General Reference
These sites have large,
organized collections of links to information about every aspect of Web
page design.
Andrew King's
Webreference. A very attractive, well-organized site, with
loads of links and substantial amounts of original content.
Web Developers
Virtual Library. Thousands of links to resources on Web page
design.
HTML
Writers' Guild. An excellent annotated list of resources.
World Wide Web section of Yahoo. Lots
and lots of links, but not much filtering or organization.
HTML Guides
These documents describe the
HTML markup language, which is used to create Web pages.
World Wide Web Consortium. The official
specifications.
The Bare
Bones Guide to HTML. My own entry into the field. A
comprehensive yet concise "cheat sheet" of HTML tags, including Netscape
extensions, in common usage.
HTML Documentation by Ian Graham. An
excellent, detailed (but long) tutorial.
Introduction to HTML by Eric Meyer.
Beginner's Guide to HTML. A tutorial
from NCSA, the folks who created the Mosaic browser.
Setting Background and Text Colors
Colors in HTML must be entered in the form of hex triplets.
Several pages provide tools to help generate the color codes; choose the
one that you find most useful.
Background
FAQ by Mark Koenen. A great resource with lots of information
about the color tags and links to various tools.
RGB Triplet Chart. This page has a large graphical chart with
about 250 colors and their hex triplet equivalents.
Color Selector. Allows you to select
colors for background, text, and links from scrolling lists. Shows you
how your choices look on screen and provides the HTML code you need to
generate those colors.
Color Codes Chart List. A huge chart
listing hundreds of colors in RGB, hex, and named form.
Style Guides
Style and design are often overlooked in creating Web pages, but
the way you present information has a tremendous impact on the way
people respond to your pages.
Jorn's thoughts on HTML style.
Yale C/AIM style guide. The dean of Web
style guides.
World Wide Wide Consortium style guide.
W3C HTML
validator. Lets you check your HTML code to make sure it
complies with the official specifications. It is generally a good idea
to validate all of your pages before putting them online.
CGI Scripting -- General
Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts can be used to perform
many powerful functions, including adding forms, guestbooks, and access
counters to your pages, as described below. Your ability to use CGI
scripts will usually depend on whether your service provider offers
access to the cgi-bin directory of the server.
The CGI
Resource Index. An organized collection of thousands of CGI
scripts and resources.
NCSA's overview of CGI.
Matt's Script Archive.
CGI
Resources.
Fill-Out Forms
The sites below offer
information on how to write scripts and HTML code to process fill-out
forms in your Web pages. This sometimes requires that you put CGI
scripts on your server, so you need to check with your service provider
to find out whether they support forms.
Instantaneous Introduction to CGI and Forms.
Detailed information on how forms work and how to implement them.
Access Counters
Access counters let you see how many people have accessed your
page. They are ususally implemented either by using CGI scripts or by
scanning the systemwide access log files that your server generates
automatically.
Webcounter.
Another "third party" counter service that doesn't require a script on
your server.
Pagecount.
Yet another "third party" counter.
Several of the sites
listed in the CGI section of this page include
counter scripts.
Guestbooks
Guestbooks let people who view your pages "sign in" and leave
messages for you and others to peruse. You can create a guestbook
manually, as I have, by using a form to gather information and adding
the responses to your guestbook page by hand. If you are able to put CGI
scripts on your server, you can create a guestbook that updates
automatically.
The World Famous Guestbook.
Guestbooks.net.
Several of the sites
listed in the CGI section of this page include
guestbook scripts.
Frames
Netscape 2.0 supports a new feature called "Frames" that lets you
split up the window into independent scrollable panes, each of which can
display a different Web page or image.
The
Netscape Frames tutorial by Charlton Rose.
Java
Java is a programming language that allows you to embed small
"applets" in your Web pages.
Gamelan.
Probably the premier Java site on the Web. Lots of free applets to try
out.
Graphics Collections
These pages contain libraries of public domain graphics and other
tools that you can use to spruce up the look of your pages.
Clipart.com.
A huge collection of links to free clip art on the Web.
Barry's
Clip Art Server. Another large collection.
Rocket Shop. High-quality 3D clip art.
GIF Wizard. Automatically optimizes
your GIF files to reduce file size.
Pixelsite.
An amazing interactive graphics renderer and some great freeware
clipart.
GIF Animation
One of the most popular ways of creating animated graphics on Web
pages is through the use of animated GIFs.
GIF animation tutorial.
Rose's animated GIF library.
GIFWorld.
Embedding Sound Files
There are several methods to embed sound files into their pages
so that the sound plays automatically when the page is launched.
Embedding sound in Web pages. A
tutorial on the WebReference site.
Crescendo help page. Crescendo makes a Netscape plugin to
play midi files. This page described how to put these sound files on
your pages.
JavaScript
JavaScript is a scripting language created by Netscape to create
special effects in Web pages. Despite the name, it is not related to
Java.
Doc
JavaScript. A set of detailed articles on JavaScript.
JavaScript Developer Central. Part of
Netscape's DevEdge Online.
Advertising Your Pages
Everyone wants people to know about their pages. These sites
allow you to register your page with various announcement and "what's
new" services on the Web.
Submit It!.
Lets you use one form to submit your page to about a dozen different
places.
LinkExchange.
Advertise for free on other sites in exchange for banners on your pages.
Webcom instructions on how to publicize your site.
In general, the best way
to figure out how to do things with the Web is to experiment, and to
look at what other people have done and how they have done it. Use the
"View Source" command in your browser to see how other people have
constructed their HTML. Good luck!
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