Web Page(s) for the Web Project:

• Site design plan
• Design layout
• Audience profile
• Site structure
• home page
• Term Paper Presentation
• At least 5 supporting pages pertaining to Term Paper Presentation
• Relative links
• Absolute links
• A form soliciting feedback on your website
• Navigation bar
• An edited image
• A site map
• Your resume

WEB PROJECT CLARIFICATION

As one of your pages identify how you went about your site design plan (how you built the site), describe the layout (how you designed each page, was there a specific template or format that you followed and describe this format), define the audience (who was the page designed for), and how the site is structured (how do the pages fit together).

I want at least 5 web pages describing your presentation. For those who have never done a web site whom contacted me will use power point to create a larger presentation. However, for those who have not contacted me about the alternative to the web project, I asked that you stay away from applications that allow a save as HTML function including MS PowerPoint.

ITEMS IN THIS SITE

The web site design plan starts from the requirements that were given above plus any clarification. Thus the site shall contain the following items:

• Home Page
• Term Paper Presentation (at least 5 supporting pages)
• Site Design Plan
• Design Layout
• Audience Profile
• Site Structure
• Relative Links
• Absolute Links
• Form for Feedback
• Navigation Bar
• An Edited Image
• Site Map
• Your Resume

THE SITE PLAN

The home page or home application is the starting point of the site -- thus the sites Web address [http://www.officeprinting.xerox.com/partners/umuc_site] will take you directly to this page when a link containing the URL is clicked. The home page (and all subsequent pages/fuses in the site) will have a top header Nav Bar for easy navigation to any part within the site applications. There is also a complement footer Nav bar that is on every page in web site application, again allowing easy access to items of interest through out the site applications. Every page/fuse will have a title, if it is a "display page". This title will be displayed at the top of each browser window.

The header and footer nav bars are controlled from a single file. In other words the header and footer code is not part of any page except through a NetCloak macro call, i.e. pointers in each page. This allows easy header and footer updates across all pages/fuses in the web site application. That is, change once in one place and have the results viewed on all site pages. NetCloak is an ACGI (asynchronous common gateway interface) that works with the WebSTAR web server as a plug-in. Each header and footer links will be displayed as a "descriptive name" in the Status Area of a browser, that is, no long URL file paths will appear in the Status Area.

The page look and fill will be controlled from a cascading style sheet file that is called from each web page via the LINK tag. The name of the file is text.css and lives in the circuit/directory css, and is considered a fuse, with the LINK TAG being a fuse action, i.e., making a request to the server. See below for the discussion of this methodology.

All images are reference from a single circuit at the root level of the site in the images circuit/directory. Within the pages themselves all image calls are to include the attribute size for the image. This will facilitate in the download time for the images.

NetCloak is also used to keep a record for all page counts, i.e. visits to the page, and also displays when a web page was last updated. The home page also makes use of the Time Countdown function tag. This time countdown is defined as the number of days until the end of the term.

The Web site will also have a searching function that allows you to search for Items on the site. This is an easy to use search engine that will rank the importance (relevance) of a search criteria based on how often that search criteria appears in a web page. The ranking will appear on a results page with a count from 1 to the highest number of returned links. "One" in this case means that the "search criteria" appeared in the web page the most, i.e. had the highest count in the web page. The search engine is accomplish via an acgi application called iHound, which works hand in hand with the web server WebSTAR.

The feedback form is a Tango/FileMaker Pro application that will store all feedback records submitted. After a feedback record is stored, the application then emails the recipient (me in this case, but it can be anyone) that a new feedback record has been submitted.

The site structure is fairly simple, the home page also known as the home application is at index.html that appears in the sites root directory umuc_site. It is usually the first place to which a user goes when on the site. The home application is a container for other applications, called circuit applications. Each directory is its own application and is said to "extend" the home application. Each sub-application has its own functions and responsibilities and are designed and built with minimal dependencies on the home application. The home application, together with its circuit applications, create the whole application. Thus, within the home/root directory their are circuits or subdirectories called circuit applications with the following names:

• feedbackForm
• Networking
• reearchPaper
• resume
• siteDesign
• siteMap
• wpHelp

These circuits hold the web pages (fuses for each application). Thus I consider each fuse/directory to contain an application on the site.