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AMAZING links for budding web designers. When Claris Home Page 1.0 first
appeared on the market in 1995 it was the most powerful tool
of its kind for developing web pages without having to learn
HTML code. Since that time, more powerful (and expensive)
programs like GoLive Cyberstudio and Dreamwaver have
appeared, but Claris Home Page remains the ideal choice for
modest to advanced web development because of its price,
intuitive interface and full range of features. There are several main features of
Claris Home Page that make it extremely powerful and easy to
use. Contextual Object
Editor. Double clicking on any graphic, table or
rule opens a dialogue box called the object editor which
shows the attributes of the object which is selected. As
other objects on the page are clicked on and are selected
(graphics, tables or rules), the object editor displays the
settings of each item as you click on it. Verify Links and References
can check all of the links on your pages for errors
in the link relationships within your web pages. The Link Editor allows
you to set the attributes of a link and allows you to select
local files for linking by browsing your hard disk. The Link
Editor also keeps a list of recent files and urls you have
linked to like a history. Preview in Browser
allows viewing exactly what your pages will look like on the
web as you develop them. Is saves the current page and then
opens the page in your web browser. Consolidate Command: If
you have selected graphics for your web pages from several
places on your hard disk, the consolidate command can move
copies of all of them to the main folder of your web
preparation folder prior to uploading them to the web
server. Document Statistics keeps track
of the size of the page you are working on and how many
seconds it will take for a user to download it from the web
server. Drag and Drop pictures, text
and files: On a Macintosh, you can drag and drop pictures
and text onto your web page from any application that
supports drag and drop. Examples of drag and drop
applications include Clarisworks the Finder and the
Scrapbook. Picture Object
Editor, which can interlace GIFs, make portions of a
GIF image transparent, and create clickable image maps which
can make specific areas of an image link to files or
urls. Libraries feature: keeps
regularly used bits of formatted text, tables, html code,
urls, graphics, animations, buttons etc. in a tabbed
repository that functions much like the Mac Scrapbook. Drag
and drop these items into your pages as needed. Built in FTP Client: You can
upload your files to the web server right from within Claris
Home Page. Always begin a web project by creating
an outline of your ideas and possibly a flow chart if you
plan to have more than a few pages in your
project. It is a good idea to create or choose
a folder to hold all the web pages, graphics, etc. that will
comprise your site before you actually begin building. In
order for your web site to work perfectly on the net, you
must first create and test it on your local hard drive.
Keeping everything in one folder ensures that when you move
your site to a web server, it will function exactly as it
did on your hard drive. To begin a web page, open Claris Home
Page and if it does not open a new blank page, choose New
Page from the file menu to open one. Now that you have a blank page in
front of you, the very first thing you should do is open the
Preferences under the Edit menu and uncheck the box labeled
"warn about unsafe filenames when saving files". Otherwise,
you will get a warning box everytime you save a file with
.html in the file name. Once you have done this close
preferences by clicking on ok. Note: Most web page file
names on the internet end with the extension
.html
except the web pages which reside on NT and Windows
web servers, which usually end with
.htm
instead. Ask your web server administrator which
type of server you have. Now do this; click on the little
button in the button bar that looks like a blank sheet of
paper, the Document Options button You can set colors for text, links,
backround color and even choose an image to tile in the
background from the Appearance tab of Document Options. In
most cases it is best to leave the text and link settings as
they are, which are the default settings for most pages on
the internet. You don't need to change them unless you need
them to somehow fit in better with your intended color
scheme. Next click on the Parameters
tab of the Document Options box and enter a title for your
new page. The title is what will appear at the
top of your page when it is displayed in a web browser. The
rest of the options in the Document Options box are for
advanced users, so you can now close document options by
clicking OK and select save from the file menu to save your
new blank page. If this is going to be the main page of your
website, I suggest you name the file index.htm if the server
you are uploading to is an NT machine and index.html if you
will be uploading to a UNIX or Mac server. This is because you can then shorten
your url to just the name of the directory on the web server
your files reside in eg:
http://www.myserver.com/design instead of the longer
http://www.myserver.com/design/mydesign.html. A web
server is set so that when a browser references the design
directory, it should automatically send the default file for
the design directory: index.html Note: On some web servers the
default filename for a web directory is
default.html or even home.html instead of
index.html You web server administrator will be
able to advise you which is correct for the web
server you are using. 90% of the time the default
file name will be index.html Make sure you save your page to the
folder you have already selected for your web pages(s). From
now on whenever you save your web page it will be saved to
this folder and also any images you drag and drop on to your
page will also be automatically saved to this
folder. Next, it is a good idea to test the
browser preview feature of Claris Home Page to make sure
that you will be able to see exactly what your pages will
look like on the web as you develop them. click on the
Preview in Browser button If your browser is not in the drop
down menu which appears, or your chosen browser does not
open with a blank page, you must open Preferences under the
Edit menu and use the browse feature to locate your web
browser on your computers's hard disk. Select one or more web browsers to
preview your pages with and then select OK to close
preferences and try the Browser Preview button
again. Note: Although both Mozilla,
Firefox and Internet Explorer are supposed to
adhere to published HTML standards, you will find
that in some cases your pages will appear very
differently in the these two browsers. It is a good
idea to check your final pages in both
browsers This completes the setup of your
Claris Home Page work environment. To continue, got to the
second tutorial Formatting
Text Return to Techdude's
AMAZING links for budding web designers.
Claris Home Page
TutorialIntroduction
Setting up Claris Home Page For Your
Work Environment
.
A dialogue box will appear that will allow you to set the
default options for your new page.
and select your browser (Firefox or Explorer), if it is in
the menu which appears.
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