Department of Computer Science

Grahical User Interfaces (3/CS/7B)

World Wide Web

Lecturer: Jonathan Bowen

Course outline

Part of the Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) Part III unit (3/CS/7B) and Multimedia Systems and the WWW MSc module (MCS906) with Rachel McCrindle.

See assessment information below (and note the deadine).
Please register your WWW home page during the Autumn Term.

The Internet Explorer browser (version 5, on PCs) Netscape browser (version 4, on Sun workstations) are recommended for viewing Web pages. Netscape is available under /usr/local/bin/netscape. It is well worth viewing Web pages with different Web browsers and comparing the results. In particular, the lynx text-based browser is a good check on the compatibility of your Web pages across a wide range of browsers. Lynx is available on Computer Services Sun workstations. Lynx sources and binaries for various platforms are available for download if required.

This on-line information relevant to the course is available under:

http://www.cs.reading.ac.uk/cs/people/jpb/teaching/www.html

Entries marked * are especially recommended.

Background information

WWW - resources

Try:

Searching the WWW

HTML - Hypertext markup language

Other information

Assessment: Creating a Web site (Autumn Term)

The assessed assignment is to create a World Wide Web "home" page containing information about yourself (or any other subject of interest to you) and hyperlinks to other pages both as part of your site and to related external sites. As a minimum, you should produce a text page containing a set of hyperlinks and a number of hyperlinked sub-pages. Marks will be awarded for the following considerations:
  1. Adherence to general guidelines on the design of Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) in general and Web sites in particular, as covered in the lectures.
  2. Producing a set of well organized pages with good navigational facilities between them. A basic hierarchical structure is a good idea. Ensure that all hyperlinks work.
  3. Inclusion of graphics, either existing icons, images from elsewhere, or your own images. Use transparent backgrounds, animations and interlaced images where appropriate. Keep images to a small size and specificy the height and width to improve loading speed. All images should include SRC, HEIGHT, WIDTH and ALT options as a minimum. Ensure that there are no missing image files. (New) Do not copy images from other sites unless you are sure you have permission to do so.
  4. Good page design for layout, speed and consideration of different WWW browsers. Note that the pages will be checked using Internet Explorer 5, but you should check your pages with the lynx text browser and Netscape 4 for cross-platform compatability.
  5. Valid HTML code (and advance features like JavaScript if used). The source for your pages may be viewed. Please ensure that you include adequate line breaks so that the HTML code is reasonably readable and does need horizontal scrolling to the right to read the source. Suitable HTML comments (<!--...-->) are encouraged.
  6. Avoidance of common HTML errors. You are recommended to check your pages using the Site Inspector Web site.
  7. No invalid hyperlinks to non-existent resources and no missing in-line images. You should ensure your (visible) Web site is always up to date in this respect for the entire duration of the course (until the exam results are published so external examiners can view the work as well). Don't include links, images, etc., until they are actually available.
  8. (New) One of your sub-pages should include details of the GUI design principles you have followed in designing your Web pages. Ensure that there is a very obvious hyperlink to this page from your main home page.
  9. (New) Your pages to be marked should be on the local university Web server so that everyone has the same facilities. You are encouraged to include links to other Web sites (including your own if you have any) but these will not be marked as part of this assessment. If there are some pages on the university server that you do not wish to be assessed, please make this very clear on your main home page.
  10. (New) Advanced features such as tables, frames, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), etc., may be used if you are already a Web expert. If frames are used the pages should be compatible with a non-frames browser such as lynx.
  11. (New) Note: If doing an MSc, an additional report will be required. Rachel McCrindle will give details.
Considering these aspects is recommended to maximize your marks on the assessment. Existing Web pages may be used, but you must have addressed the criteria above. You should consider your "customers" (the markers in this case) and make it easy to navigate to all the features you wish to present. If features are not found they cannot be marked. If you only wish a subset of your Web pages to be marked, make this very clear on your home page.

Note: This use of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML editors (e.g., within some versions of Netscape) is not recommended as a sole means of generating Web page on this course since one aim is to learn HTML. In addition, some of the techniques discussed on the course may not be possible on a particular WYSIWYG. If you do use a WYSIWYG editor, you should check the HTML output and hand it as required to meet the criteria above.

Practical guidance on installing your Web site

To create an on-line WWW page, make a directory called public_html in your home directory if it does not already exist. Then create/edit a file called home.html in this directory. You can then access it using the following URL (for example):
http://www.reading.ac.uk/~sssbownj/
Replace sssbownj with your own userid in the URL above. You could start with the example HTML file under /home/cs/pub/www/example.html. You can load this using your Web browser and then save it into ~/public_html/home.html as a starting point for your own WWW home page.

Note: The /home/cs/pub file hierarchy is intended to be accessible from most or all of the publicly accessible Sun workstations in the Computer Science building. If you cannot access /home/cs/pub from your system for any reason, please see the system manager, Steve Han, stating on which system (room and hostname) the problem has arisen.

Warning: The execute permissions for all directories and read permissions for all files to be accessible via WWW must be set to be world accessible, including your home directory. If you create new files and directories after you initial installation of a Web page, you must ensure that the permissions are set appropriately for all your Web pages to be publicly accessible.

To ensure this initially, you could do the following:

cd
mkdir public_html
chmod a+x . public_html
cd public_html
cp /home/pub/www/example.html home.html
chmod a+r home.html

Alternatively, you may run the shell script /home/cs/pub/bin/initwww (if accessible from your machine) to create an initial home page for you to edit using any text editor such as textedit on the Sun workstations or a standard Unix text editor such as emacs or vi. You may load the example WWW page under Netscape and use the Save As... option to save it into your ~/public_html/home.html file if you wish.

Important: Remember if your home directory is world executable that you may wish to protect other subdirectories and files within your directory space from general access.

There are some GIF images in the directory ~sssbownj/pub/gifs for general use and inclusion in your WWW page(s). Anyone wishing to attempt a CGI script for an interactive page, Java programming, or VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) should leave this till the second assessment in the Lent Term.

There are a number of relevant executable programs under /home/cs/pub/bin (/home/pub/bin on some systems). For example, giftrans adds transparent backgrounds to GIF images and whirlgif creates animations from a sequence of still GIF images. You may include this directory in your search path by editing your ~/.login file appropriately. E.g., towards the end of the file, include the following:

setenv PATH "${PATH}:

The /usr/local/bin directory on Suns includes some useful programs including the lynx text-based WWW browser. You should view your Web pages using this browser to ensure they are compatible. jpegtran adds transparent backgrounds to JPEG images.

For the Lent Term, the Java compiler javac, part of the Java Developers Kit (version 1.0.2), and VRweb VRML viewer vrweb are available. The "beta" JDK version 1.2 (which also supports JDK1.1 features) is available. If you wish to actually use this, please register with the Java Developer Connection. See also JavaScript information, including examples.

Practical sessions

(New) A helper will be on hand on Tuesdays (Weeks 5-8) of the Autumn Term in G43 (PC lab) at 3pm and in G46 (Sun lab) at 4pm if you need advice, etc. The supervisor will be John Hawkins. It is especially import to attend session if you are a Unix and/or HTML novice to ensure you can install and register a simple Web page successfully, with help on hand if required. Do this earlier rather than later.

The deadline for 1st assessment is Friday Week 8 of the Autumn Term (26 November 1999).

Pages will be assessed on-line soon after this date. The marks will count for 10% towards your total mark for the Part III GUI unit.

Please ensure that you read and adhere to the WWW private home pages guidelines from the University. In particular, you should not use the University crest within your personal Web space to avoid potential confusion between official and unofficial Web pages.

A list of registered students is available. Register now if you are on the course and have not already done so. It is better to register earlier rather than later in case there are any problems. Your Web pages will not be marked till after the deadline in any case.

Note: you may need to configure your Web browser for access outside the University.

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