Information Technology Systems & Services
Now is probably a good time to save the document locally (locally means "on your computer").
- go to the "File" menu
- choose the option "Save"
- call this page "index.html" - all lower case
- create a new folder on your hard drive
- name the folder "~yourinternetid" (e.g., "~breeves")
- open the folder if it is not already open
- click "Save"
Huh?
When you go to the UMD homepage with the url http://www.d.umn.edu/ you're actually going to the page at that directory location called "index.html." Many Web servers are set up to do this automatically. Each directory can have one index page for its default page. Otherwise you have to specify the page you want to see in your url. In the example of the UMD homepage, we would have to type in http://www.d.umn.edu/index.html. How would we know "index.html" is the homepage for UMD? We wouldn't necessarily which is why it's nice to take advantage of a default page.
So what does this mean for you? We're going to put your Web page in your directory. Your directory is http://www.d.umn.edu/~yourinternetid/ (e.g., http://www.d.umn.edu/~breeves/), and when people type in this url they should get your homepage without having to type anything else. In order for this to happen your homepage must be saved as "index.html" or "index.htm". If you'd like to see what a directory looks like when it has no "index.html" page just follow this link to a directory without an "index.html" page. Note the contents of the folder are displayed like a list.
What if you have other pages in your directory you want people to see? Link to them from your "index.html" page.
- create some text to be the link
- select the text
- go to the "Properties" panel
- click on the folder icon to the right of the "Link" text box called "Browse for File"
- browse to the file you want to link to
- double-click the file name to create the link
If you think this describes making a relative link, you're right!
When you're ready, move on to "Viewing Your Web Page in a Browser."