Creating Web Pages at UNM

Before You Start

Before you begin, be sure you have a NetID which provides 50MB of disk space (also called a computer account) in which to house your Web site. A NetID is required for Web publishing in the UNM domain.

For personal pages, if you do not have a NetID, use the online NetID creation program to create one.

Department or organization web pages should be kept on an account separate from personal accounts. To open a department or organization account, see the Passwords/Accounts Web page for a printable form and return it (with an administrative memo) to the ITS Computer Accounts office, Room 2005 in the ITS building, for processing.

For more information about ITS computer accounts, see Accounts/Passwords.

See How to #716, Use Fugu for Secure File Transfer, or How to #616, Use Secure File Transfer, to learn how to use these programs.

Web Authoring Tools

HTML files can be created with a variety of applications, including UNIX, word processing programs, or current Web authoring and design tools. Check the Resources section for Internet guides and tutorials on HTML coding.

Web Editors

Most Web editors include a built-in FTP feature. In the setup specify the host as ftp.unm.edu and the location path as /nfs/user/x/xxx/public_html where x is the first letter of your NetID, e.g., i for istudent and xxx is your NetID, e.g., istudent (/nfs/user/i/istudent/public_html) .

UNM departments can acquire Macromedia Dreamweaver, Adobe GoLive, and Microsoft Sharepoint Designer (formerly Frontpage) through ITS Software Distribution.

Contact the UNM Bookstore, 277.5451, for information about Web editing software and prices.

The UNM Division of Continuing Education offers a variety of Web design courses using Dreamweaver and GoLive. These classes are listed in the Continuing Education catalog under the Computer Program section.

Training

UNM academic departments offer a number of classes that use Web editing tools as part of the curriculum. These include instruction from departments such as English, and Communication and Journalism in the College of Arts and Sciences, and Organizational Learning and Instructional Technology (OLIT) in the College of Education. See each department's course offerings for information.

The New Media and Extended Learning group offers access to, and training on, a Web development tool that designs Web pages for instructional purposes. See the New Media and Extended Learning group Web site for more information.

Creating HTML documents with a word processing program

To create an HTML document with a word processing program, type your text and save it as an HTML document. Both Microsoft Word and WordPerfect have this feature. Some of your word processing formatting will be lost when saved to HTML. Check your word processing program Help files for information about using the HTML feature.

If your word processing program does not have an HTML conversion feature, or you do not wish to use it, use HTML coding tags and first save your document as a plain text file, i.e., .txt, then resave with either the .htm or .html extension.

After you create your files, upload them to your account. For example, a file can be moved from your local computer or a computer in one of the ITS computer pods on campus to your account.

How To #716, Use Fugu for Secure File Transfer

How To #716, Use Secure File Transfer

Creating HTML files in UNIX

You can write and edit files for your Web site in pico, a UNIX text editing program. If you have used PINE for your e-mail, you have used pico. For information on using pico, see How to #410, Use PICO to Edit Text on UNIX.

Briefly, to open a file in pico, e.g., your index.html file, at the $ prompt, type cd public_html to open that directory. Then type pico filename.html to open the text editor and the file.

If you did not copy the intial HTML file to your public_html directory (see below), and you want to save your newly created file as your home page, name it index.htm or index.html. When you are done composing your index.htm (or any) file, press <Ctrl+x> (<control+x> on a Macintosh) to save your file. If you do not create an index.html file, your URL will be something like this: www.unm.edu/~yourNetID/myhomepage.html (where myhomepage is what you named your file). index.htm will provide you a home page URL similar like this: www.unm.edu/~NetID.

Webupate

Remember to type webupdate after creating any new files in your public_html directory. This grants world read access to your web pages.

Creating Your First Web page

Before you create your own Web page, remember that you need to have a valid computer account (NetID) established as well as a way to log in to that account. If you do not have a compuer account or you do not know how to log in to your account, contact the ITS Support Center at 277.4848.

You first need to create a directory in your UNIX account named public_html where you will store your Web pages. To do this, log in to your account. When you are logged in and are at the $ prompt, type each command listed below; press <Enter> (<return> on Macintosh) after each command:

At $, type

mkdir public_html
creates the public_html directory where the HTML files for you Web site will reside

cd public_html
to change to your public_html directory

webupdate
to make your pages readable by the world (this command only required if you create your pages with HTML code in pico

Note: In the following directions, replace all instances of NetID with your NetID.

The URL address for your page will be: http://www.unm.edu/~NetID

You now have a home page. As you learn HTML, you will probably want to modify your page. Editing the index.htm file can be done with the UNIX pico editor with the following command at the $ prompt:

pico filename.htm (e.g., index.htm)

When you add new HTML files to your public_html directory, use the webupdate command so they are accessible to people who want to view your pages:

at $, type webupdate

Note: You do not need to use the webupdate command each time you edit a page in your public_html directory. It is required only after you create a new file.

UNIX commands you'll need most

mkdir
creates a (sub) directory

mkdir public_html
creates the public_html directory for HTML files

cd public_html
change from the current directory to the public_html directory, ensuring you are in the correct diretory for Web publshing

webupdate
makes your page readable by the world

ls
lists files in current directory (lowercase L, lowercase S)

ls -l
lists files in current directory with file details (lowercase L, lowercase S, space, hyphen, lowercase L)

pwd
display path of current directory

cd directoryname
changes to a directory name (e.g., cd public_html)

pico filename
opens a pico editor window to write or edit a filename

rm filename
deletes filename

mv filename newfilename
renames a file

cp filename newfilename
copies a filename to a new filename

snapshot filename
restores a backup copy of filename, up to 13 days old

For more information see the UNIX Quick Reference and the Introduction to UNIX manual, available online.

Copyright Considerations

The ease with which written text, sound recordings, graphics, and other works can be electronically copied on the World Wide Web brings greater risk of copyright infringement.

Copyright laws now state that after 1989, there are no requirements to display a copyright symbol in order for a property to be copyrighted. Since the Web came into existence after 1989, you can safely assume that everything on the Web is copyrighted, unless otherwise stated.

It is legal to look at other people's HTML code and even to copy the code and use it to design your own Web presentation. It is not legal to copy images or text that appear on other pages and use those in your presentation unless the material you are copying is identified as being in the public domain, or you obtain permission from the page's owner to use the material.

If you obtain permission to use material from another site, you should get it writing with a signature (that does not include receiving permission via email). You should also state in your Web presenstation that it is copyrighted material, even though the law does not require it.

Another copyright issue is that only the copyright holder can make derivatives of copyrighted material. That means that before you take a picture with that nice sculpture and your building behind it, you need to make sure that you are not violating any copyrights.

For more information about copyrights and UNM Policies, look at UNM Policies and U.S. Copyright Laws. For information on U.S. copyright laws, see the The U.S. Copyright Office home page.

You also have a responsibility to use the UNM computer systems in an effective, efficient, ethical, and lawful manner. See the UNM Acceptable Computer Use Policy for more information.