Any user may create a home page by logging into the chemistry Unix server and typing the command

            makehomepage

This command, after asking a few simple questions, will make a subdirectory called "public_html" in your home directory and place in that subdirectory a file "index.html" that contains the HTML for a very simple first home page. The command will also give you information on the screen on how to edit your home page, and this information will be stored in a file called Readme in your public_html subdirectory.

The file index.html and other HTML documents placed in this subdirectory can be viewed by anyone in the world by pointing a browser such as Netscape or Internet Explorer at URL "http://www.chemistry.ohio-state.edu/~username/".

Example: If Joe User (username "juser") puts the file xxx.html into his directory public_html/xxx.html, then it can be viewed on the web as

            http://www.chemistry.ohio-state.edu/~juser/xxx.html

Viewing the URL

            http://www.chemistry.ohio-state.edu/~juser/

will access the file "public_html/index.html" in Joe User's home directory.

All files that you want to publish on the web must reside in the directory "public_html" and subdirectories thereof. Files elsewhere in your home directory cannot be accessed from the web.

Your home directory, the directory "public_html", and all directories created in "public_html" must have "execute permission" turned on for "everyone". All files than you want to publish must have "read permission" turned on for "everyone". These are the default permissions.

Other than matters of decency, taste and limits on disk usage, there is no restriction on the material that can be published in this fashion. Faculty and staff are encouraged to place course material and research descriptions in these directories. You can then request a link be made from the Department web pages to your personal or group web pages by sending email to webmaster@chemistry.ohio-state.edu.

Web pages are plain text files with pointers to other web pages and to graphics, audio and video files. The text is written in a mark-up language called HTML, which stands for HyperText Mark-up Language. You can write HTML pages "from scratch", entering all HTML codes (tags) and your text content with a simple text editor such as emacs, vi or pico on the Unix server. Many people actually prefer this approach. Alternatively, you can use a more user-friendly WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) HTML editor on a PC or a Mac. For macs, the following is recommended: BBedit, Taco Html Edit, Aquamacs Emacs, Carbon Emacs. For computers running Windows OS, Macromedia Dreamweaver, NVU , or a selection of opensource html wysiwyg editors may be used. Once a page has been created, you can uploaded it to your public_html directory on the chemistry Unix server using FTP.

More information on HTML can be found under HTML Authoring on Computer Support's web page.