Netscape Page Composer Tips

Creating a Webpage for your school:

Certainly to get your feet wet, you can take a look at www.TeacherWeb.com and see if it can be adjusted for your use. It is kind of limiting, though very easy to use. The district will reimburse you for the fee if you sign up.

Performance tip:
To make your photos load faster when you bring up a webpage, you can use Adobe Photoshop (or other graphics/photo software) to resize and optimize the photo.
Open Adobe Photoshop -> File -> Open -> navigate to your photo you want to use
Image -> Image Size -> Change Width to 300 pixels (a web page window is a little over 600 pixels wide without scroll bars) - Height will change by itself in proportion.
NOTE: you picture will look TINY in Photoshop, but it is fine once you pull it into Netscape Composer
File -> Save for Web will optimize for the web (Store in your Hanna(or your teacher's name) folder or a subfolder under Hanna)

Using Netscape Page Composer:

Netscape Communicator 4.7 (this is the older version, but I prefer it. Seems faster to me) is available FREE for download at
http://www.download.com/

Open Netscape
    click on *Communicator* on the top line
    then *Page Composer*
    This will give you a new blank page.

. Text and backgrounds:

You can type anything and change the font/size/center it... just like a word processor.

Click *Format*, then *Page colors and properties* ,

then choose the *Colors and Background* tab to choose the font colors and background color or image.

Saving and Organizing:

Click File, then SAVE to save your new webpage into a folder called Hanna (or your teacher's name.)

Make sure you have a directory structure on your PC at home which is just like the one on Wappingersschools.org.
Use the icon of a folder with a sparkle on the upper right corner to create a new folder with the name of your event, activity, purpose for this page... if you want to.
IMPORTANT: set up your folders exactly as you want them BEFORE you set up your links and/or insert your images so the pointers will be right. Putting a space in a folder or file name can cause a problem, so avoid using spaces or # signs .

Example: /Hanna

/photos

/Nov2002

/HolidayParty

/biography

/calendar

/graphics

/backgrounds

So you would put all Nov2002 pictures into /Hanna/photos/Nov2002, then insert -> image to put them into your page.

. Inserting graphics or photos:

Under Netscape Composer, Click *Insert*, then *Image* to bring in a picture or graphic to your webpage.
Check the box for "Leave Image at the original location" , otherwise a copy of your image will be saved on the same folder as your HTML.
Click and drag the upper right corner of the image to adjust the size.
For a group of pictures, I put them in a table so you can have 2 next to each other.
Ex. for 6 pictures, Click Insert -> Table ->

3 Rows 2 Columns
Uncheck all boxes except Table Width 100% of window
You can choose a background color or image if you want
Then click in a box of the table and Insert -> Image

Go to a free graphics site and get some images:

try http://www.awesomeclipartforkids.com
or http://school.discovery.com/clipart/
or http://www.kidsdomain.com/clip/
or http://members.spree.com/sip/jellybean101/

Click right mouse button over the graphic you want on the free site

Click Save Image as
Click the drop down arrow next to the Save in: ________ line
Choose where you want to save it

TIP: Create a new folder called GRAPHICS in your directory and save all your graphics there
TIP: Create another folder called BACKGRND to save any backgrounds you find

Change File Name: __________ if you want a better name for the graphic

SnarlingLion.gif is a lot easier to figure out than Image01.gif

Hit the save button
HINT: saving an animated piece of clipart (one that moves) is EXACTLY the same as a still graphic.

Creating a link to another page:

Most of the time, you will want a "default.html" page in your folder that will be an index into the rest of your pages. You can have a list something like:
* Photos
* Calendar
* Teacher Bio
Drag across a word (or graphic) to highlite it, then click Insert -> Link
You get a page that lets you navigate to the page you want to link to
or you can type in the whole URL (for example, http://www.WappingersSchools.org/Plains/ )

. Getting your files to the district web server:
I use SmartFTP to transfer- download free at http://download.com.com/3000-2160-10000625.html?legacy=cnet .
(WS-FTP will work too - download free at http://www.ipswitch.com/ or you can use any number of FTP tools whatever you like)
Userid and Password for your school can be acquired from Charlie Hill at Hallowbrook.
(Fishkill Plains, I can help you with)

.Using SMARTFTP:
Fill in your site -> Wappingersschools.org
Fill in your Userid and password from Charlie Hill (Capitalization matters here)
Click to highlite Wappingersschools.org -> Click Connect

Good luck!!! If you want to meet at the school library or at your house sometime to set this up or have a hands-on lesson, just let me know. (SDBlack@us.ibm.com)