is hidden from the viewer. As a result, Composer and other similar editors use tags to indicate how the content behaves at the source code level. This hidden layer could include: Java applets, Javascript and other scripts, forms, and frames.

5. Netscape's Composer -- a WYSIWYG HTML Editor: To open Composer: Open Netscape 7 Navigator Select [Window]/Composer Composer will appear as above Select

6. The Toolbar The toolbar has the standard Netscape tools File, Edit, View on the left side and Window, Help Insert, Format, Table, and Tools contain detailed HTML functions.

7. [Insert]

8. [Insert]/NamedAnchor

9. [Insert]/HorizontalLine

10. The Composition Bar The Composition Bar offers one button tools for rapidly carrying out common tasks.

11. Composition bar The one button tools are the most frequently used editing operations, and offer assistance with the more complex HTML tags for creating links, targets, images, horizontal rules, and, most importantly, setting up tables. Dialog boxes request user preferences and other information necessary to create the containers for the tag(s). The most common examples are the image and the table tags. Table tags are really containers within containers that denote colors or backgrounds, captions, horizontal and vertical alignment of text and table, and the borders of the table and each cell. Thus, the dialog box involves specifying many items.

12. Composition bar Composition bar contains frequently used functions, New, Open, Save file operations Publish - allows publishing the document to the web, Browse - view the it in the browser, Print it out Spell check the document Image – Add an inline image to the document Table – Create a table Link -- Link HTML documents, named anchors, audio and multimedia.

13. New Button

14. Open Button

15. Save Button

16. Publish Button

17. First Step -- Publish button 1.Click [Publish] 2.Click Setting Tab 1.Site Name – ceweb.uml.edu 2.Pub address – http://ceweb.uml.edu/ http://ceweb.uml.edu/ 3.Http address (URL) -- http://ceweb.uml.edu/ User_id http://ceweb.uml.edu/ User_id 4.Fill in the User_id and Password

18. Before Publishing After the Web page has been: 1. created, 2.edited, 3.checked for grammar, spelling, content, and appearance, and 4.finally validated with a tool like Dr. HTML (see Lab 3), then it is ready to be uploaded to your website (Published).

19. Page is ready to Publish 1.Click [Publish] button 2.Click Publish tab 3.Site Name – ceweb.uml.edu 4.Use the defaults and click publish button (see arrow)

20. Browse Button

21. Print Button

22. Using Images in your web page

23. Image possibilities The Image Button allows you to add images to your page. The images placed on a page are known as inline images. Clickable images that link the image to a URL are called buttons. A button can link to another location on the page, another external page, or a sound or video. An image used as a background upon which the text and inline images are placed is called, naturally, a background image. An image with defined clickable regions that point to URLs, or cause an action when a mouse event occurs (onMouseOver, onMouseOut) is called an image map.

24. Image Button

25. Fill out the image dialog box Image Location Tab: Image Location – use the location on the web, i.e. its URL or use the [Choose File..] to locate the image on your computer. The image is saved with the HTML file in the same directory unless the URL is relative to page location check box is checked (clicked on), in which case it leaves it where it is.. Use the Alternative text (short title or description for visually impaired). Note after the Image location is chosen a thumb nail of the image will appear. Advanced Edit – normally used by advanced web designer.

26. Image Dimensions Tab Image Dimensions tab: Optional if Actual size If you need to resize, click Custom Size. Constrained check leaves the ratio of height to width the same. Select the new width (and height if not constrained) The size can be either in pixels or % of window size

27. Image Appearance tag

28. Image Link tab

29. Table Button Tables allow the author to create a two dimensional layout for the document. This control is necessary for a professional and pleasing appearance.

30. The Table Button

31. Initial Table Dialog Click the Table button Fill in the number of rows and columns Fill in width either in Pixels or % of window. Border 0 is none, 1-2 is flat, 5-10 is a 3-d boarder Click [Advanced Edit..] and fill in the table attributes When done click [OK]

32. Advanced Edit – set the attributes The Advanced Properties Edits the Table attributes Click Selector arrow Select the attribute from the list and double click on it. Set the value in the Value window. When done click [OK]

33. After the table appears – Modify cells, rows, columns In the table click your mouse on the object to change (cell, row, col). Click [Table] Cell dialog box appears fill in changes and use [Advance Edit] to modify object’s attributes

34. Mistakes, Modification, and Redesign of Tables: How do I delete a table, row, column, or cell? You may create too many rows or columns, and want to delete some. This is done in the following manner: Click the Edit button in the Toolbar: Undo maybe used right after creating the table to delete it and start again. Otherwise, you can use the Delete Table sub-menu: –Table -- Deletes the selected Table. –Row -- Deletes the selected Row. –Column --Deletes the selected Column. –Cell -- Deletes the selected Cell. The Select Table allows the selected Table to be modified

35. Examples

36. Spell Button

37. Linking materials

38. Link Button

39. The Link Properties Dialog The URL can be an absolute URL, in which case: Type it in the "Link to" window in the dialog box. Copy from the Netscape Location: window and paste in the second window. Place the mouse on the text link and click the right mouse button; then select the Copy Link to Clipboard option. Finally, paste it in the "Link to" window. The URL can be a file in the current system's directory, (i.e. a relative URL). A simpler method is to click [Choose file..] and use the usual Window's directory dialog box to find the correct file, highlight it, and click [Open]. After the link's text and URL are completed and click [OK].

40. Linking to Special URLs Linking to Special URLs including Mailto to setup Email LinksMailto Review the material on special URLs such as: ftp, etc. The Mailto link is of major interest to most authors. Simply fill in the text as in a general link in the second window: Mailto:Author's_Email_Address Where Author's_Email_Address is your usual email address, e.g. pkrolak@cs.uml.edu

41. The style bar (Formatting Bar) Creating the look and feel of the document.

42. Formatting Tool bar -- Style bar The style bar allows the author to create the html text containers, i.e. physical, logical, and font. Lists – ordered and unordered Tab right and left Alignment –Left –Center –Right –Justified

43. Style

45. Text and Background Color Selection

46. Selecting colors

47. Highlighting

48. Physical Text

49. Lists Simple lists breaks down into two main types: –Unordered lists with each item denoted by a printer's bullet or other symbol, orUnordered –Ordered lists (those that use a number or letter)Ordered Other list types that require the use of the Format button on the tool bar are: –Definition, andDefinition –DictionaryDictionary –MenuMenu Note that the Unordered List will select the style of the bullet (disk) for you based on rules of nesting or indentation. Similarly, for Ordered Lists, it will select order element type (numbers or alphabetic characters). If this offends your sense of layout, use the HTML editor to override Composer's selection. You can achieve almost all the control needed for any list layout -- select the [Format] button/Character Properties/Paragraph, then select the correct options to determine list style, type of character or disc to display, and the starting value. This is tedious, but necessary for greater control over the details.

50. Text Alignment

51. Unordered List

52. Ordered List

53. Align the text element

54. FAQs Q: How do I begin to use Composer: Ans: It is recommended that the reader start by reading the Netscape 7 Composer Users Guide: http://www.cs.uml.edu/~pkrolak/lab4/ComposerIntroduction/Net7Use rGuide.html http://www.cs.uml.edu/~pkrolak/lab4/ComposerIntroduction/Net7Use rGuide.html Q: How do I open Composer to begin editing? Ans.: In the Browser there are several options: First, to edit a Web page currently being displayed, click [File]/Edit Page. Second, to edit a page from the user's directory or with a known URL, click [File]/Open Page. The dialog box will appear; give the URL, or, if the file is on the user's machine, select [Choose File..], then select the file and hit Open in the directory dialog box. In the Open File Dialog box, again select Composer and Open. Third, on the tool bar click [Window] and select Composer. At the bottom of the Navigator Window click the Composer icon Finally, click [Ctrl-4].

55. FAQs (more) Q: How do I set the background color, image, or the default colors of the text, link, alink (active link), or the vlink (visited link)? Ans.: Click [Format]/Page Colors and Backgrounds... Q: How do I get special characters, for instance the copyright symbol, into my text? Ans.: Click [Insert]/Characters and Symbols... For more information see.see Q: How do I get the Netscape Composer plugins? Ans: The plugins and instructions for using them -- http://developer.netscape.com/docs/examples/plugins/c omposer/index.htmlhttp://developer.netscape.com/docs/examples/plugins/c omposer/index.html

56. FAQs (more) Q: How do I find out what plug-ins are available on my copy of Composer? Ans.: Click on the [Tools] menu. Q: How do I stop the Link operator from "linking the text following the text that was specified"? Ans.: Composer still thinks that the container for the link text is open. Highlight the text that you don't want to be part of the Link, click [Format] and select "Remove Links". Q; How do I insert tags not supported by the current Composer editor? Ans: Composer does not support the full set of HTML tags --,,. To overcome this one can insert the non-supported tags one at a time using [Insert]/HTML Tag.. See the discussion on the [Insert] Also by clicking on the Source tab on the bottom of the Composer window one can edit the source code directly. [Insert]