Overview

In order to make a file available via the Math Department's web server, you need only place it in the appropriate place with the appropriate permisions. The file can be an image or a text file or just about anything. Our HTTP server is content neutral. However, if you want browsers to see a web page, you will need to be able to write HTML or XHTML.

HTML is an acronym for HyperText Markup Language. HTML files are simply specially formatted ASCII text files. HTML is human readable and you can create HTML files using any text editor such as vi or emacs. You can find a complete specification of the current versions HTML and XHTML at the w3c.org website.

Getting Started

As is the case when writing TeX documents, templates can greatly reduce the time and energy required to write HTML documents.

PSU ITS offers a CGI form that generates HTML templates.

Using TeX, you can generate an HTML document using latex2html. The latex2html manual is available locally.

The links below point to websites with tutorials and information for HTML beginners

• Getting Started with HTML from w3c.org.
• HTML Tutorial from w3schools.com.
• Web Page Development: Best Practices at apple.com.

If you write more than a few pages and you'd like them to share the same look and feel, you'll probably want to use CSS. The links below cover CSS:

• CSS Tutorial at w3schools.com.
• Learning CSS at w3c.org.
• Position is Everything
• The CSS Zen Garden has many examples of what can be done with CSS.

Working with Colors

In HTML and generally when working with computers, colors are specified using triplets of hexadecimal numbers specifying the intensity of Red, Green, and Blue in order (e.g., #ff2200 is bright red with a bit of green). A thorough discussion can be found on the w3schools.com html color page.

Working with Images

Pictures on web pages are image files or simply images. The list of programs/packages for working with images available on Mathnet includes:

• GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) - a GUI program for manipulating images.
• ImageMagick - a set of command line utilities for manipulating images.
• giftrans - a small stand-alone utility for making one color in a GIF image transparent.

Getting it Right

Even if your web page looks good to you on your web browser of choice, it may not look good on other browsers. In order to insure that your pages display properly/sensibly on the largest number of browsers you should follow web standards.

A good first step toward following web standards is validating your pages at the HTML Validator at w3c.org and at the CSS Validator at w3c.org if you are using CSS.

Policies

Please follow PSU policies regarding web sites.

Of particular importance is the privacy of grades and PSU ID strings (or fragments). If you want to use the web to communicate private data to students, consider using ANGEL.

Privacy and Legal Statements Validate HTML Validate CSS