Introduction to Composer
Step 5:  Publishing Your Page

How a web site gets published:

• Web publishing involves uploading your web page files to the server that has agreed to host your web site.

• Providers like AOL, commercial sites such Geocities, educational programs like WIT, and various other sites offer free web space. 

• All web hosts have conditions which you need to review carefully before you publish.

• All hosts will also limit the amount of web space that you can use. This usually ranges from 2 megabytes to 10 megabytes.

What you need to know and do before you publish:
 

• Find out if your host requires a specific file name for the first page of your web site.  Common first page file names are index.html or home.html.

• Find out whether your host requires the file extension .html or .htm. 

• Check the size of your web page files (.html and graphics) to make sure you are well within the web space limits that have been set by your server (host). 

• You will be given information that you need to upload your files.  You will need to know
• the host name,
• the host type (You might only need to use "automatic detect."),
• your user ID (probably based on your name),
• your password,
• and a directory path.
• Keep asking questions until you know the names of each of these.

 
• You will probably need to use ftp (file transfer protocol) in place of http when uploading your files.

Two common ways to upload web page files:

1. Publish directly from Netscape

• Click on Publish Composition Tool Bar #4  to open the Publish dialogue box.

• You need to fill in the following information if it is not already visible.
• Page Title
• Page File Name
• Location to publish to
• Your User Name
• Your Password
• Under "Other files to include," make sure the button "Files associated with this page" is checked. 
• You should see a list of your graphics files in the rectangular space at the bottom-center of the dialogue box.
• If the graphics files are not uploaded with your .html document, they will not appear in the published page.
• Don't do anything with the other buttons in the box.
• Click OK.


Click below to view the publish dialogue box.

PC Publish Dialogue Box
MAC Publish Dialogue Box

2. Use free software (ftp client) to transfer files from your folder to your server.

• PC: Download WS_FTP95 

• MAC: Download Fetch 

• This software is a bit harder to get used to, but it offers much more uploading flexibility than Netscape.

PC Netscape Publish Dialogue Box

Back to Publish
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

MAC Netscape Publish Dialogue Box

Back to Publish