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Academic Computing & Networking: Services: Web
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Web Services: Web Page Recommendations
To try to maintain a consistent appearance in the CSM Web pages and assist users in setting up their home pages, we have a number of recommendations about basic content and style. Whenever possible, use the recommendations below. These are only recommendations and are not meant to restrict individual creativity. These items are strongly encouraged, particularly for department or organization website. Also, we have several template pages linked below from which you may choose for your personal or group website.
Navigation/Identification:
Use standard navigation across all your pages. For example, if you use a navigation bar, each of your pages should have the same navigation bar in the same position on the page. The link for the current page can be highlighted to help identify the current location.
A common footer containing significant links is a common way to provide consistent navigation. If your pages are part of a larger group of pages, consider adopting a navigational style compatible with those pages.
Include links to the main CSM web page(s) at the top of your web page or within your standard navigation.
Put a signature on your page. Include the date, the name of your group or organization, and an e-mail address for the page's maintainer. If possible, this address should send mail to more than one person.
Use an appropriate Page Title. This helps to identify your web page and the information is also used by the campus search engine to help index your web pages.
Details/HTML/Design:
Use only lower case in file and directory names because they will appear in URLs. (The web server and web server software are case sensitive.)
Create file and directory names that do not have spaces within the name. No spaces, hyphens ("-"), or underscore characters ("_") are preferable.
Name your main web page one of the following: index.shtml, index.html, index.htm. (You can use index.cgi if your web directory allows use of CGIs.) When the web server receives an URL request that ends with a directory name -- like http://www.mines.edu/academic/computer/ -- (rather than a specific file name -- like http://www.mines.edu/academic/computer/index.shtml), it will search for file names in the above order and serve the file it finds first. If more than one of the above file names exists, whichever filename is earlier in the above order will be served. (If you do not have a file with one of the above filenames, and the URL request does not specify a filename, a directory listing of the files will be presented.)
Be aware of your page's width and look. Pages that are viewable on screen may not print correctly on standard printer pages. If possible, view your pages in several different browsers (Netscape is generally more demanding than Internet Explorer) and print your page before you consider it finished.
Keep graphics as small as possible. Most graphics should be 10-12K or less. A single graphic of over 32K should be avoided. Try to keep pages to around 50K or less, except for special presentations that are designed for graphics. Some online compression utilities are available: http://www.spinwave.com/crunchers.html http://www.webreference.com/services/graphics/
Keep backgrounds and fonts simple. Use a standard font, such as Times Roman, that is understood by most browsers and printers.
Make your pages easy to read. Use headings, numbered or bulleted lists, indented text, and other HTML basic styles to organize and break up long sections of text. Consider also breaking up large, text-heavy pages into several smaller ones.
Avoid animated, blinking, or flashing graphics. People sometimes find these annoying, especially if they take a long time to load. New releases of browsers also sometimes handle special graphics differently, so it pays to test your page periodically against the latest versions.
Clean up unnecessary tags in MS Word HTML. MS Word inserts many special formatting tags into a document that are not required to display the HTML file. Run MS Word HTML output through TIDY (http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett/tidy/) or Dreamweaver (http://www.macromedia.com/software/dreamweaver/) to remove these unnecessary tags.
Template Web Pages
Use of any of the example templates (http://www.mines.edu/help/template/) help to maintain a consistency among the campus web pages. The templates can be copied from the specified file on slate to your web directory. In your web directory, they should be renamed index.shtml or index.html. These are default file names that the web server searches for when examining a directory. If you use another file name, your home page may not be found. (A ".shtml" extension is needed if your page includes any server side includes (SSIs).)
The template files have many of the Web Recommendations either already included or places for you to fill in your information.
Questions and comments -- open a ticket at Mines Help Center
Thursday, 13-Sep-2007 09:43:00 MDT