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Teaching & Learning Center
TLC Workshop on Creating Web Pages with Netscape Communicator's Composer
This document is written assuming the user is on a PC platform, but Netscape Composer functions similarly on a Macintosh. Differences for using Composer on a Macintosh are noted. If you have not activated your UNCG email account, you will not be able to do this.
I. Creating folders on the Unix server
(This first section creates a folder on the Unix server to store your pages and set the rights so that others can read your pages. No one will be able to change your pages without your username and password. You will only have to do this operation once.)
- Double-click the Application Explorer icon, followed by UNCG_Tree, followed by UNCG Client Community.)
- Double-click the QVTnet icon.
- Click the terminal button. (looks like a small computer monitor)
- At "Host Name or IP Address" type "UNIX" and then click "OK"
- Type your Unix (email) username and password in the spaces provided.
- Proceed to "C" below.
B. If you are off campus
- From the START menu on your computer, select RUN
- Type in telnet unix.uncg.edu
- You will be prompted to login with your unix (email) username and password.
C. Create a UNIX directory for your WWW files and assign rights
At the UNIX prompt, simply type the following command:
~gethornt/scripts/webgo
If you typed the command correctly, you will see a screen that will tell you where your page will be located when it is finally published.
D. Type "exit" to exit UNIX.
E. Close the telnet window
F. If you used them, close the UNCG Client Community, UNCG Tree, and Application Explorer folders.
B. Click the Filepull-down menu. Select New, then select Blank Page . You will now begin to create your beginning or "home" page.
C. Go ahead and save this first page. You will temporarily store it on a floppy disk in drive A. (On your own computer, create a new folder on your hard drive for your Web pages.) Click File on the menu bar and select Save As.
Give your first page the file name index.html and be sure you are saving the file to your disk and that the name is all lower case. This first page file must be called index.html. Additional pages may be given any file name. However, the file name should not contain any spaces and the file name extension must either be html or htm. You should also know that any file names in upper case are not recognized as the same characters in lower case. Simply name all of your files in lower case.
D. Give your page a name. This is different from the file name and can be a longer name with spaces between the words. This is the name that will appear at the top of the page when others look at your web page and will be the default name of your page if someone bookmarks your page. If you are not prompted to give the page a name when you save it, select Format and Page Colors and Properties. Now choose the General tab and you will see the window for entering the page name. You can also give you page a description and key words that search engines will use to locate you page after it is published. You can access and change this information as often as you wish.
To choose a patterned or textured background, go to background image section of the window and check use image. Then select Choose File or Browse to find the location of the background image file that you want to use. Images must be saved locally before you can insert them as backgrounds or as images on the page. Images should be saved in the same folder as your html pages. See "Inserting Images" below for instructions on capturing and saving image and backgrounds.
B. To set the colors for linked and other specially formated text, select Format, then select Page Colors and Propertiesand click the Use Custom Colors button. Now you can select the colors for your text and background and see them previewed in the window to the right of your selections.
C. Text elements are changed by highlighting the text, clicking the appropriate button or choosing Formatand then selecting the element you want to change, such as color or alignment or select Character Properties for more detailed settings.
B. To eliminate the border of your table, set the border line width to zero. Then click OK.
C. If you want to make changes in the table, put the cursor in the table and select Format and then Table Properties. (For the Mac, select Table Info.)
D. Select the appropriate tab, either Table, Row, or Cell. Selecting Table will allow you to make changes that affect the entire table, such as alignment. If you wish to make changes to a single row or cell, your cursor must be in the cell or row you wish to change.
B. To capture an image from the web, use the web browser to locate an image. Place the mouse pointer on the image you want to capture and click the right mouse button. (For a Mac, simply press and hold the mouse button until a drop-down menu appears.) From the menu that appears, choose Save image as ... Select the place you want to store the image, and then in the "Save as" window choose Save.
C. To insert an image, move your cursor to the position that you want the image located. Press the Image icon. At the "Enter a remote URL or local file" ( A Mac will display Image File Name or Location) select Browse or Choose File. Locate the image file that you wish to insert on your Web page. Click on the file name, then click Open, then click OK.
D. Background images can be captured in the same manner as other images. After choosing a background image, right-click the mouse and select Save Background as…(For a Mac, select Save Image.)
E. Some good sources for images and backgrounds are:
http://www.uncg.edu/images
http://www.coe.uh.edu/archive/
B. Enter the location of page or folder to be linked. If you do not know the address, click Choose File or Browse and highlight the name of the file. This is the way to create a link from one of your web pages to another web page. Remember, the place to which you are linking must already exist. For instance, if you want to link from your first page to a second page, you must first create and save the second page before you can create a link to that page.
C. If the link is to a URL, type in the URL or use your Web browser, visit the site, copy the URL, and paste it into the link window. Click OK.
D. To link to an e-mail address type: mailto:email address
for example: mailto:tlc@uncg.edu
X: Viewing your Web page in the Browser
C. Notice that the preview of the page is now on the task bar with a ship's wheel icon. If you make changes to your page in Composer and then select the Preview page from the task bar, the changes will not appear until you select Reload from the Netscape menu.
ftp://unix/afs/uncg.edu/user/first letter in username/username/public_html for example
ftp://unix/afs/uncg.edu/user/j/jdoe/public_html
For a Mac, add a / and the name of the file you are publishing at the end of the line as in
ftp://unix/afs/uncg.edu/user/j/jdoe/public_html/filename.html
B. Enter your UNIX user name and password in the boxes under the publication address.
C. Do not check the "Save Password" box. When you return to your own computer, you will need to repeat this step every time you publish. If you are the only one using the computer, you may check the "Save Password" box. If others use your computer they could accidentally erase your web pages.
If you are publishing from home, the publication address should look like this:
ftp://unix.uncg.edu/afs/uncg.edu/user/firstletterofusername/yourusername/public_html
Remember to add the name of the file you are publishing if you are using a Mac.
for example:http://www.uncg.edu/~jdoe
Additional Notes
A. When you return to your own computer and you want to edit the Web pages that you have created, load Netscape select File and then Open. Select Open in Composer and locate the Web page file that you want to edit.
B. If you have lost your files you can retrieve them from the Web. Select File and select Edit. You will see the screen change and you will be in Composer mode and you will be editing a copy of the page that is on the Web. In order to make changes to the pages residing on the Unix machine, you will need to publish the changes. Be sure that the name of the file is correct when you save it. Always use Save as so that you can change the name if necessary. Composer will not automatically save the pages with the original file names. You should always have a copy of your files on your hard drive to use in editing.