(Note: This was presented first at the InterWorks conference held April 12-17, 1997 in Philadelphia.)

Outline For "Web Site Secrets"

Other presentations covering related material are also available on this Web site.

Web Site Secrets

• Introduction
  • What Will We Cover?
    • InterWorks Web site techniques
    • How the Web is changing
    • Tricks to try on your site
    • Automation and interactive features
    • Converting content for Web viewing
    • What is next?
• How the Web is changing
  • HTML 3.2 Reference Specification (Details)
  • InterWorks Web site upgrade (Details)
    • Suggestions submitted by readers
    • Team effort
    • New (lean) graphics
    • More content
    • Improved navigation
    • More ties to Interex Web site
  • Browsers then and now (Details)
    • InterWorks access August, 1995 through February, 1996
      • Netscape used 66% (increasing)
      • NCSA Mosaic at 13% (decreasing)
      • Lynx just under 3% (decreasing)
      • Others well behind these
    • August, 1996 through February, 1997
      • Netscape used 63% (maintaining)
      • Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE) at 7.5% (increasing)
      • NCSA Mosaic at 1.6% (decreasing)
      • Lynx just over 1.3% (decreasing)
      • All others (26% of accesses) less than a full percent
        scattered across more than 50 browsers and robots
        • NetManage Chameleon started growing, then dropped
    • Access logs from other sites similar, those with
      heavier PC accesses show MSIE to as much as 20%
  • Updates on issues from last year (and others) (Details)
    • Tables - Not in NCSA Mosaic, Lynx got some help
    • Java - Use is increasing, "cute", applets, applications, JVM interpreter JBC, and the C++ subset source notation, other methods to create JBC
    • Backgrounds - Moving back to simpler or plain - lots of white, test, information vs backgrounds
    • BODY colors - set any, set all
      • BGCOLOR - background color
      • LINK - hyperlink which has not yet been visited
      • VLINK - hyperlink already visited
      • ALINK - active hyperlink (while it is being selected)
      • TEXT - page text
    • Font specifications - No letters hanging, extending off right side
    • Image maps - Client-side image maps, including Lynx still provide both client and server forms
    • Active-X - Microsoft OSs, potential security risks
    • Comments - More strict, completely blank pages, correct comment tag syntax:
      <!-- Comment text here -->
      
    • MULTICOL - <MULTICOL COLS=n> </MULTICOL>
  • Watch your server logs (Details)
  • Browser projects, Mnemonic, others (Details)
  • Drawing attention to your pages (Details)
    • Netscape extension tag <BLINK> (avoid)
    • animated GIFs (most are annoying)
    • "JavaScript" ("LiveScript")
    • "look at me, I'm new to the Web"
    • Try less intrusive advertising
    • Aim for content - reader already has reason to be there
    • Get listed on search engines, keep checking
• Tricks to try on your site
  • Highlighting new or updated information (Details)
    • new or recently changed

        <IMG SRC="/Images/new_small.gif" WIDTH=26 HEIGHT=15 ALT="[New]"><!-- ddmmyy -->
        <IMG SRC="/Images/updated.gif" WIDTH=43 HEIGHT=15 ALT="[Updated]"><!-- ddmmyy -->
      

    • Comment dates notification
    • Date page was last changed search facility cache
  • Controlling what search sites report (Details)
    • "Standard for Robot Exclusion" page
      • robots.txt
        User-agent: *
        Disallow: /
    • Certain "META" tags
      • <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW">
    • Password scheme
    • By IP address
  • Pages for internal or limited use only (Details)
    • Buzz words: "Intranet", "Extranet"
    • Company proprietary information
    • Firewall
    • Passwords - individual or group
      • InterWorks 97 conference
      • Interex and InterWorks surveys
      • Complete copy of InterWorks Web site under test
      • Other information
  • Checking HTML syntax
    • "weblint: Quality Assurance for Web Pages"
    • Commercial packages now available - quality varies
  • Formatted Web pages for e-mail or print
    • Lynx -dump switch
  • Think maintenance (Details)
    • Web can be changed easily
    • Highlight significant changes on "What's New" pages
    • Don't use "errata pages" - Yes, I've seen them
    • Gradually building Web pages
      • InterWorks conference information
      • Automated schedule
      • Section templates and consistent page naming
      • InterWorks vendor directory
      • Unique "flags" contain year
• Automation and interactive features
  • Forms and feedback (Details)
    • Questions and comments to the webmaster
    • On-line membership form and records update form
    • "Thank You"
    • Advocacy form
      • Pull-downs for easier identification
    • Simple e-mail message to appropriate staff or volunteers
  • Saving data and generating pages (Details)
    • Conference abstract submissions
    • Committee members create summary, change status, etc.
    • Automated schedule
    • Personal conference schedule
    • Worldwide Advocacy survey
    • Engineering Investments Survey
      • Partial on-line analysis
  • Think generality (Details)
    • Maintenance accepted practice
    • Reuse often overlooked
    • "hidden" fields on form indicate use
    • Configuration file specifies details
    • InterWorks abstract submission 1996 and 1997
    • Worldwide Advocacy Survey and Engineering Investments Survey
  • Image maps (Details)
    • "All" InterWorks pages
      1. header logo - "home", Interex, other
      2. footer graphic - all major portion
      Provides:
      • Maximum information, minimum bandwith
      • Both client-side and server-side implementations
      • See Navigational Notes
    • Geographical local chapter maps
    • Exhibit floor plan
• Converting content for Web viewing
  • Wide variety of submission formats
    • Most common: simple ASCII text e-mail
  • Templates
    • publication page discussion
    • Sample templates
  • Some authoring tools now save in HTML (Details)
    • MS Internet Assistant
      • Application add-on available free
      • Simply do a "save as", specifying HTML
        (without it, try save as "Text with format")
      • Good job on text, but fairly poor job on graphics
      • Output tailored toward MS Internet Explorer browser
    • Word Perfect
      • Linux version (probably others) can save in HTML
      • Fair job
    • W3 mode in emacs
    • Others - more all the time
  • Cyberleaf (Details)
    • Interleaf tool
    • Available for several UNIX and MS Windows 95 and NT
    • Converts native Interleaf, Framemaker MIF, MS Word RTF, ASCII
    • Custom construct definitions available
    • Structured - results best when input style structured
    • Lends to repeat publishing
    • "transient" web for easier cleanup
    • Better job on RTF graphics than MS Internet Assistant
      better yet: paste into "paint", save as TIFF, convert for Web
  • Other tools
    • Freely available on Internet
    • More commercial tools every day
    • Quality and capabilities vary
    • Investigate, test, ask others
  • Editing the output from translators/editors
    • Necessary for general use by all browsers
    • Could be limited with more time in setup
  • Experiences with Netscape Gold editor (Details)
    • Can reduce some frequent novice HTML errors
    • begin and end forms for paired tags
    • Can read HTML pages it didn't create
    • May help you
    • Use caution
      • Bad HTML generated
      • Physical vs. logical fonts
      • Method of centering
      • Re-wrapping of lines
      • Difficult to maintain HTML (if you hand edit, too)
• What is next?
  • Can't predict
  • Hope for more HTML 3.2 support
  • Hope for lossless Portable Network Graphic (PNG) support
  • Other hot new topics by next year
• Where is this paper?

(Updated 20 OCT 99)