CS110 Documentation

In this course, we first want you to write HTML tags by hand, to give you some practice with how things really work. Later, you can use software that writes the tags for you, and you'll know what it's doing and, most importantly, how to fix it if it gets the HTML wrong. Consequently, for the first few assignments, you should use simple text-based applications like:

NotePad (this software is on all PCs, look in Programs/Accessories/Notepad)
TextWrangler (this is free software for Macs.) Look at the BBEdit web site for it.

What about using MicroSoft Word? There are two issues with using Word: using it as a HTML software and using it as text software.

First, Word can be asked to write out your document with HTML tags, so it's acting like HTML software. However, in my experience, it does a terrible job, writing out huge files filled with junk, sometimes in binary. I've often had to rescue students where Word destroyed their HTML document, and sometimes I've been unable to do so.

Second, Word can be asked to write out your document as plain text (so you'd have to type the HTML tags yourself). When used like this, it's just a big, bulky version of NotePad. However, I've known students who used it this way and found Word added lots of additional coding and it changed the colors, too.

In short, we strongly recommend avoiding MS Word in this course.

Later in the course, we will teach you how to use some commercial HTML software, where you can point and click, use icons, and generally compose a web page in a more convenient way. The current software is called Dreamweaver and it writes out very good HTML code, so that you can examine what it has done and modify it if you want.

Graphics Software

Sound and Movies

How to record sounds with SndSampler and MoviePlayer.
How to import movies from video tape with Fusion Recorder.

HTML Resources

NCSA's Beginner's Guide to HTML
If you don't mind a lot of blinking ads, the Webmonkey HTML page has a good HTML tutorial and HTML reference page.
CWIS documentation for writing HTML pages (local only)

Uploading Your Site to the CWIS

Directions for uploading your finished site to the CWIS.
If your client is off-campus, probably the easiest thing to do is to give them a copy of the site on a zip disk or CD.

© Computer Science 110 Staff
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License
Date Modified: Sunday, 06-Apr-2008 23:40:41 EDT