Before you begin your Web site, make sure you thoroughly understand the basic concept of files and directories. It is practically impossible to build and maintain a Web site without this knowledge. Human Resource Development offers courses for faculty and staff in file organization; contact them at +91-11-42696089 for more information or check out their online schedule. Students should consult the latest course catalog for offerings in this area.

After you understand the concept of file management, you need to know how the files used in Web pages interact with each other. An excellent resource for this information is the HTML File Basics section of Thomas Reed's The Pixel Pen. Also, this is where the Human Resource Development class Web Page Production I begins. (Call 348-7125 for information or check the online schedule.) Once again, students should check the course catalog for Web page classes.

Starting to Build
Once you understand how the different files will interact to make up your Web site, you are ready to start building it! Most people will build their site on their personal computer and then upload it to their bama account or another Web server. The first thing you should do is to create a directory on your personal computer to contain the site. You can have subdirectories of the main directory, but two things should be true:

1. Your main Web site directory and its subfolders should only contain files that are part of your site.
2. All of the files that will be part of your site must be in the main Web site directory or one of its subfolders.

If you aren't entirely sure how to accomplish this, that is a sure sign that you need to learn more about files and directories. Do not underestimate how important this skill is.

HTML or WYSIWYG?
After you have set up your directory, you are ready to build your page on your own computer. There are two approaches to the HTML editing process. One says you need to do the HTML coding by hand, which is not as difficult as it might sound. The other approach says that that isn't necessary, just use one of the many WYSIWYG (pronounced Wizzy-wig: What You See Is What You Get) HTML editors available. Many serious Web page programmers (professional and otherwise) use a combination of the two methods.

HTML coding does offer some advantages. It is cheap; all you need is a text editor like Notepad or SimpleText. It offers ultimate control, which can result in smaller, more flexible pages. On the other hand, using a Web page editor can be faster for some tasks, and it doesn't require an extensive knowledge of HTML. However, many editors create bloated (overly large) HTML code that will make your page take longer to download, and the code may not work with all browsers.

A combination approach is the most flexible. HTML knowledge can make you more productive in almost any editor, plus troubleshooting pages ("why doesn't it look the way I want it to?") becomes much easier. Also, it will allow you to implement features in your pages that your favorite editor may not support.