WWW Basics for PPWS

Web Publishing Resources
Prepared for the Department of Plant Pathology,
Physiology, and Weed Science by Peter Sforza

An Introduction to Publishing on the Web.

Introduction

Overview of the PPWS web system

Website creation and management

Server accounts User ID request form for the PPWS Web server
Programming by HTML or with web design software
Publishing to the web
Virginia Tech's Webmaster's Toolkit

Content and Style

Acceptable Use Policy
Style Guides

Introduction

"The World Wide Web (known as "WWW', "Web" or "W3") is the universe of network-accessible information, the embodiment of human knowledge." -World Wide Web Consortium

The Department of Plant Pathology, Physiology, and Weed Science has recently purchased a new server to manage the departmental web pages. The server is housed in Price Hall and completely replaces the old server which was located at the Glade Road facilities.

This page contains a few web publishing resources for the personnel of the Department of Plant Pathology, Physiology, and Weed Science. This is not a comprehensive list of resources, but serves to point you in the right direction for getting started on web publishing. Server accounts are available on the departmental server through Shahrooz Feizabadi. See below for details. Important note: the server accounts on the PPWS web server are primarily for work related uses, however, persoanl projects are allowed within reason.

An alternative to PPWS server accounts are Virginia Tech Filebox accounts. Fileboxes are available to all university employees and students and are described below.

Shahrooz Feizabadi is the PPWS server administrator and works for the department part-time. Contact Shahrooz regarding any technical issues. Peter Sforza is currently the PPWS web content manager. Contact Peter regarding any content related issues.

Website Creation and Management

An account on a server is needed to publish to the web. This is the physical place where your webpage will be stored and viewed by the public.

PPWS employees and students may get an account on the PPWS server by printing and completing the User ID request form for the PPWS Web server and then placing it in Shahrooz Feizabadi's mailbox.

Another option is to get a Virginia Tech Filebox account. This is best for those who wish to make a homepage with content not related to the department of PPWS. Fileboxes are free to university employees and students.

Once you have an account on a server, you need to develop the actual webpage. Developing a webpage requires some planning and experimentation for the best results. There are many books and web pages that are tutorials for web design. See Virginia Tech Web Publishing Information site or use a search engine to see what is out there on the WWW. Also, the Yale Web Style Guide will help you in the planning of your website.

The actual creation of the webpage is accomplished by writing the code in HTML (HyperTextMarkupLanguage - scary stuff) or by using a web design program that programs the code for you. There are many software packages available for web design. Many of them are similar to word processors and are termed WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). Several examples are listed below. This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it an endorsement of the products.

An Incomplete List of Software for Web Publishing:

Netscape Communicator 4.07
Microsoft® FrontPage 98
Claris Home Page 3.0
Microsoft Internet Development Products
Adobe products