Showing posts with label how to use web editors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label how to use web editors. Show all posts

Thursday, 27 August 2015

A beginner’s guide to putting pictures onto your website via an html post.


 
Subtitled: Saving a multi-voice poem using “Print Screen” command: Part 3.

This has been a long and difficult road but hopefully it will be easier for you. I encountered “a few” difficulties doing what I thought would be easy.

The most helpful web editors doing this were Microsoft Expression Web 4 (which is available on free download and has no time limit on usage –so the experts say-no matter what is says when downloaded). I also used a different web editor for the first time. Alley Code is a new web editor I had never tried before. It was available on free download.  It worked well. Both web editors correctly showed the two page poem Roadblock on Design mode and on Preview mode.

I spent a lot of time trying to get the html for two Print Screen Command pictures to work properly in the html editors of Blogger and WordPress.

WORDPRESS.COM

Firstly –as a beginner in html- I was not sure what happened when you went to Insert on your web editor to insert your two pictures. I had thought that the code was a representation of the picture. Then I thought perhaps the code linked to the picture which had been somehow saved in the Web editor and would Post to my website along with the html. Neither was right. When you go to Insert and find the picture file you are looking for, in our case a picture file but it could be any image file, you insert an identifying code into the html - from the picture. And this can be used to trace it later.

Please put a space between your two pictures in the html-to stop them appearing side by side rather than one above the other (use paragraph tabs for instance). The two files should be in the Body part of your html one above the other.

You need to have your two picture files already in the Media gallery of your website. It is easy to add picture files to most website picture galleries. Although I had both pictures there, when I Posted the html into the html editor on my site it did not work. I don’t think the html “found” the pictures properly (on the WordPress Post it showed an icon and the alternative text where the picture should have been). So, on WordPress.com, I went to the Picture gallery (I selected insert media and it took me to the Gallery). I clicked on each of the files one by one. For each file I selected it and made sure I had the image set to the right size. For the first file I clicked it (it shows a tick when it is selected) and went to Inspect Element. I then copied the identification part of the image (the src bit). It is in a box labeled URL. I put this in instead of the identifier script I had already in my web editor (the identifying bit between the quote marks). Make sure you replace one bit with exactly the same bit  of code (the identifying bit).  I then did the same for the second bit of src image code. I then Published this and it worked. So, you should be able to see a Roadblock poem added to my site via a Microsoft Expression Web 4 editor (that is how I have titled it). It looks clear and is the right size. Again, I tried books, and help sites and Googling for help but I had to stumble my way through it.

You can also see the URL and set sizes of pictures on WordPress.com by going to Media and then to Media Library and double clicking a file.

 

BLOGGER

Also on Blogger-when trying to Post the html code I had made up- the pictures did not show. Only an icon and the alternative text. So I went to insert Media and then, From this blog. I then clicked to select the picture. A tick mark appears when selected. When you have selected a picture, you must pick Extra Large picture from the options of size that you are given. Right click and from the options choose: Inspect Element. (I could not see a URL option). You will see a lot of text highlighted that describes picture size and details. Choose to Copy this code. This is the entire code necessary for your picture to be identified and published at the correct size. Delete all the image code for each picture (in your web editor) and replace it with the appropriate code you have gained from each of the pictures on Blogger picture Gallery. You can insert this code either directly into the html on your Post where that picture should be. Or copy it and paste into your web editor (which is preferable if you want to add text and make changes). The code for the Blogger picture seems to be a hyperlink rather than just a link (but it does work). I now have the Roadblock two page poem on my Blogger website. It is slightly too small to see clearly.

 

To summarise: How to place your images into a Post for Blogger and WordPress.com You have your images already in your Media Gallery. Make sure they are the right size (by selecting and changing if required). Copy the URL or identifying code for the pictures you want to use. This can be placed directly into the website’s html editor at the right point in your code. Or can be placed at the right point in your code in your web editor.

 

Of the two methods of placing your print screen pictures onto your site as a Post, you may think that the method where you simply post it in from your Media Gallery is the simplest. I didn’t always get that working though-sometimes the Post placed the pictures side by side rather than one on top of the other. However, if you can Post your print screen pictures as part of an html Post then you have learnt a lot about html. Also, you can add bits of text and other links as well. If you can do it, please try the web editor method (both methods were compared in my last Post).

Glossary:

Within the angle brackets your image will have the identifier: img src=“yourpicturefilenamehere.png” If you are using a format other than PNG then it will be a different format at the end.

You will also have to (in your web editor) give a short alternate description of the image. And also a long more detailed one in case it does not show. Your web editor will ask you for it when you Insert your picture file.

src means source.

img means: image.

html means: hyper text markup language

Links allow users to e.g. click their way from page to page within a website.

A hyperlink is a text or an image you can click on, and jump to another document.

 

Always be tidy and use a separate folder in My Documents for when you are using the screen shot command. It keeps everything together. But all web files that you have prepared in your web editor and are ready to be opened by your browser (e.g. Google Chrome) should be saved in your My Websites Folder (I read this in a help forum but I am able to open web files from other folders). It saves automatically to there when I click on Save Web Files. Make sure you always Save with the correct format in Save As Type (e.g. Save As Type in Microsoft Expression Web 4 automatically saves as Web Pages for me). Do not save a web page as text.

PS

In the last post I gave a link to a site which said that Alt and Print Screen allows you to copy and paste the active screen instead of everything on the screen. Please try it, but it didn’t work for me. Here is another site that says it should work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Print_screen

 

I eventually added the two print screen pictures to Publisher. This is a text and picture editor. I saved this as Rich Text and it seems to have worked ok. Memory used up was about 5 mega bytes.

 

And also, in one Post I was worried about print screen pictures added from html Posts maybe using up a lot of memory. Well they don’t.

 

Thursday, 30 July 2015

How to use Web Editors

There are a few reasons why you use a web editor to write material for your website and don't rely on using an ordinary text package like Microsoft Word. As one example, a package like Word will place its own formatting onto your writing which can mess up things when you go to insert it into your website. If you have to use Word then Save As "Rich Text" (which will get rid of some of the formatting you don't want) before you Paste it into your site. Some people paste their Word writings into a Web Editor and then paste that into their website. I am writing as a beginner in html and I feel that is still a useful viewpoint to write from e.g. I genuinely know the difficulties that other beginners suffer in getting their writings published onto their website. As regards multi-voice poetry, there seems to be two ways of adding your writings to your website. One is to use preformatted text tags and monospace fonts. The other is to use html and possibly CSS and make up from two to six columns of text (using Div tags). You can cut and paste the html structure from one of my previous articles in WordPress. If you are good at html and CSS then you can probably make up the html structure yourself. The html would be written in an html editor. As would the preformatted text tag variant. HTML does not recognise more than one white space at a time. It does not recognise more than one line break at a time. It does not wrap text to the next line when you come to the end of a line. And it doesn't recognise tabs. Using preformatted Text: When you use the preformatted text tag before a piece of writing and a end preformatted text tag after the end, then you will have a piece of writing where all the white spaces and line breaks are kept. You need to use a mono spaced Font because ordinary Fonts have different widths for different letters and for different punctuation. If you use a monospaced Font every space, letter, and punctuation mark will be the same width. This is what you need. Courier is not an attractive font and I use Lucida Console (which I am using just now). But there are many monospaced fonts to choose from (Including a Courier New, and Andalel Mono). So you would use-

<p><!DOCTYPE html></p>
<p><html></p>
<p><head></p>
<p><title>usingpretags</title></p>
<p></head></p>
<p><body></p>
<p><pre></p>
<p>your text here</p>
<p></pre></p>
<p></body></p>
<p></html></p>





Another difficulty -for me- with using code is that I am doing two things with my multi-voice websites. The first is to show my multi-voice poems to you. The second is to teach you how to place your own multi-voice poems onto your own website. Here I show you the code that I use to prepare my poems for my site. However, putting code onto a site means the site tries to turn the code into a poem. To stop this and let you see the code behind the poem-the code has to be "wrapped" in a particular type of protective code that will stop it being changed from html (or CSS).
When downloading a web editor make sure you do so from a trusted site. I have used the first Notepad (version 1) but found it not at all user friendly. I usually use Microsoft Expression Web 4. This is user friendly and gives you an Edit html mode and a Design mode (which shows you what it thinks a Browser will display). There is also a Preview Browser mode which allows you to take the code into a browser to check it more accurately than in Design mode. I believe that this package is now free for Download. Dreamweaver is the best known web editor package. It is similar in aims to Microsoft Expression Web 4. I have not tried it and cannot comment on it. It is not free. To try out other packages (to know which to recommend), I Googled "freeware web editor" and "free html editor". I got about thirty names. Most were not free and were only on limited trial offer. Some of those that remained are partial versions of full price packages (which obviously the makers want you to buy). I never downloaded any that were for expert web Developers. I tried out these eleven that were free and that I could easily download (I had trouble downloading some others but that may have simply been my lack of expertise): NoteTab Light, Website X5 Free, PageBreeze 5, Lauyan TOWeb V6, TextMorph28, WDL Website Builder 4, Notepad2, Alleycode HTML Editor, Blue Griffon, Coffee Cup Free HTML Editor, and EditPad Lite 7 (I wrote the main part of the article using EditPad Lite 7,than pasted this into CoffeeCup Free html editor to re-do in html). It is worth at least trying out a Free Text Editor instead of using Microsoft Word. Here is a beginner's guide to five free Text Editors designed for writing for the Web (I could not say that any were, excellent): Edit Pad lite 7: Very basic. Has a preview in browser mode (but no html mode). You write text that goes straight into your website. There is no spell check though. Text Morph: Very basic. Can also show HTML in html VIEW mode. But you cannot edit the html. Text goes straight into your website. Not user friendly. Note Tab light: Very basic. Not user friendly. Lauyan TOWEB: Is a text editor but is mainly for making complete websites. Worth trying if you are hosting your site as well as writing for it. Not for me. Incomedia Website X5 Free: A text editor as part of a build an entire website package. Extremely basic. Not for me.
Here are six html editors. I recommend that you if at all possible try to learn how to use an html editor! A few seem excellent but need to be tried out by you: Notpad 2: Not user friendly. Not for me. I think this is aimed at experts. Pagebreeze 5: Looks good. Has a visual WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) view and html editor. Also has a preview browser view. Blue Griffon: Looks good. Has a WYSIWYG view mode and an html editor Coffee Cup Free HTML Editor: Looks good. Has a split preview mode (to see html code and WYSIWYG). Can preview in browser. WDL Website builder 4: Looks good. Has an html code view and a WYSIWYG view. Has a preview in browser view. Alleycode HTML Editor: Looks ok. A bit basic. Has a split preview mode (to see html code and WYSIWYG). Also has a preview browser view. When I first started to try putting multi-voice poetry into my WordPress site I tried the Visual Editor and used Microsoft Word as a text editor. This took a great deal of time and was never completely accurate. Eventually my WordPress site could take up to four columns using html coding given in a previous article on my WordPress site. But WordPress could not cope with five or six columns where the text was very small. My Blogger website has only once failed to correctly take the html I have entered into that site. I recommend that you pick one of the four best HTML free editors mentioned above. Get to know how to use it. You might even enjoy using it. I use WordPress and Blogger for my multi-voice writings. WordPress does not seem to suit all types of multi-voice. Also, I have read (on a poetry blog) that Blogger may be on the way out. I hope this is not so! But it means that I have had to look for another free website host. Blogger has no ads. So far I have had few ads on WordPress. I couldn't find a new website without the possibility of ads being there at some point. Again, a couple of times I had thought I had found a free website host only for my account to change from Free to Premium (paid) meaning I had to cancel that site. The most suitable free site looks good though. I have started a multi-voice site on, Yola. It is Free and you have a Free mark on your site which is good. I will keep you updated. My Yola site is: multi-voicepoetry.yolasite.com
Addendum. To give you an idea of the difficulties you get doing simple things in html (not trying to put you off using it though!) I know that different browsers react differently to the same bit of html. In the above article I used the correct html to "wrap" the source code of a bit of html I wanted to show you. This is a very basic thing. It worked fine in Yola. I found that using WordPress, I had to change the "wrapping" code. I needed to search Forum's in WordPress to find out how to do this.  If I can get it working, I will use it in my WordPress site.
In Blogger, the "wrapping" code did not work at all. There is a fix but it seems very difficult. If I can get it working I will use it on my Blogger site.