                       TOOLS FOR THE INTERNET


                    CREATE  YOUR  OWN  WEB  HOMEPAGE
                   Copyright 1995  by Jerome Laulicht

 The surge of interest in having one's own Web page has spawned a rash of
 related software accompanied by a river of trade publication commentary .
 Creating a Web site has been seen as a daunting task requiring the use of
 arcane codes and commands which demand rigid conventions and reliance
 upon experts.  According to its developer, you can now you can satisfy
 this urge more easily, working alone with WebAuthor, the easy way to
 create HTML documents so claims its creators,  Streetwise Software and
 Quarterdeck.  As an aside, Microsoft has a competitive tool in beta
 version called Internet Assistant.  Both piggy-back upon the Windows
 standard --Microsoft's Word for Windows.  As of this writing WebAuthor
 can only be used with the 16 bit edition of V. 6.  Similar tools are, or
 are being made available for other mainline word processors like
 Wordperfect and AmiPro.

 Start With a Simpler Tool

 If you are new to creating homepages, I suggest starting with Web Wizard,
 a shareware tool for easy construction of a no frills home-page.  This
 software is a useful introductory tutorial on  the HTML language while
 getting your creative feet wet.  Do not start by reading anything else
 lest you seek confusion.  In my first reading I could have been scanning
 Latin.  To learn first by doing, use Web Wizard until you have mastered
 it well enough to produce several test pages. You do this by answering
 questions generated by the program to create from scratch a file
 containing the HTML commands.  Check out the results using the browser on
 your own computer and then correct, revise and test it again.

 One can also use Notepad to study the completed HTML files and learn by
 editing and inspecting the results.   This will give you a  notion of
 what is required to become adept at building Web pages, aside from
 considerations of design or layout. This experience also provides a
 sensible basis for deciding whether you want to purchase WebAuthor now
 because Web Wizard may meet  your current needs.

 There isn't much more to say about Web Wizard since its use is so self
 evident. You can include text and a graphic along with a limited number
 of  URL links. Visitors will not be able to use your homepage as a
 jump-off to many sites.  It is a bare bones approach which gets you
 started and teaches you quickly.  You might decide to settle for this but
 many people will want more. Some Internet access services are making
 similar easy homepage tools available  to their customers.  However, if
 you do want to become a full Internetnaut, you will make the choice
 between full control using most of the HTML authoring options or a happy
 compromise which acts as a buffer between you and the HTML standard.

 Evaluation Criteria for WebAuthor

 Quarterdeck's  claim of more ease with WebAuthor permits a simple
 evaluation framework.  Quarterdeck talks of  (1) point-and-click
 document construction; (2) absolutely no HTML experience necessary;
 and  (3) being able to use Word's features.  I'm a fair model for
 potential users  since I have long used Word and Windows, have never
 created a Web document and have been turned off by the idea.  The main
 lesson  I learned from several  HTML  programs was that they were
 difficult and boring to learn and use with almost use-less documentation.
 Nor am I a novice since I have enough under-standing of the Internet,
 hypertext, URL paths, browsers, etc. to  follow what's happening.
 Therefore, I should qualify as someone able to learn and use these tools.
 I planned this article with a positive but ambivalent bias because of the
 frequent failure of even excellent software houses to communicate well.
 I  sweated unsuccessfully to use the beta version and decided to await an
 upgrade.  It was onl y when it too did not work that I  finally guessed
 that it was incompatible with Word's 32 bit version. There were no
 evident hints in error messages or anywhere else.  Quarterdeck is
 promising a 32 bit version soon.

 The Hope for HTML Tools

 Quarterdeck is one of the outfits counting on the continued surge of
 homepage growth.  It, like other developers, are betting that Web Author
 and the integrated suite of Internet tools will be in demand by
 individuals as well as  organizations. One must conform to the HTML
 standards for presentation so the browser programs to decode your
 material and display it on anyones screen.   Most  people  probably want
 to focus on content and prefer a tool  to handle the tedious rote tasks
 involved in publishing their information.  The ideal is to make it  at
 least as easy to learn to publish on the Web as it is to learn a word
 processor.  When making the decision to finally purchase this kind of
 tool, demand only a minimum of incremental learning for the HTML program
 and rule out the need to learn a special language.  Emulate the strategy
 of  presenting choices in plain language in dialog and list boxes, with
 pop-up definitions.  For example, if you want to create a list,  you
 either highlight the ord list or click the list icon.  The program writes
 the commands  as is done in Web Wizard.

 Another hope is that many people who never heard of HTML would
 agree that if they can create documents with Word, they will easily learn
 how to create documents for the Internet.  Those  who wish to publish on
 the Internet, will ideally keep doing so and will look for better and
 fuller featured tools (upgrades). Perhaps this not very far-fetched when
 one realize that other developers are betting that a lot of people will
 want to create films with their computers.  This syllogism about
 WebAuthor is interesting although the odds are difficult to estimate.
 The fact is that both WebAuthor and Microsofts Internet Assistant are
 far easier to learn than any of the five or six HTML programs found on
 the Internet or BBS's in 1994. The speed of evolution of these tools is,
 indeed, remarkable.

 The final hope, of this is the sale-closing argument,  is that you will
 be hooked because you will be able to  ignore the syntax rules and other
 esoteria of  the HTML standard.  WebAuthor formats your creations into
 HTML documents semi-automatically.  Its rather like saying that more
 computer users would become at least amateur programmers if only they did
 not have to learn so much programming esoteria.

 Learning WebAuthor: The Tutorial

 To start learning how to use this program,  put off reading the manual
 and the on-line help. The tutorial is intended to give you the flavor of
 a hypertext document web by having you create links between files on your
 own computer or network.  Plan to go through the  tutorial two or three
 times. Since there are many ways to make errors, go through the entire
 sequence to get an overview  rather than struggling to get everything
 right immediately.  You can then learn the procedures by starting to
 catch and correct your errors.   Your first few efforts will very likely
 fail when you check them with the browser.  The process is not as easy as
 the hopes and the hype,  but this should be no surprise.  Marketing
 people, programmers and tutorial writers have quite different goals and
 problems.

 By the second or third try you should be editing to achieve perfection.
 Think of this process as writing several drafts of a paper.  It is
 difficult, in fact, to go very far after making an error without being
 made aware of it.   Technically the tutorial is well put together and
 fairly easy to follow and use.

 Although  the tutorial is good overall, its no surprise that it can get a
 bit goofy at times and it does have problems. The very first instruction
 is an attention-catching  example.  Open Word and select new in the file
 menu.   Of course it is difficult to imagine how anyone could do the
 WebAuthor tutorial without already having done these things.  Sometimes
 one gets the impression that no-one seriously critiques training
 materials before they are made part of a package. At other times the
 instructions are so cumbersome that they imply a procedure is more
 difficult than it actually is.   For example, six steps are listed to
 teach you how to have large icons in the  toolbar.  It's as if someone
 was providing a recipe for a person who has never cooked and its unclear
 why this even makes any difference. The instructions could easily be
 listed as two steps. The real joker is that you only learn to  determine
 whether the "HTML large" box is checked as it should be, and, if not, to
 make it so. One look in the right place and then a single click.  Really
 helpful and necessary!  There are some other less glaring examples of
 this clumsy approach but fortunately these two examples are not typical
 of many similar witticisms.

 Two hints which are not clearly stressed will make the tutorial an easier
 and more valuable experience ...simpler to use and more pleasant to
 learn!

 Open what is called the style window when you want to create an HTML
 document.  Else it is very easy to make silly errors which will further
 bedevil you by leading to more errors. This can be tedious to
 correct--take it from someone who did not follow this hint.  Failure to
 do this in a consistent way throws away some important practical
 advantages of the program. It is a way to avoid basic structural errors
 in working directly with HTML codes. Look up style in the on-line help
 before you start the tutorial.

 Use the "Help on top option" to avoid being driven slightly batty.   It
 is easy to miss this option  when you first bring up the tutorial window
 because it is not standard in Windows programs.   This choice is in the
 options menu.  The tutorial may be quite annoying to use without it
 invoked as you switch  focus back and forth between the instructions and
 the Edit window where you do the work.  Also make the  Edit window
 smaller than the entire screen or the help window will not reliably stay
 on top.

 This minor but near-essential feature of an on-line tutorial, does not
 work nearly as reliably as you would like to expect. The help window too
 often ends up disappearing to the taskbar when using Win 95, or when you
 click a menu or change focus between windows.  As you go through a string
 of directions showing buttons to choose in dialog boxes, and switching
 focus frequently, this defect is distracting and  makes problem solving
 harder.

 Wanted.   An inventive programmer who can make this technique work well
 and make it easy to incorporate in any program help file. In their spare
 time,  they could also try to devise methods other than large graphics
 files to improve on-line tutorials.

 Also Wanted.  Some discussion of whether there is some need for a
 consortium of developers to encourage and support efforts to standardize
 help tools, the results being made available to all comers.

 After completing the first five steps in the tutorial, you might begin to
 think that you have a program primarily intended for handling headings,
 to link graphics to your page and your page to other sites.  When you
 reach that point it all becomes very easy because you are typing words
 and making rather simple choices.  The only obvious difference from
 working with Winword is that you are using the WebAuthor  mode and the
 toolbar looks quite different.  When you finally see your copy converted
 to look like a Web page, the sun breaks through the clouds and all is
 fairly obvious.   Indeed, the HTML language is primarily about being able
 to publish on the Internet with a cross platform focus, that is, readable
 from a large variety of computers using different browsers and having
 different kinds of monitors.

 The tutorial does get  trickier but it does indeed make the task look
 easier. However, the tutorial omits many of the more  difficult points
 and makes little effort to help you understand. This is something you
 will have to get elsewhere than from the programs  manual and the
 on-line help.

 The software does include capabilities for advanced users  who wish to
 use and understand the more difficult and esoteric elements and to add
 important features to their HTML documents.  It helps create the links
 easily and correctly to all the components of your site as well as to
 other sites by checking your accuracy and providing feedback. You can add
 new jumps and links readily, edit the text files and get quick feedback
 while trying out different modes  of presentation.

 A new user does have to be careful when learning how to take advantage of
 the feature to switch a document back and forth between HTML and Word.
 This provides the ability to carry out different functions in each while
 exploiting the strengths of the combined tools simultaneously. However,
 the penalty is greater complexity!   Again we see that this tool is not
 for the faint-hearted but this is still true for many tools of the
 Internet.

 No sensible argument can be made that WebAuthor is real easy to use; only
 that it is easier to use than many other programs. It should  not
 surprise  anyone who has looked with care at many Web sites to hear that
 WebAuthor demands meticulous care and precision to achieve accuracy and
 some measure of elegance and quality.  There is very little or no
 tolerance for error and the program does not hesitate to confront you
 with messages stating your errors. A simple  example: what is called the
 style must be correctly labeled for each line or paragraph or you have
 only a mess, and this is just the start.  Even hitting the enter key at
 the wrong time can put the wrong tag or code on a line or a paragraph.
 This is not meant to discourage you but only to caution you to see beyond
 the marketing noise.  WebAuthor falls within the tradition of complex
 word processors and sophist-icated spreadsheet programs, to take but two
 examples.  Were they ever easy to learn unless of course, you restricted
 your usa e to letters and analyses of your weekly allowance when you were
 a teenager.

 Web Wizard, V1.1  Shareware.  Registration=$10
 Arta Software, David Geller
 davidg@halycon.com  or Compuserve  72667.1312
 http//www.halycon.com/webwizard

 Web Author for Word for Windows, V1.0    $100
 Quarterdeck and Streetwise Software

 Jerry Laulicht is early retired from the University of Pittsburgh. He
 keeps his teaching skills tuned by training  local people to use
 computers.



                                    ww



