Instructions for Using Special Collections Web Template
This document assumes some level of familiarity with web design, HTML, and Webspinner. For further assistance, please contact the Special Collections Digital Initiatives Team.
- You may want to evaluate your current web pages, and, if you do not save a copy locally on your own computer, you may want to contact Web Services and request a copy of your entire web directory on a CD so that you can have a primary set of files to work from. ALL of this work should be done offline (i.e. not directly through Webspinner) until it is truly ready to be posted to the Web.
- Create a directory on your M or Z drive to represent your department/unit web pages.
- Save a copy of the template file index.txt by right-clicking on the link and selecting "save as." Save this to the directory that you just created. To preview how this template looks, you may view index.html. (Do NOT save the index.html file and work from that - long story).
- Rename the index.txt file on your computer "index.html" - this will be the FIRST page of your web site.
- [Every person edits web pages differently. For now, we are going to assume that users are editing their HTML code in a text editor, such as "Notepad."] Open the index.html file in Notepad (you may use other text editors, but please do not use Microsoft Word - long story)
- Things that you need to change in the template are surrounded by brackets and are preceded by the word "EDIT." For example:
<meta name="DC.Creator" CONTENT="[EDIT: YOUR NAME]">
would become
<meta name="DC.Creator" CONTENT="Levine, Jennie">
- In the interest of maintaining a consistent look and feel to the UM Libraries' site, please adhere to the UM Libraries' Web Color Palette and Web Best Practices' recommendations for Page Design .
A few tips:
- If you want to change the color of headings, please refrain from using tags like
<font color="#990000">
instead, you can make use of the Libraries' style sheet and enter code such as<h1 class="colorheading1">
* (makes h1 entries 18px, bold and red)<h2 class="colorheading1">
* (makes h2 entries uppercase, 13px, bold and red)<h3 class="colorheading1">
* (makes h3 entries 13 px, bold and red)
- Before you make the ever-dependable left-side bar (for which we have not made a template), think about what you are trying to convey. Is it enough to use breadcrumbs and have an index on the main page, such as in the example of the University Archives or Historical Manuscripts? Do you want to create a sidebar like the one on the Research in Special Collections pages? Contact DIT before embarking on either of these options and we can discuss pros and cons, as well as providing some coding tips to make updating easier.
- There are ways to make mass changes across many pages. Please contact DIT for advice about whether or not this is possible with your existing web pages.
- If you want to change the color of headings, please refrain from using tags like
- Check for mistakes in your mark-up using the W3C validator. This tool from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) will point out errors in your HTML. Even if your page seems to display correctly, checking it with the W3C validator is a key step to helping you catch (and learn from) your mistakes.
- Go to the W3C Mark-up Validation Service page.
- Under Validate by File Upload, use the Browse button to access your document on your computer. Choose your file, and then click on the Check button. If you are error free, the page will display the message "This Page Is Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional!" in green. If you receive the message "This Page Is NOT Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional!," in red, go back to your file, fix the mistakes, attempt the validation process again.
- Problems? If after several attempts at fixing your mark-up you still can't figure out what's wrong, e-mail Web Services .
- Publish the page to the Libraries' web site with Webspinner. There are ways to upload multiple files or directories at once through Webspinner. This is a deep secret and can only be explained verbally. We recommend that you make all of your pages/changes offline and contact DIT when you are ready to go "live" in order to do this as efficiently as possible.
