CGS-1555 Practice Project

This is the practice assignment and it doesn't count for credit.  Use this to practice submitting assignments via BlackBoard.com.

1. Save this file to your computer as “practice.htm” by selecting “File→Save As” on the browser menu bar and then selecting a destination on your computer.  Be sure to save as “Web page, HTML only”, and not “Web page, Complete” or any other type.  (If you are asked to set the “encoding”, it is safe to select “UTF-8”.)

   With some web browsers, you may have to hit the “ALT” key, to make the menus appear.

   Do not save to the hard drive of a college computer.  Such files will be deleted automatically when the computer is rebooted. Instead you should save on a removable USB (flash) disk.

   (If you have a Mac, the equivalent menu choice is “save page source”.)

2. After saving the file, open an HTML (web page) editor such as MS Word, WordPerfect, FrontPage, etc.  Personally, I just use “Notepad” to create or edit web pages.  You are strongly encouraged to avoid using Word, and to use Notepad instead.  (Otherwise you may have a hard time with some later projects, when you will need to work with HTML tags!)
3. Open the saved file in Notepad (or other editor) by selecting the “File→Open...” menu and browsing until you find the saved the file.

   If opening in Word 2007 you may be asked to “convert from HTML”.  Don't do it!  Convert as “plain text”.  Otherwise you will not be able to see the HTML tags.  (You don't have this issue when using Notepad.)  Note you don't need to add or change any HTML tags for this project, but you should get used to seeing them.

   (If you have a Mac computer, use “Text Edit”, but set it to “Plain Text” mode first.)

4. In your editor, find this text.  Then type your name where indicated below to verify that you can edit HTML files.

   Student Name: ( replace this text with your name )

   Do not change or replace the “tags”, just the text.  (The “tags” look something like this: <i> text text text </i>.)

   Saving Your Work

   Now you should save your work.  If using Word, be sure to “Save As...” with type “plain text”.  Also, if using some newer versions of Word and Windows (such as Vista) you may need to change the “encoding” as well.  Without going into details, using an encoding of “UTF-8” should work well.  (You can do the same when using Notepad.)

   To change the encoding in Notepad, just select “UTF-8” from the list that appears in the “Save As...” dialog.  To change the encoding using the “Save As...” dialog in Office 2007 and newer, you must click on the “Tools” button and select “Web Options...”.  Then click on the “Encoding” tab to change the encoding.  From the list you should choose “Unicode (UTF-8)”,  then clock the OK button.

   In Word 2007, make your changes then click the Office button and choose “Save As...” and then “Other Formats”.  In the “Save as type:” list, be sure to select “Web Page, Filtered (*.htm; *.html)”.  Don't click on the “Save” button yet!  From here, be sure to change the encoding.  You must do this every time you save since Word doesn't remember what encoding you previously used.

   You should be back at the “Save As...” dialog.  You can click the “Save” button now.

5. Check your work by opening the modified file in a web browser.  You may have to hit the “reload” (or “refresh”) button to make your changes show.  If your web page doesn't look right, repeat the above steps until it does.
6. Return to BlackBoard.com and select “Assignments” from the “Course Tools” menu.
7. Follow the directions shown there to select, upload and submit the completed file.  (In brief, click the “Add Attachments” button to upload your file.)

   Check the uploaded file before clicking on the “submit” button.  Make sure the file can be viewed correctly and has the required name.  Many Windows users have the system set to hide file extensions.  (A symptom of this is to see an uploaded file with a double extension, such as “Practice.htm.htm”.)  Another problem is trying to upload files from Vista's “Recent Files” list.  These are only “short-cuts” to the actual files (often saved in “My Documents”) and they won't work when uploaded.  (The symptom of this is if the uploaded file has the extension “.lnk”, as in “practice.htm.lnk”.)

   If the file name is wrong or doesn't show correctly when you view it, you can click the small “Remove” icon that appears next to the uploaded file's name.  Then go back and fix whatever was wrong, and then upload it again.

   When fully satisfied that you uploaded the correct file, hit the “Submit” button.  After you've done that, if you decide to make changes later (but before the submission deadline), you can send me an email requesting I un-submit your project for you.

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• Note that projects sent as email WILL NOT be graded.  You must use this assignment's “drop-box”.
• You can avoid seeing HTML “tags” if you open in Word 2007 and “convert from HTML” when opening the file.  In this case you use normal Word formatting to edit the document, rather than type in HTML tags.  When done, you must “Save As...” using the type “Web page, filtered (.htm, .html)”, and not the “plain text” format as discussed above.
• While most CGS 1555 Assignments are submitted as discussed above, some projects may instruct you to submit as another file type.  The Webpage FTP assignment is submitted directly to the Dale Mabry Campus student Web server via FTP, using separate FTP software.  (Detailed instructions are included in that assignment.)
• Be certain to read any specific instructions that are included in the assignment drop-box.