Dick Shelton & Kent Koeninger
webmaster@psduua.org
September, 1997
The World Wide Web offers great opportunities to UU congregations for finding new members and communicating their message to the community (and the world) while improving communication among their own members.
While not everyone has access to the Web, or uses the Web, the number of those who do is growing dramatically. From August 1996, the hit rate at the UUA website grew to an average of 8 to 9 thousand hits per month by the end of the year, and by May 1997 had almost doubled that. By May there were over 3000 hits per month in the "congregations near you" listing -- and UUA will provide a link from there to your congregation's webpage if you have one. This is good exposure. And by including a web address in your advertising, you can provide access to volumes of information for far less than it would cost to include that information in the advertising.
And for your own members, the beauty of the Web is that you can keep the information there up to date and disseminate it automatically without churning the presses or running up the postage bill. As a rough estimate, if you can avoid sending out 300 copies of your newsletter over the course of a year, you have saved in postage alone the cost of the website for that year.
With the right tools (and the right tools are readily available, and not necessarily expensive), creating your own webpages is about as easy as creating a Microsoft Word document. True, some of the glitz you see on the Web these days requires some wizardry. But effectiveness depends on content, not glitz. You don't need to know any fancy programming languages or fancy keywords to write a simple but content-rich webpage that looks good and is effective. And we believe it's worth the effort.
The other point we want to make is that there is lots of help available. There are good books and good online resources. More importantly, there are people who can help you along. There are computer-literate people in your congregation, and people they know that will help. And one of our goals at the Twin Cities Unitarian Universalist Communication Committee (TCUUCC) is to help UU congregations begin to use the Web to improve electronic communication. We can provide technical services to help you start writing and publishing your pages.
This paper should be accessible to people who own and use a computer. There may be some spots where your eyes glaze over, but bear with us: the time will come when those spots have precisely the answer you need. So skip them for now, get together a group a friends interested in making your page a reality, share your talents, and start writing!
The address of a webpage, like "http://www.unitarian.org/pstar/staff.html", is called a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). It specifies:
When you type a URL into the address window in your web browser program (like Netscape or Internet Explorer, the two most common browsers), that program (running on your computer) assembles a request using commands in the http protocol and sends it to the Internet, over whatever communication connection you have set up: a phone line over a modem, your company's own network, a T3 line, etc. Once the request reaches the network of interconnected computers that we call the Web, it will be routed first to a "Domain Name Server", one of zillions of computers that keep track of domain names and can translate "unitarian.org" into the computer address of the computer hosting "unitarian.org". Then the request will be routed to that machine (owned by MTN in our case). The MTN computer will find the home directory for "www.unitarian.org" and the "pstar" subdirectory and the "staff.html" file and transmit the file's contents back across the communication channel to your computer, where your browser program will display it for you by decoding the HTML mark-up commands in the text.
The HTML commands may call for pictures to be displayed, by specifying the URLs of the graphics files (usually GIF or JPEG files). In this case the browser will automatically make additional requests to the Web for those files as well. (Graphics files are typically bigger than text files, so take longer to send back to you on the net, whence the usual pause for images.) The HTML commands can also turn some of the text into "links" by associating with the link's text a URL for some other file; when you click on the text, your browser will request the associated page from the Web just as if you had typed in that URL directly. Many browsers will show you the URL associated with a link as you pass the mouse cursor over the link.
So what do you need to do to make this work for your own pages? Principally, you need an Internet host computer where your files will be stored and sent back ("downloaded") to users world-wide upon their request. Most internet providers (like AOL) will provide their subscribers with a limited amount of storage to hold their own pages. Some internet providers (like MTN) sell space for webpages; if you need lots of space, this is the route to go. TCUUCC purchases enough space from MTN to host several UU congregations; each congregation (and Prairie Star District) has its own subdirectory of "/web-hotel/unitarian" (on MTN's computer) where it can store its own pages. The UUA also makes a limited amount of web space on its computer available for member congregations.
You do not need your own domain name, like "unitarian.org". Ordinarily, you will use the domain name of the organization providing you the space, like "aol.com" or "mtn.org" or "uua.org" (or "unitarian.org" in the case of congregations using space provided by TCUUCC.) If you want your own domain name, you must arrange that with your provider, and you must register the domain name. (Most providers can do this for you, but they will charge you the registration fee, which currently is $50 per year for a minimum of two years.) The advantage of a domain name is that you can make it recognizable, and you can take it with you if you change providers, so that your "web address" doesn't change.
Next, you must create the pages. This is something you do on your own computer. There is plenty of software to help you, ranging from full-service packages like Front Page or Page Mill that will handle virtually all aspects of webpage authoring, through specialized programs like Paint Shop Pro for creating and manipulating image files, down to very simple tools like Notepad for building text files. The selection of software you use will inevitably depend on taste, availability, and budget. Here are a few tips and recommendations:
Operating system: We assume you are working on a Windows-based machine or a Mac. Other possibilities exist, but fall outside the scope of these notes. For Windows, we strongly suggest Windows 95 or NT over Windows 3.1 (or DOS). The later operating systems have features and architecture that make page development much faster. Likewise, Mac users should have MacOS 7.6+ or 8.0+.
And a word about hardware. Strictly speaking, practically any PC or Mac of recent vintage can be made to work, but you will speed things along if you have a Pentium or Power PC chip, at least 32 Meg of memory, and plenty of free disk space (say 20 Meg to 100 Meg, depending on your choice of software). If your connection to the Net is via modem, move mountains to get at least a 28.8 K modem, preferably a 36.3K modem: you will be doing lots of uploading and downloading, and waiting on a slow modem gets old fast. (Faster connections are possible; e.g., the new 56K modems--but be sure your Internet service will support 56K--or ISDN phone service at 128K--which is more pricey.)
HTML files: HTML files are merely text files--even the HTML mark-up commands are just text strings inserted into the rest of your text. So again, strictly speaking, your favorite text editor is all you need to create HTML pages. (And many people do it this way.) But for this to work, you have to know HTML. This is not a bad idea, even if you use fancier software, and there are good reference books on HTML. We recommend HTML: The Definitive Guide by Chuck Musciano and Bill Kennedy (pub. O'Reilly) and How to Set Up and Maintain a World Wide Web Site by Lincoln Stein (pub. Addison Wesley). There are also many online references for HTML.
(Another good way to learn more about HTML, once you have the basics down, is to look at other people's HTML. If something in a site on the Web catches your eye, have your browser display the HTML source and look at how it was done.)
Most people prefer an editor with some knowledge of HTML. These are called web editors. There are lots to choose from. Be sure the one you choose can handle HTML tables, and frames if you want them. (Frames allow you to divide the screen into several separate windows onto your site. Our experience is that most browsers make navigation around frames harder than it should be, and many websites don't set their frames up correctly.) The editor should handle both WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) input as well as raw HTML, and should allow you to edit the HTML directly should the need arise. These editors tend to be priced from $100 on up. Examples: Front Page for Windows 95, Page Mill 2.0 or later, GoLive (recommended by web-wizards at Apple), World Wide Web Weaver. Shareware editors are also available.
Also, check whether your word processor will produce HTML. Word 8.0 for example has a built-in HTML option, and free add-ins are available from Microsoft for Word 7 and later versions of Word 6.
Be careful about mixing upper and lower case letters in filenames. On your own computer, the filenames are probably not case-sensitive, but on the host they probably will be. If they are, your host will not find a link's target if the case of the filename in the link does not match the actual filename on the host. A good rule is always to use lower case letters in filenames.
Always use the extension ".html". Earlier PC-compatible operating systems can only handle 3-character extensions, and if you're stuck with this, use ".htm"--but use ".html" in file references inside your HTML mark-up commands, and change the extensions of your files to ".html" when you upload them to your Internet host.
Image files: All of your image files should be either GIFs or JPEGs. As a general rule, use GIFs for art work and JPEGs for photos. GIF format can handle black and white photos OK, but it's effectively limited to 256 colors, so doesn't handle color photos well.
You can download images from the Internet (try right-clicking on an image or the background in your browser), and there are Internet sites that specialize in collections of downloadable do-dads like buttons, bars, and backgrounds.
But eventually you will want your own images. Digital photos are a good source; images can also be digitized with a scanner. (Scanner time can be rented at Kinko's or other full-service copying shops) Artwork can also be created directly in computer programs of varying sophistication.
At some point, you will be faced with the problem of converting from one format (BMP or TIFF, say) to GIF or JPEG. Many graphics programs can do this. We recommend the shareware program Paint Shop Pro (downloadable from several sources on the Web) as a general image editor. It can read and convert from a wide variety of formats. (Exact conversion is not always possible; you can do things in some formats that are not possible in others.)
Be aware that it is sometimes possible to dramatically reduce the size of a GIF file by some judicious changes: using only two colors, or no more than 16 colors, and keeping background areas "clean" (preferably with pixels of only one color). This is especially useful for line art like maps. Of course, the file size can also be reduced by shrinking the image's dimensions: cutting the linear dimensions in half reduces the number of pixels (and bytes) by a factor of 4.
Always use the extensions ".gif" and ".jpg". Sometimes you will see ".jpeg", but ".jpg" is preferred.
Testing your pages: Before you upload files to your Internet host, you should test them on your own computer by loading them into your browser to verify that they display correctly. More important, verify that they display correctly in both Netscape and Internet Explorer. This means getting copies of both of those browsers. IE is downloadable free from Microsoft. Netscape costs about $80, although limited versions can be downloaded free. (You can browse files on your own computer by double-clicking on the file name, or by using a URL built from "file://" and some version of the file name, possibly replacing any backslashes with forward slashes; the syntax varies from browser to browser) Be sure all the links work, especially links to pages outside of your own collection of pages. (These must be tested regularly even after your pages "go public" since external pages have a habit of moving or disappearing.)
In general, links to your own pages from within your own pages should be "relative" links, i.e., links giving not the full URL but the path to the target file "relative to" the current file. For example, a file (call it "thisfile.html") that refers to "other.html" or "images/mypic.jpg" is referring to the file "other.html" in the same directory where "thisfile.html" is located, or to "mypic.jpg" in the subdirectory "images" of the same directory where "thisfile.html" is located. These relative links will work regardless of the full URL of "thisfile.html", so they make moving the whole collection from one place (say, your computer) to another (your Internet host) "relatively" painless: you don't have to edit the links when you move the files.
Uploading your pages: Once the pages are tested and working to your satisfaction, you are ready to copy ("upload") the files from your computer to your Internet host. The usual way of doing this is to use an FTP ("file transfer protocol") program. WS_FTP is an excellent free FTP program; Trumpet FTP also runs on the PC platform. Fetch is a popular FTP program for Macs. (NCSA Telnet, below, also includes a basic FTP interface.)
The primary purpose of FTP programs is to copy files from your computer to the host or vice versa. To do this you will need two things from the owners of your Internet host: the location (full path name) of your website's home directory on the host, and a user name and password. The FTP program will offer you the choice of two transfer modes: binary and text. Binary mode is used for image files (.gif and .jpg) while text mode (also called ASCII mode) is used for the HTML files. If you use the wrong mode, the copies will probably not be readable. Just reset the mode and copy the files again; the new copies will overwrite the unreadable ones.
The better FTP programs also allow you to do most of the directory maintenance required on the host: deleting obsolete files, creating and removing subdirectories, moving from one directory to another, renaming the files if necessary during the transfer (changing ".htm" to ".html" for example). Occasionally you may need to do some work on the host that the FTP programs don't handle. In that case you resort to a Telnet program that lets you sign on directly to the host and issue commands there. You will sign on using the same user name and password that you use for FTP, but the commands are local system commands, usually Unix. The knowledge of Unix required is minimal. NCSA Telnet is a free Telnet program that works well on PCs and Macs. Trumpet Telnet is another option for PCs.
Your audience consists of two very different groups: first-time readers (who may be potential members) and current members. The former want information about who you are, where you are, what you do. The latter want up-to-date information about next Sunday's program, next month's bike trip, and so forth. It is natural to design your page with the first group in mind, but the real payoff in effective electronic communications comes when your current membership learns to use the web site routinely as the primary source of current information. It is important to organize your pages so that both groups can find the appropriate information fast without having to wade through items of little interest to them.
The index page. In particular, it is very important that your first page load fast. (This is called the "index" page, and it is usually named "index.html".) This page is how everyone will enter your site, and you don't want to keep people waiting. Keep it short, with no graphics or small images that download quickly, and provide carefully named links to other pages where the bulk of the information lies. This allows people to navigate through the page quickly to get where they want to go. (Whence "index".)
Avoid two common mistakes: (1) Don't pile all of your information into one long page. It will take forever to download, discouraging anybody from using the page more than about once, if that. In general, no page should contain much more than a screenfull of information unless there is a compelling reason to have the information in one page. (2) Don't put your big fancy graphics (like the full-screen drawing of your building, or the group shot you made real big so everybody could be seen) on the first page. Again, it takes these graphics a long time to download, and the experienced users don't want to wade through them just to check the time of that next meeting.
You should experiment with background colors beyond the standard gray (lighter ones being better), and with background patterns, which can significantly enhance the appearance of your page. But there are lots of bad backgrounds out there. Anything making the text at all hard to read should be avoided. (And some backgrounds make life really difficult for color-blind users.) Get feedback before choosing one.
You should always call your first page "index.html" because that is the name the Internet host looks for when it gets a URL specifying your directory but no file name. This means you can use the directory name alone as the URL (e.g., "http://www.unitarian.org/pstar" instead of, say, "http://www.unitarian.org/pstar/firstpage.html"). It also keeps outsiders from prowling your site; if there is no "index.html" the webpage server on the host will helpfully provide a list of all the files in the directory requested--but you may not want the world at large to know everything that's there.
Graphics. Use graphics sparingly. They eat up space in your allotted quota on the host, and they eat up time during download. Many serious users of the Web routinely browse with graphics turned off, precisely because graphics take time to download. Accordingly, for each <img> command in your HTML, include an "alt=" parameter that gives a brief description of the image and its size in kilobytes (KB), so the user has some idea whether it's worth downloading.
It is very common, especially in commercial webpages, to use graphics as the principal items of display, i.e., putting all or most of the content (even the text) into images. This is a serious misuse of the Internet's resources, and one of the main reasons behind the traffic jam currently developing on the net. One UU site (a UUA "site of the month" no less) paves the screen with six or seven rows of "buttons" (just links, really), each with its own separate image file consisting of a single phrase on a wood-grained background. Download cost: astronomical. Flashy, yes. Effective, no.
The colophon. It is usual to have a block of information at the bottom of each page giving links to key pages in your collection, and some information about the page itself. We recommend that the following items always be included:
Items to attract new visitors: By all means include a picture of your building, a map, good directions that several people have reviewed for correctness and clarity. Let the public know what services you offer, what activities you're involved in, and an idea of your "spiritual posture." Quotes and artwork are appropriate (but not on the first page, please). You want to give them enough information to assess honestly whether this might be the right place for them.
Details of congregational activity: Ideally, your website should become the first resource for timely information for your own members. This won't happen overnight, but start by keeping several week's worth of coming programs and events on the webpage. Keep the information up to date; put the programs and announcements in the webpage as soon as they are known, even before the newsletter is printed--and update the page instantly when changes become known.
Privacy concerns: Since the material you post will be available (and searched automatically) world wide, be careful about putting sensitive information on your site. (And be aware that the sense of what's "sensitive" will vary from person to person: always get permission from someone before using the name, picture, intellectual property, e-mail address, or phone number.) In general, when transferring newsletter material to the web, remove home addresses, home phone numbers, and personal items (sickness, death, etc.). You might even organize your newsletter into a web portion and a "non-web" portion.
There are grey areas. For example, do you publish directions for getting to the house hosting the picnic? Members have a legitimate desire to know this, and it's the kind of information you'd like to make available electronically. One compromise approach is to publish an e-mail address or phone number where people can send for more detailed information about the picnic. That way requests can be filtered before the information is sent out. (But be sure the e-mail address is monitored daily, or that the people whose phone number is published know they may get calls!)
Plan for continuity: It is distressingly common to see someone produce a stunning website that shortly dies because no further work is done to keep it up to date. It helps to share the work: have more than one person available to work on the site, and have someone else designated to gather the changing information for the webmasters. It also helps to start small: put the important information up first, and get used to maintaining that before going on to grander things. Also consider involving your young people; they have an astonishing affinity for this medium.
Review the content: We recommend having a formal authority designated for periodically reviewing the website's content: for appropriateness, accuracy, and effectiveness. The webmasters should not be working in a vacuum. They need feedback, and your congregation needs to retain final control of what is published. Make the review an integral part of the process from the beginning; don't wait for an emergency. But don't sit on the webmasters either; they need a free hand within the guidelines set forth.
Work within your congregation: Keep the website URL in open view: in the newsletter, on the bulletin board, in the directory, in announcements. Encourage people to use it. Encourage people to write for it, committees to publish reports on it. Use it aggressively to reduce the volume of paper and postage you go through.
Work with other congregations and organizations: Take advantage of other electronic efforts going on in your area. You can share knowledge, techniques, software recommendations, link to one another's sites, and coordinate your information so that the general public (and your congregation) get a richer tapestry.
(Webpages may move over time, so if the URL given doesn't work, try lopping off the last component--up to the preceding slash character--and then lopping off the next one, etc., until you get a hit. Then explore from there. Sometimes a site disappears altogether, though these are probably fairly permanent.)
http://www.uua.org
This is the home page of the UUA. It has many good links and resources (electronic and otherwise) for all UU congregations, and your site should link to it. It is a well-designed website and a good example of effective use of frames. (It has a link too for those of us who prefer not to use frames.)
http://www.uua.org/CONG/websters.html
This is the page of electronic communications information on the UUA website. It has many good links to other sources of information, including UUA support for lists, e-mail, and websites.
http://www.unitarian.org
This is the home page of the TCUUCC. We have only just started putting electronic communication pages online, but we will be posting more resources in the near future.
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Indices/Resources/html-resources.html (HTML resources)
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Indices/Resources/web-resources.html (Web resources)
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Indices/Software/ (Software home page)
The National Center for Supercomputer Applications has a wealth of software and documentation available. We've shown three interesting pages, but explore this site for more. The HTML resources include an "Introduction to HTML", and the Software page has links telling how to download software and find documentation for programs like NCSA Telnet
http://www.shareware.com
The universally acknowledged first stop for downloading shareware.
http://home.netscape.com/comprod/mirror/client_download.html
Download various versions of Netscape Navigator.
http://microsoft.com/ie/
Download Internet Explorer.
http://www.hwg.org/resources
The HTML Writers' Guild posts lots of good information about HTML and software.
http://members.aol.com/htmlguru
The HTML Guru is Chuck Musciano, co-author of one our recommended books. His site has lots of interesting tips (and, yes, plugs for his book -- but that's how we found it).
http://home.pclink.com/supportfs5.htm
http://home.pclink.com/favorites.htm
PC Link is a Twin Cities Internet provider. Their site has downloadable software and links to software archives. They also sell a CD loaded with Internet software for PCs and Macs for $5.95.
This price does not include the registration fee for shareware programs; you must still register and pay for programs you wish to continue using.)
This page is maintained by the
Twin Cities Unitarian Universalist Communications Committee
(TCUUCC).
Comments to tcuucc@unitarian.org
This page was last updated September 15, 1998.
Address of this page:
http://www.unitarian.org/media/crafting/crafting.html