Your Buckalew RWD Website (April 2008; updated Feb. 2010) How do I get started using my new RWD website? 2 How do I add a page to my website? 3 How do I keep everything "lined up" on my web page? 5 How do I add graphics and photos to my web page? 7 How do I add links in the body of my web page? 8 How do I link to a video (or other file) in RWD? 11 How do I change the links on the sidebar of my web page? 14 How do I see my RWD page online? 15 How do I back up my RWD web pages? 16 How do I delete a page from my website? 17 How do I use my RWD Calendar? 18 How do I use my Downloads folder? 20 1
How do I get started using my new RWD website? The first step in using Rapid Web Designer is logging into the installed version of FirstClass. *Make sure to UPDATE FirstClass before you edit any web page and ALWAYS use the installed version from your desktop, not the online version accessed through www.conroeisd.net. Your RWD website folder is an icon named your FC username on your First Class desktop. Inside your new RWD website folder, you will see two files, "Home Page" and "Homework." Don't change the names of either of these files. If you do, your links will no longer work and your web site will no longer open when web viewers click on the link to your page. To edit a page, just double click it to open it up, then type on the page as if it's any other document. The only thing different about typing in a web page is that tables are often used to contain your text so that it will line up properly on the page. You can see the tables by right clicking inside a table and choosing Format Table, then choosing to show the borders of the table. It is a good idea to keep all of your text and pictures inside the cells of a table so that they will display correctly on the Internet. 2
How do I add a page to my website? The district has added two basic pages for you in your RWD folder Home Page and Homework. You must keep the Home Page and not change it s name; however, you may choose not to use the Homework page (if you don t use it, you may delete it from the Navigation Sidebar tab on each of your webpages, but do NOT delete the page itself). To add new pages, open your RWD folder and click the "Create New Web Page" button OR click once on a page you want to copy and choose the "Copy Current Page" button. Type a name for your page in the "Page Name" blank. Try to keep your page names simple and without spaces, capital letters, and do not use special characters (except for the underscore, which works well). 3
"Header" tab: This text can be used to title your page, but generally, it does not seem to appear in the center of the page, and thus it looks awkward. By typing the title on the page yourself, you can better control the placement of the text. After creating a new page in your site, you must link the page in order for your viewers to be able to find it. Click on the Navigation Sidebar tab within EACH of your web pages where you want the new page linked, and add the name you want seen in the sidebar and also add the link to the page by typing the name of the page in the Link to field: 4
How do I keep everything "lined up" on my web page? The easiest way to keep text and pictures lined up as you want on your web page is to use tables. To create a table, click the Insert dropdown menu at the top of the page you are editing, then click Table and define the table as you like. The width of the editable part of an RWD web page is from 635-675 pixels wide. You may either set the table width to 675 pixels or 100%. Then you may add text or pictures as you like within that table. When you are finished with the table, you may choose to turn off the table borders so they are not seen online. To turn off the borders, right click in your page and choose Format Table. 5
Uncheck the borders check boxes to turn off the table borders. Conversely, leave the boxes checked to show the table borders. If you keep your page elements inside table borders, you will have much better success with lining up items on your pages. 6
How do I add graphics and photos to my web page? To add a graphic that you find on a free clip-art site on the web, right-click on the graphic while viewing it on the web, click Save As, then Desktop, then Save. Then go into your RWD web page and click the Insert dropdown menu at the top of the page you are editing, click Image/File, click Desktop and double-click on your saved graphic. To add a photo, click the Insert dropdown menu at the top of the page you are editing, click Image/File, click Desktop and double-click on your photo. To change the size of the picture or graphic, click on the picture or graphic, click the Original Size dropdown menu at the top of the page you are editing and choose the size you like. Be sure to confirm how the size looks ONLINE as sometimes it may be different than how it looks when you are editing your page. 7
How do I add links in the body of my web page? You don't always have to use the Navigation Sidebar area to add links to your web page. Sometimes it's more appropriate to have the links appear within the page itself. To add links within the page itself, just type the text you want to link, for example, Texas Education Agency. Now highlight the text like this: Click the "Make Link" button on the toolbar: 1. For links to web addresses, enter the web address of the site you'd like to link to: When you view your page online and click the linked text, a new web browser window will open and display the page you linked to. 2. If you want to add a link within your page to another page in your site, the "Target URL" will be the exact name of the page. For example, if the page you want to link to is called "lesson plan", your Format Link box will look like this: 8
For this kind of link to work, the page called "lesson plan" must be in the same directory as the page you are linking from. For example, if you want to link from your "home page" to your "lesson plan" page, both pages will need to appear in your RWD web folder together, like this: 3. To add a link that goes from one place on a page to another place on the same page (Like the table of contents at the top of this page), you must first put in your text or pictures, then insert a marker where you want the link to "land" or go. Put your cursor at the landing spot, then click Insert>Marker on your toolbar: Type a name for your marker that will remind you what you are linking to, then click OK: Now find the spot in your page where you want to create the link. In this page, for example, the table of contents at the very top. [Link]Highlight the text you want to link, then click the Make Link button on the toolbar. 9
Now select the Marker that you want to link to and click OK: When you view your page online, you'll see that when you click your new link, the browser will move the page to the marker location. 10
How do I link to a video (or other file) in RWD? Let's say the file is called... march06_1.wmv... The key is to get the EXACT file name and extension. It helps to make sure the file name does not have any caps, spaces, dashes, or special characters. Underscores are okay. Put the file into the main directory of the RWD site with the "home page" etc. (Putting the file inside a folder changes the link path to \foldername\filename.fileextension.) Here's a video file uploaded it to the RWD web folder: 11
Type some text, select it by highlighting it, click the "Make Link" button on the toolbar, and set the link options like this: Now view the page online: When viewers click the link, if they have a program installed that will open the file, the program will execute, and the file will open. If you want to make sure user's can open your text files, choose common file formats that use free readers, like pdfs for text documents. Star Office allows us to save any document as a pdf. In this case, the file is a video in wmv format, which is opened by Windows Media Player. 12
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How do I change the links on the side of my web page? You can change the way the links appear on your web page by editing the Navigation Sidebar tab on each of your pages. Here s how the sidebar looks online: You can see how the Navigation Sidebar contents above correspond to the links you see on the website. If you want this same link structure to appear on each of my RWD pages, you will have to recreate the Navigation Sidebar Contents on each page of your website. The district has started you with some basic links in your Navigation Sidebar. You may delete/change/add links however you like. 14
How do I see my RWD page online? After you have finished editing your RWD page, make sure to save the pages and close your web folder. To see your page online, open Internet Explorer, then type in: buckalew.conroeisd.net/teachers/ your fc username 15
How do I back up my RWD web pages? Always back up your web pages before AND after working on them. Save and close the page, click on it once to highlight it, then click the Backup button on the toolbar. If you are unexpectedly logged out of FirstClass with your web page open, your page could be destroyed. After building your site, click on each of your pages and click the backup icon in the toolbar to back up each page of your site. On the left-hand side of your RWD website folder, you will see a Backup folder. Double-click on this folder to see all of the backups you ve made. If you need to use one, click and drag it into the right-hand side of your RWD website folder. 16
How do I delete a page from my website? Click the title of the page you want to delete to highlight its name, then right click it and choose "Properties." On the Properties page, uncheck "Protected" then click OK. Click the page title again, and hit the Delete key on your keyboard. 17
How do I use my RWD Calendar? The Calendar (Class_Cal) is in the left pane in your RWD folder. It is also listed on your Navigation Sidebar tab as it is shown on the sidebar of your webpage. It's perhaps the most useful part of your new website. You can post important upcoming events, like tests or projects, or you can use the calendar to inform students and parents of daily happenings in your classroom. You can even use it for homework assignments. To create a calendar event, double-click on the date where you'd like the event to appear and set the preferences. 18
Click "Save and Close," and your event will be displayed online when a user clicks on the Class Calendar link on your sidebar. 19
How do I use my Downloads Folder? The Downloads folder is In the left pane in your RWD folder. It is also listed on your Navigation Sidebar tab as it is shown on the sidebar of your webpage. You may choose to put any documents, spreadsheets, presentations, pdfs, or other files you would like to share with web viewers into this folder. Just find the location on your hard drive where the files are stored, then drag and drop them into the Downloads folder. You will then need to mention something on your webpage to tell the user they should click on Downloads on the sidebar and double-click on the specific file. Using the Downloads folder is in lieu of dragging and dropping a file into the right pane of your RWD folder and then creating a link directly to that document on your webpage. What you name your files becomes important when using the Downloads folder. You will want to name your file something that is easily recognizable to the web viewer since there may be many files listed in the folder (newsletter files should include the date of the newsletter in the filename, for example). The Downloads folder is great to use for many things, including newsletter.doc files, instructions for special projects, etc. 20