Generic Rotary Club Readme

1. Webmaster. For a successful web site someone has to maintain it. This person needs to have an interest and desire to do it. As a minimum, the calendar needs to be updated weekly.

2. Web space. You will need a place to put your site on the web. There are many hosting companies and prices and services vary. The least expensive way is to put it on personal web space--many internet service providers offer 5-10 GB of space with your internet service. This is enough space for the initial web site. The advantage is that it is free; the disadvantage is that naming is restricted and can result in a clunky URL. Some newspapers like the Victoria Advocate offer free space to not-for-profit organizations. These are difficult to customize because they do not have file transfer protocol (FTP) access and editing must be done with an on-line editor. Once you get into the editor you can copy and paste HTML code from your edited files. I found that these sites are extremely slow. For fast sites use a professional host. You can do a search for internet hosting companies to do a comparison of price and services. We use 1&1 Internet, Inc. and have had such a good experience that we recommend it. They just came out with a new package, 1&1 Beginner, for $2.99 per month. You will probably never need more space than comes with this package.

3. Domain name. For neatness get a domain name. For simplicity it is best to get it from the company that hosts your site. Try to avoid dashes and underscores in the name. For example edinburgrotary.org would be better than edinburg_rotary.org or edinburg-rotary.org. Most hosting companies have a form to determine the availability of your desired domain name. You can, also, do a "whois" search through Internic to determine if your name is taken.

4. HTML editing software. HTML code can be edited with a text editor, but it requires too much knowledge and patience. Instead use a WYSIWYG HTML editor. Dreamweaver and FrontPage are two popular ones. I've used them both and find FrontPage a little easier to use. The professionals use the more expensive Dreamweaver. If you ever want to use the dynamic page features of FrontPage your site host must support FrontPage extensions. These are available in the MS Hosting version of the 1&1 Beginner package. There is a free HTML editor, Nvu, that compares favorably with these commercial editors. I've downloaded it and looked at it, but have not used it extensively.

5. Image editing software. To make your site interesting you will want pictures. These need to be edited (cropped and sized) before putting them on the site. I use Adobe Photoshop Elements for this. Other graphics editors are available. Two free ones are GIMP and Paint.net. I would try these before buying image editing software.

Getting started:

1. Put files on your computer. Place the files from the email, zip file, or CD in a folder on your computer. On Windows computers you may want to use "My Webs" or a folder in "My Webs."

2. Edit the files. Open each of the .htm files with your HTML editor. First open in the code or source mode and do a search and replace for "Generic." Replace it with the name of your club. Go to the top of the page and make sure the <title> is correct and edit the <meta> tag with the page description. Both of these are used by search engines. Next go back to design mode and add the content to the page. Save it. Navigation bar caution: If you change any of the links on the navigation bar you may lose its formatting. To avoid this place the cursor between the first and second letters and type your desired link name. Then go back and delete the extra letters; highlight the link name and click the links button and name the location of the desired file. If you lose formatting it is because in the cascading style sheet (CSS) the links in the navigation bar need to be told they are class="nav". To repair the problem highlight the link, go to the code mode, and place class="nav" directly in front of the href= to the left of the highlighted area. If this is confusing look at some of the other links on the navigation bar and note their format. Text tips: Add text by typing or copying and pasting text from files or web pages. When copying and pasting it is best not to paste directly from a Word document or web page. Formatting from these pages will be copied into your page sometimes causing problems. It is best to paste these into a text editor like Notepad first. Copy the text from the text editor and paste that into your web page. Image tips: When adding pictures you want them to be as small as possible. On portraits I use 4X5 ratio and have found that 144 pixels X 189 pixels is a good size. For the scrapbook area I crop the pictures leaving only the high-information area. I then size them to be 216 pixels high. This way they align nicely on the page and will be 3 inches high. On my granddaughter's page I make them 288 pixels high. Remember, the smaller they are the faster they will load. Avoid spam: To not increase your members' spam I recommend using a Javascript to add an email link. Web bots search the web continually looking for text in the format of some characters followed by an @ sign followed by more text followed by a dot then three more characters. The Javascript uses ASCII letter codes to thwart this. Get a map: Go to Google Maps, enter the address of the meeting site, click "Search," click on "Link to this page," copy the URL in the browser address box, and paste it as the directions link address.

3. Test the files. Once all the files are edited go to the folder with the files and double click on one of the .htm files. Your browser should open it. From there test all the pages and all the links. If errors are found go back to the editor and correct them.

4. Upload the files to the web. Use your file transfer protocol (FTP) client to upload your files to the web. Upload all the files and folders in your main web file. The files and folders must have the same relationship on the web as they have on your computer. Most HTML editors have an FTP client built in. 1&1 Internet furnishes Wise-FTP for its users and many other free ones are available. The trickiest part is putting in the user names and passwords. On advantage in using Wise-FTP from 1&1 Internet is that it comes ready to go. I find the FrontPage FTP client is much faster than Wise-FTP. In your web space there will be an index.htm or index.html file. Remove it before uploading your files. Your home page is named index.htm. If the existing file is index.html it will not be overwritten and there is a possibility that browsers will use that instead of the desired file. When web browsers go to a site they look for an index.htm or index.html file to open. You want the browser to open your file.

Giving credit:

For the use of these files we ask that you leave the credit line at the bottom of each page and share them with anyone needing them.

Jack Whitmire
Webmaster
Victoria Rotary Club
Contact
Phone 361-573-1964

Download zip file

Web site template courtesy of Victoria Rotary Club