Introduction to web design: step by step Guide to web development

WEBPAGE

Webpage is a HTML document present on the server. It is accessible on the World Wide Web. It has its own web address on URL

WEBSITE

The collection of web pages is called a website. It can be accessed with a web browser when visitors tell the server what to get, then the server displays the requested pages or website; there are two types of websites: static and dynamic websites.

Static website contains HTML WebPages that do not change frequently or they do not vary according to user request while dynamic website contents changes frequently. In this, user can send data to server and server stores it in the database or gives response to user

WEB PUBLISHING

To publish your website, put the copy of its document on the server. The server then stores this document and makes them available to website visitors that request them

For publishing you need the following

• The address of HTTP server, so that files from folder in that server will be accessed.
• The address of FTP server to access the files stored in that server
• Password and user ID to upload files to the server

To transfer your webpage to web server, your  system should have file transfer protocol(FTP) which is standard file transfer software used to send files to the web server this is called file uploading. So to upload file on web server you need the following things

•  User ID i.e. account name
• password 
•   the FTP address for your site 
•   the folder name where page is placed

The web pages that may be called interactive or online pages are created by using system of codes that is written in the most common language i.e. HTML, Hyper Text Markup Language.

The World Wide Web consortium was founded in 1994 at Massachusetts institute of technology develops web standard including HTML standards. This consortium defines the tags and attribute within the HTML document

PROCESS OF WEB PUBLISHING

Planning

Before you start producing a website, you need to do some planning: what your visitors expect at your site? And what you want to provide? For example, they might need general information about your company, about your product, prices, order forms, services and contact information. Accordingly your planned should provide information like product specification costs employee and their skills and marketing materials etc

Organization

After planning what information to include in your site, you need to decide how to arrange the individual’s WebPages. You can use the following types of organization method

• Hierarchical organization
• Linear organization
• Webbed organization

Hierarchical organization allow you to present first group of equally important  topics, followed by another group of equally important topics and so on for example, multiple main points in one web page followed by more sub points in separate WebPages , which are again followed by multiple sub points in another WebPages and so on

Linear organization hereby allows one to link information presented in separate web pages in a particular order. In linear organization, you can proceed in linear faction from one screen to another screen i.e. visitors can move forward and backward within sequence of pages but can’t jump to other pages

Webbed organization: Visitors are provided with multiple and unorganized path between we pages. A visitor can link from one web page to many other pages at the same website or at another website

IMPLEMENTATION

After planning and deciding how to organize the web pages , implement them by using which software to choose to design web pages, which tags to be used, which images (icons, logos, background images) links and other effects like sound, video, frames, scripts to be included which database file to be included in the web site

TESTING

Test the web pages by seeing how it will appear to the visitors is all contents (text, images) visible? Are all provided colors displayed? Are pages contains navigation tools? Are all scripts and style sheets working properly etc?

MAINTENANCE

Maintaining the web page is the process of updating and revising the WebPages - adding new pages and deleting the existing pages. Regularly maintain web pages is essential if you want visitors to keep returning to your site

HTML is plain text files containing code and content you provide. The code generally contains the tags and attributes that works together to identify document parts. The browser interpret the code to determine how to display the HTML document

NOTABLE HTML EDITORS

• Notepad editor
• Edit plus editor
• Microsoft FrontPage
• Dream viewer

WEB BROWSERS

• Micro soft internet explorer
• Netscape Navigator
• NCSA mosaic
• Opera Browser