Using the Template

Assuming you have looked over the preceding pages, building pages should now be pretty easy. If you haven't look over the information before this page, please do so now. 

These instructions are not a substitute for knowing HTML, FrontPage, and/or other basic tools of working with Websites. These instructions will not be much help if you are a total beginner. If you are a novice, try the List of Helpful Web Sites for beginners. 

What follows are suggestions for a simple method of building pages or transferring an existing site into the new format. These instructions assume all the content and structure of your site is already worked out. 

• Creating Customized Include Files 
• Creating Your Area's Template 
• How to best copy text from other programs
• Assigning Text and Link Classes 
• Using the Templates Exactly 
• Cross-Checking Your Work on Different Browsers and Platforms 
• Language, Layout and Style Guidelines
  

Creating Customized Include Files 

Left-side/Navigation Links 

Everyone has to customize at least one include file: their left-side links. This is easy to do in FrontPage or straight HTML. 

If we've set up your template for you, you'll find a preliminary version of your links called "leftnav.htm" in the "incs" folder inside your area's folder. Please do not change the name of this folder or the page. 

Changing your file is easy. Just type in new names for the links and create links to the correct hyperlink addresses. To add new links, just push Return at the end of a line.

We recommend 8 or fewer links down the side; if you have more than 8, consider reorganizing your site.

Try to make these links consistent throughout all your pages, and make sure that the name of the link is the same or very similar to the name of the page to which it links. This makes the navigation experience much easier for your audience.

How to best copy text from other programs

See the easy instructions on how to copy text from programs other than Frontpage.

Assigning Text and Link Classes 

Go back to the section on the Basics of CSS if you do not know how to do this. Remember to use the styles on the style sheet.

Using the Templates Exactly

This is just a reminder. If you alter the dimensions of any part of the template, you will find weird things happening to your pages. Most likely they will no longer meet the screen-size standards we've set out, and quite possibly they will no longer look the same across browsers and platforms. 

Cross-Checking Your Work on Different Browsers and Platforms. 

If you have used the templates faithfully and learned the standards set out in this site, you should have no problem. Nonetheless, we recommend that you check your work -- while working and when you are done -- in Netscape and Internet Explorer on both a Mac and a PC. 

Do not worry about 4.0 browsers at this point. We may backwards code pages later, but as of now, less than 2% of the visitors to UT's site use these or older browsers. Rather than orient our pages toward this tiny minority, we refer them to free download sites for new browsers. 

We have gone to great lengths to make the template look reasonably similar in all major browsers. Please benefit from this work, help us refine it if you can, but don't alter or sabotage it by going solo with your own code. 

Language, layout, and style Guidelines 

Check out the Style Guidelines page.