Create Your Webpage

Create your Webpage

To create some content for your new space, you can create and edit files online, or you can edit the files offline and upload them. In this class, we'll be creating offline and uploading files. If you learned how to create files online using pico or another text editor, that's great--you'll be able to troubleshoot should anything go wrong (and it will).

KompoZer, like more advanced editors such as Dreamweaver, is a WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) html editor. It is not as sophisticated as Macromedia's Dreamweaver or other editors, but it is free and relatively easy to use.

To get started, simply launch KompoZer. It will open with a new blank html document.

To begin creating your website, you need to create a page called index.html and upload it to your public_html directory.

HTML editors work similarly to a word processor with fewer features. You are limited in your choice of fonts, for example. Headings, lists, colors, and tables are created with html code, but KompoZer allows you to select these from menus and toolbars. The top-level heading on a page is usually Heading 1, though you may find this distractingly large. Explore the settings, but don't get carried away: just because you can do something doesn't mean its a good idea (green text on a red background, for example).

You'll also notice a series of tabs at the bottom of the KompoZer screen. The default is Design which shows the page in a WYSIWYG format. Source will show the full html source code; this view is useful if you know how to edit html by hand, since you can edit the code in this view. Split divides the screen, with the source at top and the Design view beneath it.

To create your new homepage

Open KompoZer. You should have a blank html document.
Select a Heading from the pulldown menu (the default is Body Text. I suggest Heading 1 or 2.
Give your page a name. Hit Return. The pulldown menu should revert to Body Text.
Begin entering your information on the page.
From the Format menu, choose Page Title and Properties. Give your page a title. This is not the filename, but the name which will appear in the Title Bar of a web browser.
From the File Menu, choose Save. (You may also use the Save icon in the toolbar)
Save your page as index.html onto a thumb or flash drive (or other removable media).
To keep everything in order, you should keep the same directory structure on your removable media as you have on the server. It may be helpful to put your new index.html file inside a new folder on your flash drive. The contents of that folder will go into your public_html "folder" on the server. This will help with linking.

Of course, a single web page is not a website. To create a site, you need to link pages together.

Then you'll be ready to upload your new homepage to your public_html directory.

Dean Taciuch
GMU English Department

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.