The non-designer's Web book : an easy guide to creating, designing, and posting your own Web site

Robin and John have updated their best-selling book on Web design by adding more creative ideas, useful techniques, and current technology, all of which can easily be implemented by both inexperienced Web designers and professional designers or programmers. If Web design seems beyond your grasp, this book will change your mind. Even if you already have a Web site, you'll find valuable ideas, techniques, and inspiration in this work. It's a Web design book that will wake you up creatively, rather than put you to sleep with code.

• Introduction p. xi
• Part 1 Using the World Wide Web
• 1 What is the World Wide Web? p. 15
• The Internet p. 16
• Modems p. 17
• Modem speeds p. 18
• Online services and ISPs p. 19
• What's on the Internet? p. 20
• The World Wide Web p. 21
• Getting around the web p. 22
• Browsers p. 23
• Browsers are not equal p. 24
• Web addresses, or URLs p. 25
• Entering an address p. 26
• Details of the domain name p. 26
• More address details p. 27
• What's a plug-in? p. 28
• Which file to download? (.sit .hqx .bin .sea .zip .mme) p. 29
• Online Service or ISP? p. 30
• Commercial online service p. 30
• Internet Service Provider p. 30
• Self-Guided Tour of the World Wide Web p. 31
• Quiz p. 32
• 2 How to Search the Internet p. 33
• Searching the Internet p. 34
• Directories p. 35
• Yahoo p. 36
• Search engines p. 39
• RTFD: Read The Directions! p. 40
• For more information on how to search p. 41
• Addresses for searching p. 42
• Don't limit yourself p. 43
• Quiz p. 44
• Part 2 Making Web Pages
• 3 Just What are Web Pages, Anyway? p. 47
• What are web pages? p. 48
• How do you actually make a web page? p. 50
• It can be this easy p. 51
• Format the text p. 52
• Paragraph vs. break p. 52
• Change the colors p. 54
• Create links p. 56
• Make an email link p. 58
• Add a graphic p. 60
• Make a table p. 62
• Absolute vs. relative table widths p. 62
• What are frames? p. 64
• Add code, if you like p. 66
• Build more pages p. 66
• Then what? p. 66
• Self-Guided Tour of the World Wide Web p. 67
• Quiz p. 68
• 4 Things to Know Before You Begin a Web Site p. 69
• Organizing your files p. 70
• Organizing by folders p. 70
• Organizing by name p. 70
• Naming your files p. 71
• Saving and titling pages p. 72
• What does a browser do? p. 74
• What is a server? p. 76
• How to find a server p. 77
• Cost of hosting a site p. 77
• Ask these questions of your host p. 78
• Domain names and your web address p. 79
• Your web site audience p. 79
• Your own domain name p. 80
• Virtual servers p. 80
• Planning ahead p. 81
• Your web audience p. 81
• Making an outline p. 81
• Collecting and storing material p. 82
• Saving source files p. 82
• Checklist: before you begin p. 84
• Self-Guided Tour of the World Wide Web p. 85
• Quiz p. 86
• Part 3 Design Jssueson the Web
• 5 Print vs. Web and How it Affects Design p. 89
• Cost of publishing p. 90
• Color! p. 92
• Revisions, updates, and archives p. 93
• Distribution p. 94
• Customer response p. 95
• A world of information p. 96
• File size p. 97
• Sound and animation p. 98
• Amount and accessibility of information p. 99
• Location of designer p. 100
• The print advantage p. 101
• Self-Guided Tour of the World Wide Web p. 103
• Quiz p. 104
• 6 Basic Design Principles for Non-Designers p. 105
• Alignment p. 106
• Proximity p. 110
• Paragraph vs. Break p. 113
• Repetition p. 114
• Contrast p. 118
• Create a focal point p. 118
• Spell it right! p. 121
• Combine the principles p. 122
• Self-Guided Tour of the World Wide Web p. 123
• Quiz p. 124
• 7 Designing the Interface and Navigation p. 125
• Start with a simple plan p. 126
• Horizontal format p. 128
• One-size surfing p. 128
• Navigation design p. 132
• Navigation styles p. 133
• Navigate with frames p. 134
• Repetition p. 135
• Where are you? p. 135
• More than one way to navigate p. 136
• The site decides the navigation style p. 138
• Index or site map p. 140
• Selective linking p. 141
• Don't make irritating links p. 141
• Learn from others p. 142
• Self-Guided Tour of the World Wide Web p. 143
• Quiz p. 144
• 8 How to Recognize Good and Bad Design p. 145
• Bad design p. 146
• Good design p. 150
• Not-so-good Design Checklist p. 152
• So-much-better Design Checklist p. 154
• Part 4 Color, graphies, and Jype
• 9 Color on the World Wide Web p. 157
• The aesthetics of color p. 157
• CMYK color p. 159
• RGB color p. 160
• Indexed color p. 161
• Bit depth p. 162
• Monitor resolution p. 164
• Resolution of images p. 166
• Browser-safe colors p. 167
• How to get browser-safe colors p. 167
• Creating web-safe colors p. 168
• Hybrid web-safe colors p. 170
• Quiz p. 172
• 10 Graphic Definitions You Must Know p. 173
• File formats p. 174
• Terminology of graphic file formats p. 175
• GIF file format p. 176
• Advantages of GIFs p. 176
• When to choose the GIF format p. 177
• JPEG file format p. 178
• Progressive JPEGs p. 178
• Advantages of JPEGs p. 178
• When to choose the JPEG format p. 179
• Anti-aliasing p. 180
• File size of images p. 181
• A little lesson on bits and bytes p. 181
• How to find the correct file size p. 181
• Image maps p. 182
• Server-side vs. client side images maps p. 182
• Alternate labels p. 184
• Thumbnails p. 185
• Self-Guided Tour of the World Wide Web p. 187
• Quiz p. 188
• 11 How to Prepare Image Files for the Web p. 189
• Web graphic specifications p. 190
• If you don't want to make your own graphics p. 191
• If you don't have Adobe Photoshop p. 192
• Inexpensive software p. 192
• Shareware software for converting files p. 193
• Photoshop is an investment in your future p. 192
• How to get artwork or photographs into your computer p. 193
• Send your film to a digital processor p. 193
• What to tell someone who is scanning for you p. 194
• How to scan it yourself p. 195
• Use a digital camera p. 196
• Step-by-Step Directions p. 197
• Make a GIF p. 198
• Make a JPEG p. 200
• Making GIFs and JPEGs p. 202
• Make an image map p. 204
• Make background graphics p. 207
• Left-edge graphic as background p. 207
• Top-edge graphic as background p. 208
• Create a seamless, textured background p. 209
• Graphics with colored backgrounds that match the background color of your web page p. 211
• But what if the background of the web page is a colored texture? p. 212
• Giant-image backgrounds p. 213
• Avoiding halos or artifacts p. 214
• Make an animated GIF p. 216
• 12 Typography on the Web p. 219
• Readability vs. legibility p. 220
• Readability p. 220
• Legibility p. 221
• Breaking the rules p. 221
• Be conscious: If it looks hard to read, it is p. 221
• Quotation marks! p. 223
• Default fonts and sizes p. 224
• Bottom line: let go of total control p. 224
• Cross-platform fonts p. 225
• The variables p. 226
• Other things to know p. 228
• Proportional vs. monospaced type p. 228
• Logical vs. physical styles p. 228
• Other special characters p. 229
• The curse of the underline p. 229
• In the works p. 230
• Cascading style sheets p. 230
• TrueDoc Dynamic Fonts p. 230
• OpenType p. 230
• Free fonts for web pages p. 230
• Self-Guided Tour of the World Wide Web p. 231
• Quiz p. 232
• 13 Advanced Tips and Tricks p. 233
• Fun with tables p. 234
• Richer color p. 236
• Pre-load graphics p. 237
• Easier-to-read small type p. 238
• Low-source proxy p. 240
• Slicing files into pieces p. 242
• Slicing a GIF file for animation p. 242
• Slicing a graphic for layout freedom p. 244
• Quick Photoshop tips for web designers p. 247
• Keyboard shortcuts p. 247
• Customizing features p. 248
• Techniques to make your work easier p. 249
• Use multiple layers to create navigation buttons p. 250
• Make a drop shadow p. 251
• Make rollovers and image swaps p. 253
• Easy HTML enhancements p. 257
• Forms p. 260
• Flash animation p. 261
• Part 5 You're Done--Now What?
• 14 Test and Fix Your Web Site p. 265
• Site management software p. 266
• Testing your site p. 268
• First, move your folder p. 268
• Offline browser check p. 268
• Watch someone else browse your site p. 269
• Different browsers for different folks p. 269
• Fixing your site p. 270
• Other fix-it tips p. 271
• Quiz p. 272
• 15 How to Upload and Update Your Site p. 273
• Before you upload p. 273
• Gather your files p. 274
• Uploading files p. 276
• Test your site online p. 278
• Updating files p. 280
• Additional web sites on your site p. 280
• Quiz p. 282
• 16 How and Why to Register Your Site p. 283
• Search tools p. 284
• Submission services that do it for you p. 284
• More is not better p. 284
• Specialized search tools p. 285
• Link to me, I'll link to you p. 285
• Popularity contest p. 285
• Find out who is linked to your site p. 285
• What search tools look for p. 286
• Title of your page p. 286
• First paragraph of your home page p. 286
• Stacking the deck p. 286
• Meta tags p. 287
• Getting your site noticed p. 288
• Cross-marketing! p. 288
• Announce lists p. 288
• Awards p. 289
• Resubmit regularly p. 289
• Search for your own site p. 289
• Quiz p. 290
• The Stuff at the End
• Quiz Answers p. 292
• Robin's Obsessive Index p. 293
• Chart of 216 browser-safe colors p. 304