Operation Manual
62
Starting from Scratch
♦
Consider setting your monitor to use 256 colors (rather than
thousands or millions) for testing purposes. By working at this
setting you’ll be able to preview how your page will look to users
with monitors that only support 256 colors (or are using that
setting). Note that the GIF image format, a standard for Web
graphics, supports a maximum of 256 colors.
♦ Reduce the number of colors in each image, and (except for
photos) save as GIF files using the lowest acceptable bit depth
your paint program will allow. Use a “Web-safe palette” when
possible; you’ll find one in the WebPlus Samples folder. You may
wish to explore the Web for details on this and other Web design
strategies.
♦
You’ll need to maintain the pages on your Web site, which isn’t
difficult with WebPlus—all the originals are right there in your
publication! As a reference, keep a list showing the page numbers
and the contents of each page. You can store the list on the
Pasteboard, or (for printing out) on the last page of your
publication, which is easy to access by double-clicking the 1H[W
(right-arrow) button. (You can still publish the whole site; users
won’t be able to access the last page as long as there are no links to
it.)
♦
As you’re developing Web pages, you’ll probably need to carry
out some housekeeping tasks on your local hard drive. Note that
each time you publish one or more pages to a folder, a new set of
image files is generated (although duplicate .HTML file names are
overwritten). If you’re previewing pages this way, rather than
using 3UHYLHZ6LWHLQ%URZVHU (which overwrites old files), those
GIF and JPG files can proliferate. It’s a good idea to weed out the
old ones periodically. You can sort your Explorer or My Computer
window contents by date, then use the “Modified” attribute to
determine which files to keep (i.e., the set most recently
published). For thorough cleanup, periodically publish the whole
site to a new folder and delete the old one.