What Webpage Help are you looking for?
 |
Do not use the "BACK" button in the browser! |
 |
When using the Webpage Generator, use the specific mc² links and buttons to navigate the site and load new pages. By using "BACK" you risk losing data and your most recent changes.
|
| Definitions of specific terms can be found in the Glossary:
|
Using the mc² "My Webpage" feature [Webpage Generator], you can create your own a basic Homepage, with a just few clicks - no HTML code knowledge is necessary! Your homepage can have text, pictures, your email address and links to other Websites. You can create as many pages as you like, and link them together.
Once created, anyone will be able to visit your Webpage anytime, though only you can edit it. Your Webpages will be stored in your Webspace. Make sure you have logged in first, then to get started, click on the 
link at the top right of any page.
Group Webpages
If you are the owner or moderator of a group and wish to create a group webpage, then first enter your group, then click on Group Webpage [towards bottom left of your screen, under Group Statistics].
See also:
Once you arrive in the "My Webpage" area (by logging in, then clicking on the link at the top right of any page, or for groups: Group Webpage), you start by clicking on "Create a New Page". [If you just wish to view, edit or delete an existing page, just click "View", "Edit", or "Delete"]. Once you have clicked "Create a New Page", you must then name your file and choose a Template.
If you wish to view, edit or delete an existing page:
- click on "List Existing Pages" [grey button, towards top right], or on "My Webpage [top right]
- then find the title of the page you are after
- then just click "View", "Edit", or "Delete"
- "View" opens your page in a separate browser window
- "Deleted" pages cannot be retrieved!
- "Edit" allows you to change text, colours, images and layout
- You must click on Create/Update to save your changes!
Clicking on "List Existing Pages" [grey button, towards top right], or on "My Webpage [top right]
allows you to View, Edit, or Delete existing pages, or create new pages.
See View | Delete | Edit, above.
Choose a Template
Just select one of the templates by clicking on the appropriate button.:
- The templates allow for different layout styles for your page
- You can change the colours & contents yourself, but the layout must be one of the template styles offered
- With Template 3, the background colour of the table containing images, can be set by adjusting the Active Link Colour
- Templates 3, 4 and 6 include transition effects on page entry/exit
- Template 5 allows alternating left and right aligned images and text down the page
- Template 6 is the only one that allows links at the top of the page
- Template 7 has everything centered
- You may choose different templates for different pages if you wish
- If you wish to change your mind later, just click on the "Template Choice" button and select again
- If you make changes, you must click on Create/Update to save your changes!
The "Colours & Font" options control how your page will look.
FONTS
- The font you choose will affect the display of ALL of the text on the page.
- It is not possible to mix font types on the same page.
- Arial, a sans-serif font, is easy to read
- Comic Sans MS will give your page a more funky look!
- Courier is mono-spaced type
- Garamond looks like Times Roman, but funkier!
- Geneva looks like this
- Georgia looks like this
- Times New Roman is the standard default type (with serifs)
- Verdana is more widely spaces than Arial, and very easy to read on-screen
- Technical note: The "Colours & Font" settings make global changes to the <BODY> of your page.
- If you make changes, you must click on Create/Update to save your changes!
COLOURS !
- Background
This is the colour of your page
- Background Wallpaper Pattern
This is a pattern that will appear as "wallpaper" on your page. It replaces the background colour. Make sure it doesn't drown out your text! You need a good contrast - light text on dark background colour/image, or dark text on light background colour/image! To see the background colour only, without patterned background image, select: Background Image NONE.
- Text
This is the colour of the word on the page. Make sure there is a good contrast between the text colour & background colour, or nobody will be able to read your masterpiece!
- Link
This is the colour the links to other sites will be, before you have "visited" them, or clicked on them
- Visited Link - this is the colour the links AFTER you have "visited" them, or clicked on them. You may wish to set links & visited links the same colour, or contrasting colours, but they should stand out from both the background and the text
- Active Link
This is the colour the link becomes as you actually click on it. It is only seen briefly, so is not as important as the other colours. With Template 3, however, it sets the background colour for the table containing your images [if any].
- Missing Text? If you can't see your text or links, make sure you didn't set them the same colour as the background or background image! E.g. "black on black" is impossible to see! So is "white on white"!
- If you make changes, you must click on Create/Update to save your changes!
The Title you give your Webpage will appear in large bold type, at the top of your page.
The Content is all the subsequent text that forms the contents of your page. Hit the enter or return key to create a line break, or hit it twice to create a paragraph break, as you would in a Word processor, such as MS Word.
If you make changes, you must click on Create/Update to save your changes!
|
If you are familiar with Webpage design, you may enter HTML code here manually, to format the page, add forms etc., but see Creating a full Website
Note, we do not recommend that you enter your own HTML into the Webpage Generator - it can cause problems! It would be better to upload your self-coded pages to your webspace via FTP
If you do enter your own code, however, you must avoid "double-quotes" - use no quotes or single quotes instead e.g. use either of the following formats:
- <a href=http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/help/mywebpage.html>this is a link to Help</a> [using no quotes]
- <a href= ' http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/help/mywebpage.html ' >this is a link to Help</a> [ ' using single quotes ' ]
but not:
- <a href="http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/help/mywebpage.html">this is a link to Help</a> [double quotes]
also, for links to specific parts of a page, you need a # in the URL, but this will be removed from text in the Title and Content fields. You must use the Links field.
|
In the mc² communities, you can use any language supported by the UTF-8 character set, as long as it is also supported by your browser. This means that you can post Forum entries, Guestbook comments, Notices, Events, Polls, and Link descriptions in a language of your choice: Chinese, Russian etc. You can also input foreign languages into the Webpage Generator to create pages that include text such as:
If, however, you enter special characters, such as: é ñ ö and find they do not appear correctly on your webpage, you will need to enter the corresponding HTML code for the character. For example, if you enter México, but it appears as México, you will need to type in México.
For Á type Á
For à type Ã
For Ç type Ç
For É type É
For Ñ type Ñ
For Ó type Ó
For Õ type Õ
For Ù type Ù
|
For á type á
For ã type ã
For á type á
For ç type ç
For é type é
For ë type ë
For ñ type ñ
For ó type ó
|
For ß type ß
For ö type ö
For ù type ù
For à type à
For è type è
For î type î
For ô type ô
For ú type ú
|
Images
Images / Graphics / Pictures make life interesting! Do try to incorporate at least one image on your page, to liven up your text, or illustrate a point, but don't make it too big! 
Photos can take a while to load... Please be patient!
- On the Images section of My Webpage, Caption is a text name, or title for your image.
- You can also enter a text Description, or caption
- Images will be uploaded from your computers Hard Drive, to your Webspace on the mc² server
- Just browse your hard drive for image files to upload
- These must be in Web format (.gif or .jpg), not bitmap (.bmp) images.
- You may incorporate up to 5 images per page.
- If you need more that 5 pictures, just create another page and link to it. See Linking your pages together
- If you make changes, you must click on Create/Update to save your changes!
- Auto Image Re-Sizing (Optimisation)
Modern digital cameras often take very large, high resolution, images, primarily intended for printing. Such files take a very long time to download from the Web, and often look too big on a computer screen. Fortunately, the mc² Webpage Generator (My Webpage) features an auto image re-sizing feature. This will optimise your photos for the Web.
- "optimise" in the Webpage Generator means reducing the size of any image over 400 pixels wide, to a maximum of 400 pixels wide x 2000 high.
- To bypass the auto image resizer and upload images in their original size, select NO to Optimise New Image Sizes, at the top of the Images section of the webpage generator:
Be aware that by over-riding the auto resizer, you may make webpages that are slow to load and have pictures that extend beyond the screen size, resulting in excessive scrolling. Large images will also quickly use up your webspace, whereas optimised images are much smaller.
- See also: Image Resizing
See also on this page:
Also on Images:
- Search the Web for Images
- How to use images on another Website
- How to copy images from another Website to your Homepage
See also:
Links are what holds the Web together! Click on underlined text, when your cursor turns to a "pointy finger" 
, and you will be transported to another location... it could be further down the same page, on another page in the site, or another site entirely, in another part of the world!
Do use links to lead readers to related topics & further information elsewhere on the Web. Your page goes nowhere without links, and becomes a "dead end" - not a very exciting place to be!
Check that you enter links correctly - with the wrong URL, or Web address, they will be "Broken" and give you a "Page not Found" or 404 error.
- Name - The title of the page or Website you are linking to
- URL - the Web address, e.g.www.vicnet.net.au
- Description- some text to explain to people where the link will take them
- See Linking all your pages together
- If you make changes, you must click on Create/Update to save your changes!
See also:
When you have more than one Webpage, you will want to link them all together, to form a Website. In the links section, put links to your other pages. E.g. if you have a Home page (or front page) called index.html, and a second page that you have named contacts.html, then on the index.html page add a link name "Contacts", URL "http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/your_webspace_name/contacts.html" and a description "This page lists various contacts for... (whatever)"
Then click on List Existing Pages, and edit your contacts.html page. There add a link name "HOME", URL "http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/your_webspace_name/index.html" and a description "Return to the Homepage"
Don't forget to click on Create/Update to save your changes!
A Hit Counter can be displayed on your Webpages, giving an indication of how popular individual Webpages are on your Website.
- Select Yes to include a counter
- Select No to disable (remove) the counter
- You can set or reset the Counter Value to any number you wish
- There are 4 types of counter display format
- If you turn the counter off, the number of hits will stop being recorded
- If you turn the counter back on again, the previous total will be displayed. If this is not what you require, you can reset the Counter Value to any number you wish
- If you make changes, you must click on Create/Update to save your changes!
Provide your name & email address, so people can contact you.
- Email addresses have an @ symbol in them
- Be sure to quote your FULL email address, e.g. yourname@hotmail.com or yourname@vicnet.net.au
- If you enter an incorrect address, you won't get any mail!
- See Email addresses must be entered correctly
- If you make changes, you must click on Create/Update to save your changes!
On the Contact / Feedback page, you can elect to include a Feedback Form on your Webpage. Whatever you put in the Feedback Form Text field will appear above the form on your page. I.e. you should indicate to viewers what sort of feedback you're after, e.g. "Please Let me know what you think of this Webpage" or just "Your Comments".
If you elect to include a Feedback Form, a form will appear on your page with the following fields for the viewer to complete:
- Name - name of person viewing your page & completing the form
- Email - their email address
- Message - their message
When someone looking at your webpage clicks on submit form, an email will be sent to you [or to the Group Owner, for Group Webpages], with the details of their submission, as above. The subject line of the email will be: mc2 webpage form submission.
- Filenames for your pages must not contain spaces, and are best all in lowercase, NOT CAPITALS
- When you want to link your pages together, you will need to know the filenames for the pages. You can see the filename in the URL when you view a page. See Linking all your pages together.
- Name your first page index.html [the default name]. That way you will also create a
house icon/link for your Homepage.
- Naming your first page index also means it will load automatically - see auto loading
- Then remember to give each additional page a different file name
- If you forget, and use the default "index" name for your second page, too, you will get the message:
"index already exists! Are you sure you want to overwrite it?"
- Click "NO" to save the page with a different name, else "YES" will overwrite your first page
- If you're just editing an existing page, it is fine to click "YES" and override the previous version
Remember, a NEW page gets a NEW filename [with the first one being index],
whereas an existing page you're editing needs to be saved with the existing name [over-writing or replacing the original]
Save file as (filename)...
- You must create a filename for your page. This will form part of the URL, or Web address of your page.
- The default name is index.html. This is a good name for your first page, as it will load automatically. Also, the little house icon
 will appear as a link to the index.html file on your Webpage.
- If you create a second page, however, you will need to remove "index" and type in a different file name.
- If you leave your second page as "index" as well, it will overwrite your first index.html page!
|
To save your changes and to create your Webpage,
you must click on the "Create/Update Page" button each time!
If you still can't see the changes, try refreshing your browser window.
To do this, press the F5 function button on your keyboard,
or click on 
at the top of your browser window.
If you are using Netscape as your browser, click on "Reload".
What is a browser?
Creating the little house icon/link for your Homepage
If you use the default name for your first webpage, index.html, then the little house icon/link will appear in the Members List of any group you belong to. That way, other members can find your Homepage, as the icon is also a link to your Homepage.
Clicking on the will open your Webpage in a new browser window.
Auto-Loading:
The URL (Web Address) of your Homepage will be: http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/your_login/web/index.html. As the index page will load by default, you do not need to quote this filename in your URL, so mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/your_login/web will take you to it.
Group Webpages
If you're using the Webpage Generator to create a Webpage for your Group, then the little house icon/link will appear automatically in your Webpages listing. This may not be visible to non-members, however (in Members Only groups). So, you should also to go to Group Settings and input the URL of your group webpage in the field: "URL of Group Website". The house will then appear as a link on the Group Info page (which is always viewable).
See 
How to create a house link on your Group Info page
See also:
- Have you clicked on Create/Update? If you create a page, or make changes, you must click on Create/Update to save and see your changes!. If you do not, you will not see your page or the changes.
- Did you delete it? Deleted pages cannot be retrieved, you will have to recreate them.
- Did you over-write it? If you save a new page with the same name as an existing page, the contents of the original page will be lost, and replaced with the new content. E.g. you might overwrite your index page with your second page, because you forgot to save it with a different name [the default filename is index].
New/different content should be saved with a new filename for each different page [unless you are editing an existing page]. See also: Choose Filename
- To view the latest changes, remember to Reload / Refresh the window displaying your Webpage each time you make a change [else you will see an old, cached copy].
- When using the mc² Webpage generator, don't use the browser BACK button. Instead, use the specific mc² navigation links & buttons. E.g. "return to Webpage builder".
- Another reason may be that you have a problem with your Webspace. Click on the "My Files" link, in My Office, top right of any page [you need to login first to see the link]. If you already have a Webspace name, it will appear on the top left of the "My Files" screen, as below:
If, instead, you see blank, or have any other problem, contact us with the details and we will assist you in accessing your Webspace. What is Webspace?
I have Webspace, but I still can't see My Webpage!
In the "My Webpage" section, when you follow the "view" links, they open the link in a new browser window. Your page may be there, but you are looking in the wrong spot! Try checking if you have your browser open more than once [click on the "e" IE browser icons in the task bar at the bottom of your screen], and look in every window. Remember to Reload / Refresh the window displaying your finished Webpage each time you make a change [don't refresh the page that says Congratulations!]. What is a browser?
- Remember also, if you create a page, or make changes, you must click on Create/Update to save your changes!. If you do not, you will not see your page or the changes.
You can create a basic Homepage with mc2, without knowing anything about code! Just login, then follow the link on the orange navigation bar, towards the top right of the screen, to .
The information on the page you are reading now will assist with using this mc² "My Webpage" feature...
When you have created more than one Webpage with mc2, you will want to link them all together, to form a Website.
What if you want a more sophisticated site, with FTP access?
If you are comfortable with generating your own HTML webpages (e.g. with Homesite or other text editor), then you can upload them to your 10MB of webspace using the mc² File Management System. Just follow the link to "My Files", which is part of My Office. Groups should use Group Files. Alternatively, advanced users can use FTP to upload your webpages directly to your webspace.
As a community group or Vicnet customer, you may be entitled to free Webspace for your site. To set this up, complete the Webspace Application Form, or contact Webhelp with queries: Email support@vicnet.net.au or contact Vicnet by phone on (03)8664 7001, FAX (03)9669 9805. If you connect to the Internet with an ISP other than Vicnet, it may be better to contact your ISP first.
Need more Help?
Look at the Help and Advanced Help sections, or give us a call:
Call the Vicnet Help Desk: 8664 7001 or 1800 629 835
