January 2004 General Meeting
Website Design Considerations
Test, upload, and maintain your Website
Test, and test again!
Test often and test thoroughly; before and after uploading; after every change, no matter how insignificant.
- Test using multiple browsers, in several versions.
- Use HTML Tidy to verify code.
- Spell check content.
Several shareware or freeware programs facilitate testing as you edit. I tried HTML-Kit (free) and it looks like it would serve well.
Upload to server
Moving your files from your PC to the server is done using File Transfer Protocol (FTP). This capability is built-in to most Web authoring applications. A command-line FTP application is available in all Windows versions. I use a free utility: WS_FTP. Your Web hosting company will provide necessary information required to access your directory on the server.
Maintenance
What tools to use
This is where I "give you my permission" to use Website authoring packages such as Dreamweaver or GoLive. Maintenance using simple editors gets tedious. These applications are expensive. Alternatives include several free or shareware programs, such as HTML-kit, mentioned above.
If the maintainer is not skilled in HTML, consider using an application such as Macromedia Contribute.