Dear Dr. Website®:
I just started learning HTML on WebTV and loved it. I upgraded to a computer and now I can't find anywhere to write HTML. All the programs do it for me. Is there anywhere I can write HTML on Windows 95, or is there some software that will allow me to write and publish my work?
It's great to hear from someone who's getting into HTML and wants to actually learn how to write in the language! There are many HTML editors, not WYSIWYG tools, that allow you to get in there and wallow around in the HTML "code."
We use a tool called NoteTab Pro, which is sort of a "notepad on steroids" with a few built-in shortcuts (and it loads super-fast!). You can also rely on Allaire's HomeSite, another quality editor that will let you work on your site using good old HTML. Both of these tools can be downloaded in trial form for free from their respective Web sites.
There are so many HTML editors that we can't begin to cover them all, but CWS Apps (Consummate Winsock Apps) has two sections on basic and advanced HTML editors (cws.internet.com/32html.html and cws.internet.com/32advhtml.html) that should whet your appetite.
Dear Dr. Website®: My Web site is getting high ratings with some of the major search engines. On AltaVista my page has been listed first. My problem is the viewers that scan the page sources of the upper-listed sites and use their meta tags. This results in my page being pushed down and all my hard work being used against me. Is there any way to hide the keywords from being copied and still be usable by the robots? I have heard of, but never found, non-downloadable fonts, invisible fonts, and Java programs that hide your Web site description and keywords.
After a bit of research we found a lead at Advanced Business Systems. We can't comment on how well this solution works, if at all, but we present it as a partial answer, so check out scrubtheweb.com/abs/cgi/tools.html for robotwatch.cgi. We'd love to hear some feedback from readers on this topic!
Dear Dr. Website®: I am inserting hover buttons onto my Web page in MS FrontPage 2000. However, they do not appear when I view the page in the browser. Does the page have to be uploaded to the Internet first?
FrontPage hover buttons are generally implemented with Java.
While they don't have to be on the Internet to work, your browser has to support Java and have Java turned on, and the page must be published to a FrontPage web in order to work. This can be done on your own machine by right-clicking the folder it's in from within FrontPage 2000 and selecting "convert folder to Web."
Dear Dr. Website®: How can I get a URL to open at a specific window size--e.g., 200 x 200 pixels--instead of full-screen size?
You can use a bit of JavaScript to open your window, and browsers that aren't JavaScript-capable will just open the window as a full-size window:
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!--
function openit(sURL){
newwindow=open(sURL,"newwin",
"scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,directories=
no,menubar=no,resizable=no,status=
no,width=200,height=200");
}
-->
</SCRIPT>
<a href="smallpage.html" target="_new"
onClick="openit('smallpage.html');
return false;">Small Page</A>
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