Web Site Hosting.

Web Browsers

Whilst it is true that there are other web browsers available, the vast majority of internet surfers use a vesion of either Nestscape Navigator (Communicator) or Microsof Internet Explorer. It does not matter which browser you choose to use yourself - they each have some advantages and disadvantages.

What is important is which browser your visitors are using. In the continuing 'browser war' both Microsoft and Netscape have habitually added proprietary features not in the HTML standard specification. Therefore, even when the specification 'catches up' with the implementations, there are significant differences between them in terms of which features are supported, and indeed how implemented features are rendered by the browser. This defeats one of the objecives of the HTML concept and specification - that web pages should be completely browser independent.

This makes life a little more complicated for web page authors, if they have to cater for users of each type of browser, which is generally the case for internet use. There are four main approaches you can use to deal with this issue.

a) If, say 90% of your visitors use one particular browser, you can optimise your pages for that browser, and ignore any problems which other browser users may face. Many people adopt this approach by default, only previewing their pages in one browser and so being ignorant of how these pages appear to other users.

b) You can restrict all your HTML code to the relatively basic level which is supported by all browsers, and rendered substantially the same by each of them. This can be an effective solution, but it requires more skill with HTML to produce pleasing pages.

c) You can duplicate your entire site, optimising one copy for IE and the other for Netscape. From your home or index page, you would redirect each of your users to the appropriate branch, depending upon which broweser they were using. I cannot say that this is a good or recommended solution, as it doubles the amount of work involved in maintaining the site, which can be considerable if you have many pages.

d) You could write advanced web pages using Dynamic HTML (DHTML) or Active Server Pages (ASP) such that the user automatically recieved output optimised for their own particular browser. Whilst this can be an efficient and elegant solution, it requires a lot of expertise and experience to implement properly. Moreover, it can have an adverse effect on how your pages are ranked by some search engines.

To sum up, my recommendation is that initially you keep your HTML code as simple as possible, consistent with producing pleasing and effective pages. Moreover, install both Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator so that you can preview how your pages will look to surfers using either type.

HTML Editor

You can create and edit HTML pages using a simple text editor such as the Windows Notepad. This is a little like saying that you can produce windows programs using assembly language. It is true in both cases, but not everybody could do it, nor is it the most effective approach for most people.Most HTML editors these days offer a more visual approach, where the editor view is a close approximation to how the page will look in a browser, and much of the HTML code is added automatically as you insert components and edit their properties.

As stated above, my particular favorite is Macromedia DreamWeaver 2. It is easy to use, and usually quite intuitive (ie things work the way you would expect). Not only does it allow you to produce good web pages fairly easily, but it has site management functionality, including the abilty to upload your pages to your web site by ftp.

Moreover, it does not mangle your HTML code. Many, if not most, other visual HTML editors alter the HTML source to match their own particular formatting rules, which can then destroy any special code or formatting you may have manually inserted.

Page production is made more efficient by using templates and library items, and it offers good support for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Advanced table layouts are made much easier to create by the ability to convert between tables and layers. Design your page using layers, and drag graphics and text freely around the page to get the layout you want. Then automatically convert the layers to a table. Dreamweaver handles the complicated table row and column definitions, to give a table version closely matching your layer design. Why bother ? Because more browsers are able to support and accurately render tables than layers.

I could go on, but I think you get the picture. I like Dreamweaver. The only problem is a price tag of around $250. Initially, you may wish to use a FREE editor such as Netscape Composer, supplied as part of the Communicator package. As your site starts to earn money, then you can invest in more professional tools.

In fairness, I suppose I ought to mention Microsoft FrontPage. When I first tried it, I thought it was rather good. It is even better than Dreamweaver in the area of site management, and will produce a complete site skeleton for you, including a fully functional navigation bar on each page, from a variety of decorative themes.

However, it has its drawbacks. In order to take full advantage of its facilities, your web site host must support FrontPage extensions. A lot of hosts do not support FrontPage extensions.. In common with many other editors, it does have a tendancy to destroy any manual source formatting you may carry out.

It is certainly cheaper than Dreamweaver, and I believe it is included 'free' with certain packages. If you can live with its idiosyncracies, try it out: it may suit your needs.

Graphics Editor

Almost any web page can be made more visually appealing and interesting by the judicious use of graphics.Try not to go over the top with them though. Graphics slow down the loading of your page, and an ecessive number of, or excessively large graphics can delay loading to the extent that your viewers lose interest before the page completely loads, and go elsewhere with their business.

You probably already have a graphics editor of some kind. If it can support GIF and JPEG images, then it will be good enough to start with. As mentioned previously, I like Macromedia Fireworks 2: it is oriented towards the production of web graphics, produces static and animated GIF's and several other formats, and has many powerful editing facilities whilst still being easy to learn and use.