Posting Pages on the Sophia Web Server

Sophia is one of Smith's Web servers. As a Web server, its primary job is to store webpage files and make them available to users on the World Wide Web.

Any Smith student, faculty member, or staff member is eligible for an account and storage space on the Sophia server. This space can be used for any personal webpage that meets the requirements of Smith's Acceptable Use of Computer Resources policy. Many student groups also post their organizational webpages on Sophia.

You do not actually create your webpages on Sophia; you create them on your own computer. But once you put a copy of a webpage into your personal storage area on Sophia, you and others will be able view it on the Web. (The process of copying a webpage to a Web server is called "posting" or "uploading" the page.)

The remainder of this document explains the steps required to make your webpages available to the public on Sophia.

Getting started
Creating webpages
Naming your HTML files
Connecting to Sophia to post a webpage
Viewing your webpages
For further information

Getting Started

• Personal websites: Before you can post a webpage on Sophia, you must obtain a Sophia account. To apply for an account, bring your Smith ID card to the User Support Center in Stoddard 23.
  
  If you wish, you can print and fill out the application before you bring it in: www.smith.edu/its/tara/account_forms/sophia_account.pdf
  
  When your account has been created, you will receive an email message containing your Sophia username and password.
  
  
• Student organization websites: If you are responsible for creating or maintaining a student organization website, please read the following webpage before proceeding:
  www.smith.edu/its/tara/web_dev/student_orgs.html
  

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Creating Webpages 

Webpages are written in a computer language called Hypertext Markup Language, or HTML. A webpage is actually an HTML file containing code that specifies the text content and graphical layout of the page.

You can create HTML files on your computer using a text editor or word processor to write the HTML code. But don't worry - you don't need to know HTML to be able to create pages. If you wish, you can use a webpage editing program, such as Netscape Composer, Macromedia Contribute, or Macromedia Dreamweaver. These programs let you design your pages visually, and automatically create the underlying HTML code for you.

Faculty and Staff: For help in deciding which type of web design software will best meet your requirements, click here.

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Naming Your HTML Files

Users will have an easier time finding your webpages if you observe the following conventions when naming your files and folders:

• Always use the name index.html for the first page you want users to see when they visit your website. This page is known as your "homepage".
  
  
• Use only lower case characters in file and folder names.
  
  
• Use an underscore ("_") instead of a space to separate words in a file or folder name.
  
  
• End each HTML filename with .html
  

For example, if your page is all about student projects, you could name it:
student_projects.html

Do not name it: Student Projects.htm

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Connecting to Sophia to Post a Webpage

Once you've finished creating a webpage, your next step is to make your page "live", that is, available for viewing on the Web. To do this, you must transfer a copy of your HTML file (plus any associated image files) into your public_html folder on Sophia.

You must use a secure file transfer program, such as Core FTP (for PCs) or Fetch (for Macs), to transfer your files to and from Sophia. This process is also called "posting" or "uploading" your files. For more information about transferring files using these programs, see: www.smith.edu/its/tara/file_transfer.html

You will need the following information to connect to Sophia:

Host Name/Address: sophia.smith.edu
Host Type: UNIX (standard)
User ID: [your Sophia username]
Password: [your Sophia password]

Once you access your account, you will see that you already have a folder called public_html in your directory. This folder is called your "public directory". You must store all your web files and folders inside this folder.

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Viewing Your Web Pages

Once you have copied a webpage into your public directory, you can view it from any computer that has an Internet connection and browser software such as Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer. Here's what you need to know to view your pages:

• The web address for your public directory on Sophia is:
  http://sophia.smith.edu/~[username]/
  
  For example, the web address for Susan Marsh's public directory would be: http://sophia.smith.edu/~smarsh/
  
  
• If you don't include a specific filename in the web address, the web server will assume you want to view the index.html page, and will automatically show you that page .
  
  
• If you want to jump directly to a different page in your public directory, you must enter the full file pathway.
  
  For example, to view a page called my_favorites.html in Susan Marsh's public directory, you would enter:
  sophia.smith.edu/~smarsh/my_favorites.html
  
  To view a page called my_dog.html that is stored inside the "pets" folder in Susan Marsh's public directory, you would enter:
  sophia.smith.edu/~smarsh/pets/my_dog.html
  

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For Further Information

Students: For help with learning about web development, stop by the Technology Learning Commons in the basement of Seelye Hall: http://www.smith.edu/its/tls/

Faculty and Staff: ITS periodically provides web-development classes for faculty and staff. To view our current training offerings, please see:
www.smith.edu/its/tara/training.html

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