Homepage Help

Your First Homepage?

So this will be your first homepage and you're wondering where to begin?
What to put on it? How to get started?
Should you use graphics and how many?
How to add music to your page?

Just wanted to let you know that you were such a big help
when we spoke a couple months ago on powwow
about setting up a page....DID it and have won some
nice awards in the 5 weeks it has been on the net.
THANK you...Btw I have linked your page to mine cause
it so great and will always remember your kind help...

Private from Guestbook

I am here to help. I will try to be precise and keep it simple
If you need to ask a question click the ICQ button to see if I am on,
I am always happy to answer your questions.

My ICQ 1074234

If you do not have ICQ you can download it and set up your own account Free

Step 1 - Getting Started

The first thing you should do is to find a place to sign up for a FREE
homepage as they have EASY Editors with graphical interfaces, this
means you choose what you want and the editor writes the code for you.

A good place to start is at the bottom of this page, click on the
Geocities logo. Once there look around. They allow 2mb of disk space
for your homepage, so there is plenty of room for multiple pages,
graphics, and music files.

View the descriptions of the neighborhoods and choose the one that
best suits the intended content for your homepage. I choose a family
neighborhood, so all my pages are kids safe. Other neighborhoods which
are like mine are Enchanted Forest, Heartland, and Heartland/Plains,
but these may not suit your needs so do review and consider the type of
neighborhood best suited to you.

Once you have chosen your neighborhood locate an address with the
online locater. When you have chosen your address go to the sign up
page and sign up.
You will recieve email with your username, password, address and other
important information..Print/Save the email when you recieve it and keep it
safe in case you should forget your password.

As soon as you have the email you are ready to begin.

Step 2 - Creating Your First Homepage

Now you have your username, password, and url, etc..Return to Geocities
Click on Enter Here
Click on Member Utilities
Click on The File Manager
Choose the Easy Editor
Type in window boxes username and password, choose your address,
then click submit.

You can take it from there. The next thing I will tell you is how to
view the source of your page and save it preferrably on your desktop,
so you can open it in Notepad and see the code, edit, play with it, view
it offline in your browser.

Step 3 - Editing and Viewing Your Page Offline

This is how you will learn the code in case you decide
it is faster to edit offline and upload your files like I did.

Note: For Netscape 2.0 and above users there is an EZ Upload utility
on Geocities For Explorer users you will need an FTP utility.
I use CuteFTP 1.8

Okay..you've come a long way, you now have your page online using
the easy editor.
Load your page either by Preview or Save it then enter your URL in the
URL Address line of your browser ie.Netscape or Explorer.
Either way be sure to click save when finished editing.

Now you should see what you have created.
Try out all your links to make sure they work.
Click the Back button at the top of your browser
to return to your page.

Now let us save the source to your desktop
Point your mouse to any blank spot on your page
Click the RIGHT mouse button
Choose View Source
Notepad should open with all your source for your page.
On your Notepad Menu Bar choose File - Save As
Choose Desktop for directory, type in any name you like such as -
home - click OK

You can now open your homepage file in Notepad anytime you like.
Once you feel comfortable with the code you may want to edit your page
offline and upload it along with any photos, graphics or music for your page.

I found an HTML editor that is FREE, doesn't take a lot of disk space,
does code for either Netscape or Explorer, will insert code for music,
graphics and many other things like tables and frames, after I had used
notepad for only a few days.

Click on the Homesite button.

You can download a trial version here of the new 4.5,
however if you want one of the older Free versions email me.

Other Tips

About Graphics - They are wonderful and will add flavor to any page,
however try not to overdo, a graphic can be large in appearance while
less than 10k in file size, animations are slow to load so for this reason
between 1-3 small animations are fine on one page. I like to see one
larger graphic on a main page (index.html) at the top...either a photo
or a graphic of something that interests you, maybe it will give a clue
as to what your page is about.

About Music - There are many wonderful midi files out there for you to use
Check out my Links button - Music
The code for adding music should allow a viewer to turn it off
in case they are viewing your page while others in house are sleeping.
The code goes like this -
(embed src="canon.mid" controls=large console width=200 height=55 autostart=true autoplay=true)
Be sure to replace the ( ) with these proper < symbols> for html tags

Organizing your files - I created a new folder on my desktop
I keep all my html files, midi files, and graphics files
which are on my pages in this folder, that way they are
all in one place for editing and viewing offline in browser
as well as for uploading.

To do this just point at blank spot on desktop, click RIGHT
mouse button, Choose - New - Folder
Name it home or anything you like.
Now you can drag and drop files onto the folder
and they will all be in one place.

I have some neat code for midi music, some will rotate 5 or more midi files
each time the page is loaded it will play a different tune.
Any other questions? Try ICQ or Email
I will reply ASAP

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