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All contents except Chapter 44, "Should You Upgrade to SGML?," which is copyrighted by Que Corporation.
Web Publishing
PROFESSIONAL REFEREncE EDITION
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| Publisher and President: | Richard K. Swadley |
| Publishing Manager: | Mark Taber |
| Managing Editor: | Cindy Morrow |
| Director of Marketing: | John Pierce |
| Assistant Marketing Managers: | Kristina Perry, Rachel Wolfe |
| Acquisitions Editor | Beverly M. Eppink | Development Editor | Scott D. Meyers |
| Software Development Specialist | Bob Correll | Production Editor | Heather Stith |
| Copy Editors | David Bradford, Kristen Ivanetich, Lisa Lord, Stacey Houston | Indexer | Erika Millen |
| Technical Editors | Karen Clere, Jeff Shockley | Editorial Coordinator | Bill Whitmer |
| Technical Edit Coordinator | Lorraine Schaffer | Resource Coordinator | Deborah Frisby |
| Editorial Assistants | Carol Ackerman, Andi Richter, Rhonda Tinch-Mize | Cover Designer | Tim Amrhein |
| Book Designer | Gary Adair | Copy Writer | Peter Fuller |
| Production Team Supervisor | Brad Chinn | ||
| Production | Mona Brown, Brad Lenser, Donna Martin, Gene Redding, M. Anne Sipahimalani | ||
After a dozen books or so, and without a full-time day job, you would think writing would not be so extraordinarily taxing. Yet it is not so. Clients and business matters occupy many more hours of my time than is prudent, and the writing still lures me through the wee hours of the night. Sometimes it seems that I work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and indeed sometimes I come close. Without the support of my wife and two children, the days would seem eternal. Thank you for your continued support and your extraordinary ability to put up with the clackety-clackety of my keyboard!
I'd also like to thank my mother, who has taken command of my company's electronic publishing operation. Managing four electronic book imprints and answering correspondence is no easy task. Thanks for coming to the rescue to ensure I had time for other projects, such as writing this book. Now if we could only find national distributors that could get our products on the shelves of software and bookstore chains!
As always, the team at Sams.net has been great to work with. I've worked with many of you on previous books and your dedication to excellence is really quite wonderful. Specials thanks to Beverly Eppink and Mark Taber, who recognized the tremendous potential and quality of my message in the original edition of Web Publishing Unleashed and believed enough to create the expanded edition you hold in your hands.
Thanks to the many thousands who have read and continue to read my books. As I have stated to the hundreds who have contacted me over the years, I take all comments to heart and relish the contact and input from you, the reader. I will continue to try to answer all correspondence personally. As the dragon sometimes wins, keep in mind that e-mail isn't 100 percent reliable and that many times I am so overwhelmed with work, I don't have time to answer any e-mail, be it business or pleasure, but I do try.
William R. Stanek (director@tvp.com) is a leading industry expert and founder of an Internet start-up company called The Virtual Press (http://tvp.com/ and mirror site http://www.tvpress.com/). As a publisher and writer with over 10 years experience on networks, he brings a solid voice of experience on the Internet and Web publishing to his many projects. He was first introduced to Internet e-mail in 1988 when he worked for the government and has been involved in the commercial Internet community since 1991.
His years of practical experience are backed by a solid education, a Master of Science in Information Systems and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. Although his Internet start-up company publishes electronic books under four imprints, the core business revolves around three primary divisions that conduct Internet consulting (icteam@tvp.com), Web design (wdteam@tvp.com), and multimedia development (epteam@tvp.com). The time that isn't spent writing such runaway hits as Web Publishing Unleashed is spent consulting with corporate clients and developing hot new Web sites.
William served in the Persian Gulf War as a combat crew member on an Electronic Warfare aircraft. During the war, he flew on numerous combat missions into Iraq and was awarded nine medals for his wartime service, including one of our nation's highest flying honors, the Air Force Distinguished Flying Cross. He has written many books, articles, and essays. His book-length projects include nine fiction titles and eight nonfiction titles. When he's not writing or working, he spends time with his family. His favorite time of the day is when he reads to the youngest.
Chris Adams (adamsc@io-online.com) is a college student in San Diego and a part-time QA technician at Acucobol, Inc. A confirmed old-school experimenter, he has been, among other things, a programmer, BBS sysop and Fidonet veteran, Webmaster, hardware technician, writer, and network and system administrator.
Mark L. Chambers (sysop@batboard.org) has been a pc software freelance writer, BBS sysop, and game programmer for over 10 years. He is the author of Running a Perfect BBS and has contributed chapters to Microsoft Internet Explorer 3 Unleashed, Netscape Unleashed, Introduction to pc Communications, and Using pc Tools 8.
Stephen R. Clark (srclark@indy.net) is a consultant who offers business and technical writing, editing, and communications consulting, primarily in the Indianapolis area. He was employed by AT&T for seven years, most recently as a proposal manager for AT&T Solutions, located in Morristown, New Jersey. While at AT&T, Stephen developed executive-level presentations and proposals directed at global clients and gained extensive quality process and project management experience. Prior to AT&T, Stephen was the Managing Editor of Bridge Publishing, Inc., the Director of P.R. and Publications at Bluffton College, and the Senior Editor of Christian Bookseller Magazine. He has been writing for more than 20 years, including ghostwriting books. Stephen currently resides in Indianapolis with his wife, Marquetté K. Browning-Clark, and his four-year-old stepdaughter, Melody.
Justin Couch (justin@vlc.com.au, http://www.vlc.com.au/~justin) works as Software Engineer for ADI Ltd. He also runs The Virtual Light Company, a small VRML and Java Web publishing company located in Sydney, Australia. Co-author of Laura Lemay's Web Workshop: 3D Graphics and VRML 2 and a contributing author to Java Unleashed, Justin is an active member of both the VRML standards and Java-VRML mailing lists. Currently, he is involved in research on using VRML to create seamless worlds on the Internet and can be found most days in the CyberGate community Point World under the name Mithrandir. When not pushing the limits of technology, he relaxes by playing bassoon and clarinet and going gliding.
Rick Darnell (darnell@montana.com), a contributing author to Java Unleashed, FrontPage Unleashed, and Microsoft Internet Explorer 3 Unleashed, is a Midwest native currently living with his wife and two daughters in Missoula, Montana. He began his career in print at a small weekly newspaper after graduating from Kansas State University with a degree in broadcasting. While working as a freelance journalist and writer, Rick has seen the full gamut of personal computers since starting out with a Radio Shack Model I in the late 1970s. When not in front of his computer, he serves as a volunteer firefighter and member of a regional hazardous materials response team.
Steven J. DeRose (sjd@ebt.com) earned his Ph.D. in Computational Linguistics from Brown University in 1989 and served as director of the early FRESS hypertext system there. He has worked as a technical writer and design consultant for the CDWord hypertext system and a variety of other systems in computational linguistics, hypermedia, and related fields. Steven has published a variety of papers on markup systems, hypertext, natural language processing, artificial intelligence, and other topics, plus a book with David Durand entitled Making Hypermedia Work: A User's Guide to HyTime. He is now senior system architect at Electronic Book Technologies, whose DynaText product is the leading SGML-based software for delivering large-scale electronic books on CD-ROM, disk, LAN, and the Internet. He is very active in standards development, serving with groups including the ANSI group, the ISO SGML group, the HyTime group, the Text Encoding Initiative, and several Internet and Web-related groups. He lives, works, and ice skates in Rhode Island with his wife, Laurie, and two-year-old son, Todd.
Jon M. Duff (jmduff@tech.purdue.edu) is Professor of Technical Graphics in the Department of Technical Graphics at Purdue University's School of Technology in West Lafayette, Indiana. He received his Ph.D. from Ohio State University, where he was a faculty member in Engineering Graphics in the College of Engineering for seven years. Author of a dozen textbooks on a variety of graphics topics and over 40 papers on technical graphics and publishing topics, Dr. Duff worked on electronic authoring technologies as a Battelle Memorial Institute Research Scientist with the Department of the Navy. In addition to his writing, Dr. Duff consults with a number of national clients and was editor of the Engineering Design Graphics Journal for six years. At Purdue, he is active in the design and evaluation of curricula and teaches in the technical publications area.
Dennis Hamilton (cato@iquest.net) is a freelance writer and president of Software Analytics, Inc., an Indianapolis-based technology analysis firm. He is the author or co-author of five books, including four on cyberspace-related subjects, and has written more than 900 articles in the 22 years he has been covering computers and software. He is formerly vice-president and editor-in-chief for ICP, Inc., a software information publisher, and has designed a variety of Web sites in his spare time.
John Jung (jjung@netcom.com) is a professional systems administrator with a worldwide information services company. He graduated from the University of Southern California with a computer science degree. He has been on the Internet for over eight years and spends entirely too much time online. He has worked on almost a dozen books and is the co-author of Special Edition: Using HTML, Second Edition.
John J. Kottler (73157.335@compuserve.com, jkottler@aol.com, or jay_kottler@msn.com) has been programming for 14 years and has spent the past 6 years developing applications for the Windows platform. He has been programming multimedia applications for over two years and has spent this past year developing applications for the Web. His knowledge includes C/C++, Visual Basic, Lotus Notes, PowerBuilder, messaging-enabled applications, multimedia and digital video production, and Web page development. John contributed to Java Unleashed, Presenting ActiveX, Web Publishing Unleashed, Netscape 2 Unleashed, and Programming Windows 95 Unleashed, and co-developed the shareware application Virtual Monitors. A graduate of Rutgers University with a degree in computer science, he enjoys inline skating, cycling, or playing digital music in his spare time.
Greg Kovich (Gmkovich@aol.com) is the Director of Technology for the public school system in Munster, Indiana. Greg has worked in industry as an analyst, programmer, and technician and credits that diverse background for the success he has enjoyed in Munster. Currently, Greg is overseeing the technology portion of a $45 million dollar renovation project in the district, which will eventually bring a WAN, LAN, Internet access, video distribution, and telephones to the classroom. He looks forward to training the staff members so that they will be able to incorporate these tools into the daily instruction of the students.
Dick Oliver (dicko@netletter.com, http://netletter.com/) is the author and co-author of numerous books on computer graphics and the Internet, including Web Page Wizardry, Creating Your Own Web Graphics, Netscape Unleashed, Internet Explorer Unleashed, and Tricks of the Graphics Gurus. He is also the president of Cedar Software and the publisher of a paper and online newsletter called the Nonlinear Nonsense Netletter. Dick lives in Elmore, Vermont, and commutes to work all over the world via the Internet.
Dennis R. Short (drshort@tech.purdue.edu) is a Professor of Technical Graphics in the School of Technology at Purdue University, where he has taught for 13 years. He has published two books, numerous book chapters, and over 50 conference and journal publications. Professor Short was a visiting scholar in Japan in 1991 and has areas of expertise in CAD, networking, and advanced computer graphics systems.
Mark Woodman (woodman@dpc.net) is currently a Multimedia Producer for Ink & Image, Inc., a multimedia and video production firm in Peoria, Illinois. He believes the best joke of the 20th century is that people can get paid to have fun using computers. He has yet to tell his employers this, however.
As a reader, you are the most important critic and commentator of our books. We value your opinion and want to know what we're doing right, what we could do better, what areas you'd like to see us publish in, and any other words of wisdom you're willing to pass our way. You can help us make strong books that meet your needs and give you the computer guidance you require.
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at http://www.mcp.com.
| NOTE |
| If you have a technical question about this book, call the technical support line at (800) 571-5840, ext. 3668. |
As the publishing manager of the group that created this book, I welcome your comments. You can fax, e-mail, or write me directly to let me know what you did or didn't like about this book-as well as what we can do to make our books stronger. Here's the information:
FAX: 317/581-4669
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Mail: Mark Taber,
Sams.net Publishing
201 W. 103rd Street
Indianapolis, IN 46290
Web Publishing Unleashed, Professional Reference Edition is the best guide to Web publishing on the market. Not only does this book cover every major Web publishing issue, it unleashes each topic with authoritative coverage from the world's foremost experts in Web publishing. The goal of this book is to help you become one of the thousands of successful Web publishers providing ideas, services, and products to millions of Web users.
Whether your Web publishing plans are large or small, you don't want to wait any longer to get into the action. By the end of 1998, more than 100 million people will have access to the global Internet and to the World Wide Web. What this means is that for a few dollars a month you can reach a potential audience of millions. If you think this is hype, think again. The World Wide Web has caught the eye of the media, businesses, entrepreneurs, and governments. Media coverage of the Internet and related issues grows every day. Thousands of articles related to the Internet are published every month in books, magazines, newspapers, and newsletters. You will find discussions about the Internet and the Web on TV shows, radio, and the news. You will also find addresses to Web pages in all forms of advertising, from magazine ads to television commercials.
As you read this book, you will learn about the things the Web
has to offer. I have taken great care to provide invaluable tips
and pour my expertise into every page of Web Publishing
Unleashed, Professional Reference Edition. Today's
Web publishers have powerful resources at their fingertips and
this book will show you how to use every one of them. Here's a
sample of the major topics covered in this book:
This book is designed to be the most comprehensive Web publishing resource available anywhere. Chapter by chapter, you will learn everything you need to know to create, design, and publish dazzling Web publications.
Part I, "A Web Publishing Game Plan," covers everything you need to know to get started as a Web publisher. Chapter 1 provides an overview of Web technologies. Coverage of these technologies is intended to save you time, money, and resources. Chapter 2 answers the questions about why you should publish on the Web, what you can publish on the Web, and who is already publishing on the Web. The final chapter of Part I is designed for anyone who wants to build an intranet. The chapter covers essential issues that will help you develop and plan a successful intranet.
Part II, "Web Publishing with HTML 3.2," explores every facet of the HyperText Markup Language and includes extensive coverage of the hottest and latest issues. Chapter 4 is a power primer for creating Web documents with HTML 3.2. You will find useful tips, expert advice, and a strong emphasis on sound design. Chapter 5 is a comprehensive guide to HTML 3.2, with a focus on its features and enhancements to the HTML standard. Chapter 6 explores one of the hottest elements in Web publishing, tables. Not only do leading browsers, such as Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer, support tables, but tables are also a part of the new HTML specification. Chapter 7 shows you how to enhance your pages with frames. You will find total coverage of standard frames, floating frames, and borderless frames. The final chapter in Part II examines style sheets. With style sheets, Web publishers finally have sophisticated control over the placement of elements on the page.
After exploring power publishing with HTML, the next section of the book examines tools that make Web publishing easier. In Part III, "Web Publishing Environments and Editors," you get the inside scoop on the best authoring tools on the market. Chapter 9 is designed to help you put together the ultimate Web publishing toolkit. Chapter 10 looks at Internet Assistants for Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Chapter 11 examines publishing with the most robust authoring and Web site management tool available today-Microsoft FrontPage. Other chapters in this section cover Netscape Navigator Gold, Macromedia Backstage, and Adobe PageMill/SiteMill. The final chapter in Part III rounds out the section with a look at other promising Web authoring tools including HotSiteX, HoTMetaL, HotDog, and WebEdit.
Part IV, "Enhancing Web Pages with Graphics," is for everyone that has ever read a Web publishing book and wished that just for once someone would show you how the experts design show-stopping graphics. Six chapters in Part IV examine graphic design for the real world. In Chapter 16, you will learn how to create bigger, better, and faster-loading graphics. Chapter 17 explores fancy type faces, cool page layouts, and insider design tricks. In Web publishing, two graphic formats stand out from the pack: JPEG and gif. Chapter 18 teaches you everything you'll ever need to know about JPEG and gif. Creating animation is the subject of Chapter 19. Chapter 20 covers image maps. The section is completed with a look at advanced layout with Adobe Acrobat, Common Ground, and other page layout applications.
Graphics are only one part of multimedia. In Part V, "Extending Your Site with Multimedia," you learn how to create pages with live video, real-time audio, and Macromedia's amazing Shockwave. Creating a multimedia feast for Web surfers is what Chapter 22 is all about. In Chapter 23, you learn how to enhance your pages with soundtracks, real-time audio, and streaming. The next chapter examines video. Not only do you learn how to use video in your Web pages, you also learn how to create video. Finally, the section looks at the hottest multimedia development environment for the Web-Shockwave. Using Macromedia's Shockwave for Director, you can create pages with multimedia sequences that rival the best CD-ROM titles.
Interactivity is the main attraction on the Web, and Part VI, "Adding Interactivity with CGI," provides you with everything you need to know to create truly interactive publications with CGI. Chapter 26 provides a top-notch introduction to CGI scripts that won't leave you confused and wondering how it all works. Chapter 27 tells you in a very straightforward way how to use forms and, more importantly, how to design good forms. Chapter 28 shows you how to use the hypertext facilities of the Web to put the world's most powerful search engines at your fingertips. The chapter also provides in-depth coverage on how to build an indexed database. The final chapter in this section shows you how to create and manage discussion groups on the Web.
Beyond HTML and CGI, a whole world of hot technologies is waiting to be put to use. The hottest of these technologies is ActiveX. ActiveX is a family of technologies for activating the Internet with real-time interaction. In Part VII, "ActiveX and VBScript," you will learn how to use ActiveX, how to write scripts using VBScript, and how to integrate ActiveX and VBScript. As you will discover in Chapters 30 and 31, VBScript provides the development language for activating your pages. But to create truly interactive pages, you need to integrate ActiveX with VBScript. Using ActiveX and integrating ActiveX with VBScript is the subject of Chapters 32 and 33.
Part VIII, "JavaScript and Java," provides a fast track to using JavaScript and Java. Chapter 34 shows you how to use JavaScript in your Web pages. The next chapter follows up by teaching you how to write JavaScripts. But your lesson in object-oriented programming is only beginning. Next, you learn how to write Java applets. Afterward, you see how to integrate JavaScript and Java.
Part IX, "Creating VRML Worlds," is a power tour of virtual reality and Web publishing in 3D. If you've dreamed of creating 3D worlds, Chapters 39 and 40 are for you. Chapter 39 discusses the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) and how you can use it. Chapter 40 explores the latest VRML specification, called Moving Worlds. Yet VRML 2.0 is only the beginning. Beyond VRML 2.0 are technologies like ActiveVRML and VRMLScript. ActiveVRML is a standard that allows you to activate VR worlds with ActiveX. With VRMLScript, you can create advanced behaviors for objects in your VR worlds. Finally, by putting the VR technologies together with Java, you can create 3D worlds publishers could only dream of until recently.
After a high-speed race through virtual reality, the book explores Web publishing administration. Part X, "Web Publishing Administration," goes well beyond the basics of administering a Web site. In Chapter 42, you will learn tips and techniques for managing large-scale projects. Chapter 43 shows you how to move legacy documents to the Web. Chapter 44 examines SGML-one of the most powerful and versatile markup languages. Chapter 45 covers setting up and administering a Web server. Chapter 46 focuses on optimizing Web sites and intranets. Maintaining the integrity of your server is essential to your success, so Chapter 47 teaches you all about server security.
Practical application of this book's many topics is the subject of Part XI, "Putting It All Together." Every success story has a beginning, and in Web publishing, the first step is creating a Web page. Chapter 48 covers everything you need to know to build a terrific Web page-publishing strategies, page structure, creating the page, adding features, proofing the page, testing the page, and publishing the page. Creating and publishing your first Web page is only a starting point; the next chapter tells you how to build a cool Web site. But Chapter 49 doesn't stop there, it goes on to tell you how to publicize your Web site as well. The next chapter tells you how to build a multimedia presentation that will dazzle the masses.
The final section of the book puts the reference resources you need into your hands. Appendix A, "Sources for Additional Information," tells you where to find more. Appendix B, "HTML Reference," is an invaluable at-a-glance resource for HTML. Appendix C, "Browser Comparison Chart," gives publishers a quick reference to browsers. Appendix D, "Color Table," makes it easier to use a wide range of colors in your Web pages. Appendix E, "MIME Types and File Extensions," provides a quick reference to the MIME standard. These terrific references are followed by many other references you will put to heavy use. Appendix F, "JavaScript Reference," is a resource for anyone wanting to use JavaScript. Appendix G, "ActiveX and VBScript Reference," is a resource for ActiveX and VBScript.
This book is perfect for just about anyone. Whether you have been publishing on the Web for years or are just starting, Web Publishing Unleashed, Professional Reference Edition is for you.
Beginners: To enter the cutting edge of Web publishing, I recommend that beginners read this book cover to cover. As you read, put the thousands of tips, techniques, and examples to use. Afterward, as you design and publish Web publications, refer to the specific chapters and appendixes that cover the Web publishing aspects you are using.
Casual and Accomplished Users: You may want to jump to specific topics, such as publishing with HTML 3.2 or integrating ActiveX and VBScript. However, keep in mind that this book focuses not only on the how-to, but the why, where, and when of Web publishing as well. Although the three W's are often neglected in other books, Web Publishing Unleashed, Professional Reference Edition doesn't forget to combine how-to steps with thorough design tips and expert advice. After you read about hot technologies like HTML 3.2, VBScript, Java, JavaScript, and VRML 2.0, go back and read the other chapters.
Experts: For the experts, this book offers a wealth of knowledge and pooled resources you can't get anywhere else. You will find the thousands of examples contained in this book to be invaluable. Work these examples into 50 chapters and several reference resources, and you've got everything you need to hone your skills to perfection. Put the table of contents and the index to immediate use. Don't worry about wearing out the book by thumbing through the pages in the heat of the moment; this hard-bound edition should definitely last longer than a flimsy soft-cover edition.
I truly hope you find Web Publishing Unleashed, Professional Reference Edition to be the best Web publishing book available.
Thank you,
William R. Stanek
(director@tvp.com)
