This is a few notes on finishing up your pages before you send them to the KORRnet computer. By this point you should have a template that you can Save As... any page you need for your site. Or, perhaps you decided to use the pages that I made for you, just adding and subtracting text where you need it. Here are a few other things that you might consider before you send your pages to KORRnet.

Formatting Your Page

In Composer's menu bar, click Format and select Page Colors and Properties. 

You'll get this window (click the General tab is you don't see this):

This is where you can give your page a title, identify the author of the page, and put in topical keywords that describe your organization. The title shows up above the menu bar on your browser when you view the page online. As the author, I usually give my email address here in addition to my name. It doesn't show up on the page when viewed through a web browser, but it is buried in the code that makes up the page, so if anyone is interested in how your page is made they'll see who did it. Keywords don't show up on the page either, but they are looked at by search engines. This helps when someone is looking for help on the Internet but don't know the name of your organization. Include the name of your organization and descriptive terms that identify what your agency does.

Next, click the Colors and Background tab.

I'll talk about each of these settings:

Use viewer's browser colors 

Selecting this option saves no colors with your page. That is, whatever the viewer of your page sets on their web browser is what they'll see for text.

Use custom colors 

Normal Text - the text in the body of the page (what you are reading now)
Link Text - text links to other pages (this doesn't affect image links)
Active Link Text - the color a link becomes while it is being clicked
Followed Link Text - the color a link changes to once it's destination has been viewed
Background - the color of the page the text is on (white on this page)

Click any of the little buttons  to change the color.

Color Schemes 

Netscape comes with some pre-chosen color schemes for you to select from a drop down menu.

Background Image

You can choose an image to be a background. For example, take a look at this page: 

Example page

That page has a small image  for the background that the browser "tiles" all over the page, making it appear to be a single, continuous image.

Save these settings for new pages

You can choose to let Composer always use your customized settings for each new page you make.

Click Apply to see each change as you make it, and click OK when you are finished.

Send a Test Page

I usually send a test page to the KORRnet computer before I try my whole site there. I do this to see how the images and formatting look before I invest a lot of time in debugging the site. Send your initial template there to see how it looks. Name it "index.html" after it gets there and browse to your site to see how it looks. 

Note: index.html or index.htm should be the name of your home page, that is, the first page that a reader will encounter on your site. This is done so that all you need do is tell someone your web address. KORRnet's computer will automatically look for the "index" page. For example, the KORRnet help page is at: 

http://www.korrnet.org/chic/

Going to this address will automatically open index.html.

Check the Fonts / Spelling

Before I save each page for the last time, when I think I have it in its final form, I check the spelling by clicking the spelling  icon in the tool bar. 

Also, I make sure that the font is uniform for the page. Sometimes the font I started with doesn't seem to be consistent through the whole page as I've made additions. So, I hold down the Ctrl key and press A to highlight all the text on the page. Then I click in the font window on the tool bar to select the font I want all my text to have. I usually use Arial for all fonts. Doing this doesn't affect the size of the font, just the style.

Check the Links

I open each page in a browser and follow all the links. All the pages that are linked to each other on your site should work on your computer before you send them off to KORRnet. The only links that should not work are those that are sending readers to a site off of yours, that is, another www site.

Deleting These Files

One last thing, when you have your site the way you like it, delete these help files. They will always be available if you need them at:

http://www.korrnet.org/chic/test_site/

Also, you can download them to your computer using an FTP program . . . which is the next topic! These files are located on your site in the following folders:

help_files
help_images

See the next topic to learn how to delete these files and folders.

Please go on to the next topic  Putting Your Newly Edited Pages on KORRnet