Publishing Web Pages

Creating your own website can be a great deal of fun and a good way to share pictures, text and ideas with the whole world.

Publishing a web page is easy, just put a file into your personal web space provided by NCF and that is it, the file will then be visible to everyone on the internet. Creating a website is just a matter of creating a series of web pages and then linking them together.

Location of your web pages (URL)

Your web space is at http://web.ncf.ca/youraccountID, where youraccountID is replaced by your NCF accountID. If you have an email alias, you can use that too. For example, if your accountID is ab123 and your email alias is 'fred', then your web space would be at:

• http://web.ncf.ca/ab123

and also at:

• http://web.ncf.ca/fred

Uploading web files

The process of transferring a file from your computer to your web space (on NCF's computer) is called uploading.

A file is a web page if it contains text formated in Hyper Text Mark-up Language (HTML), which can be displayed by a web browser. HTML is just plain text, with formatting that conforms to the rules of HTML. HTML files are given the extension of .html or .htm so that browsers know they contain HTML.

Default HTML page

URLs specify directories and, optionally, file names. For example, if a file abc.html were in the web space of ab123, the URL would be:

• http://web.ncf.ca/ab123/abc.html

If a file is not specified, eg.,

• http://web.ncf.ca/ab123

by default, browsers will look for a file named index.html (or index.htm). If they find such a file, they will load it. If not, they will display a list of the files in the directory. Because browsers do this typically website designers create a file named index.html to be their website's home page.

How to upload files

There are many ways to upload files, including:

• NCF's Web File Manager - We suggest using NCF's "Web File Manager" (because it requires no set-up) to upload your files. Go to the StartPage and click on 'Web File Manager' under 'Tools' in the right column. It is kind of basic, but you'll see simple tools for uploading files. There's an FAQ link on its page that explains how it works. Note: The Web File Manager cannot tranfer files larger than 2MB. For large files, use FTP.

• File Transfer Protocol (FTP) - If you are using an FTP program, use the following settings:
  • Host Name/Address: ftp.ncf.ca,
  • User ID: accountID-1 (that's your NCF account ID followed by 'dash one'), e.g. ab123-1

About HTML files

There are many guides available on the internet and in bookstores and libraries the help with learning HTML. A simple way to get started is to use NCF's Web File Manager to create a HTML template file. Do this:

• Start NCF's Web File Manager
• Create a new file called anything.html
• Click the 'edit' link for that file

Because the file is named with an extension of '.hmtl' and is empty, Web File Manager will open with template text of a basic HTML file, which you can modify (or discard).

HTML is just text, so any plain text editor can be used to write HTML by hand, although this requires some skill and practice. There are also many software applications to automate the task. If you are designing a complex web site with many components or want to save the time learning hand coding HTML, these tools can be helpful. An easy-to-use free software application that creates good webpages is KompoZer, which can be downloaded for free for Windows and Mac OSX. KompoZer is also available in the repositories of most Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu and Debian.

Many office applications can produce documents in HTML format that will produce web pages that appear identical or similar to their native output formats. Thus an easy way to prepare web pages is to simply 'save as HTML' in office applications that support that.

Organizational Accounts at NCF

To transfer files to your organization web space, use the following settings on your FTP program:

• Host Name/Address: ftp.ncf.ca
• User ID: accountID-n ('n' is a letter code assigned to the

organization, usually the first letter of the directory name)

Your web site is at

• http://yourOrg.ncf.ca

Tools for web page authors

NCF's "comment-taker" utility provides a way for readers of your web page to send you email without you having to expose your email address to spammers. Have a look at the Comment-Taker FAQ for more information.

How much space do I get?

There is no limit on the size of your web space as long as there is enough space for everybody. If space becomes an issue, we will contact the people who use the most space.