Web Publishing at UIC

Tips on Web Authoring

Although there is a lot to learn about Web Authoring at UIC, there are several things you can do to make it simpler:

Symbolic Links

If you have a long directory path on the Web server, you can create a symbolic link from your home directory. You give a directory path a single-word file name. This name can then be used in place of the long directory path, especially in FTP or Dreamweaver's Site Files section. This is done when you are logged into either tigger or icarus. The ln -s command will create a symbolic link in your home directory to another directory. The syntax is to type in ln -s, followed by the directory path, then your name for it. The following is an example:

In this example, the link "fast-department" could then be substituted in where the remote directory path would be entered in either FTP or Dreamweaver.

Aliases

If you have a hard time remembering the necessary UNIX commands for your Web directories, creating an alias is a great way to cut down certain commands by only issuing one word. The syntax is similar to the example below:

The word makeper is the name of the alias that you create, followed by an = and the command you want. If there are spaces in the command line, surround the entire command by quotes. In this case, the alias makeper will give read and execute permissions to all files in the current directory.

Screen Capturing

There are several utilities for capturing screen shots and converting them to images for you to use. The utility of choice for these pages is SnagIt, which allows you to capture an area for an image or even record a video of a captured area. You can find it by going to <www.download.com> and searching for the word SnagIt.

GIF vs. JPEG

It is recommended where you can to use images with a .gif extension rather than ones with a .jpg extension. .gif files use up to 256 colors for their images. While not nearly as many colors as .jpg files, which are 1 million, .gif files are considerably smaller in size, resulting in faster downloads. Use .jpg extensions if you are using photographs and absolutely need the larger palette of colors. Programs such as Adobe Photoshop have the capability of converting images from one format to another. <Click here for our seminar materials on Web Graphics with Adobe Photoshop.>