How to Create Your Own Web Page Using SoMSS Template

Introduction

The school offers faculty and students the possibility of creating their own web page on "math" and "mathpost" server respectively. Below is a basic introduction to get you started on creating an homepage on these servers. Using HTML (the "hypertext markup language") to create web pages is beyond the scope of this document, but many good sources of information are available on the web. So just to get you started we would recommend you to build your web page using seamonkey. Attached SoMSS template is editable through seamonkey.

Please Note that editing this template using seamonkey is just for the basic design. For additional functionalities and design, you may need to manually write HTML code on your own. Also, this template is designed for both desktop view and mobile view. So, it is advisable that you edit the text in the placeholders marked as {Enter your text here}. Remove the brackets as well. Please don't try to increase/decrease the width of menu bar, header or text area. This will break the template and will not work on mobile/desktop view.

Template Details

Attached SoMSS_Template.zip contains index.html, navigation.html, publication.html, research.html and course1.html. Below is the description of each page:

1. index.html – This page would be the homepage with your basic details. You can enter your details on all available placeholders.

2. navigation.html – This page contains all the hyperlink of all the web pages of your website which user will see on menu bar. This is basically for navigation purposes. Edit this page only if you want to add/delete any webpage from your website.

3. course.html, publication.html and research.html – On these pages you can make cover further details of your class page, publication list or research area.

What you need to make an homepage?

The description below assumes the unix server to be "math", students may use the same information for "mathpost" substituting "math" for "mathpost".

The very first thing to note is that, when someone tries to view your Home page by using the following URL : 

http://math.asu.edu/~your_login_name then the Browser tries to load a file called 'index.html'  in your public_html directory at your Math Server Account home directory. So while designing and creating HTML pages (using say DeaMonkey) create it in a hierarchial fashion such that from the first page of your homepage (has to be named index.html') all other pages can be accessed.

When you have placed your main web page (usually called "index.html") in your "public_html" directory, make sure that:

your "index.html" file is at least world-readable;

your "public_html" directory is at least world-"executable" (it does NOT need to be world-readable); and

your home directory is also at least world-executable (it also does NOT need to be world-readable)

Usually the access permissions on the files and directories will be set correctly. In order to limit access to your files by others you may need to use unix commands like "chmod" to change the default permissions on your files. 
If you don't understand Unix permissions, check the man (stands for manual which is unix help) pages on "ls" and "chmod", or one of the good introductory books on Unix, or ask the system administrators.

Edit the Web Page

1. Download SoMSS_Template.zip on your local machine and extract the zip file.

2. Download and install seamonkey. If you use your office computer please contact our IT Support 

3. Open seamonkey and go to File - Open File and browse through downloaded template folder and select the file you want to edit. This will open the file in sea monkey browser with current look.

4. For editing this file go to File – Edit Page. This will open a file in a editor view where you can modify the content as we modify any word document.

5. For hyperlinks like your email, link to vitae etc, right link on it and mention the appropriate link description to link another webpage or PDF file with this page.

6. For adding additional page, go to template folder and copy the file which you want to duplicate and name it differently with .html extension and save it at same location. Now you can use hyperlink with same file name on your website where you want user to navigate on that page.

For example – if you want a new page in publications page format, just copy the publication page and follow above instructions.

How to publish your webpage

  • File name: give any name (unless if it is the first page !), remember it since you would need to link it later to your first page (or a previously linked page!)
  • To publish the webpage, open ssh client. On a windows machine, open SSH and login to math.(See below snapshot)
  • On linux, publishing location would be 'sftp <-oport=2200> @math.la.asu.edu '
  • User name : which is your login ID.
  • Password : You need this. Note: Please don't use the 'save password' option if you are on a public PC this would compromise the security of your Math Account.
  • Once you have uploaded the webpage, disconnect on windows or quit on linux

To update an existing web page

If you are just updating an already existing page, then:

Download your public_html folder on your local machine and then open a page on seamoneky by browsing it on local machine. Once your edit finishes upload particular updated file or whole public_html folder in case of many file. It is recommended to keep backup of current public_html folder on math server before uploading new updated folder.  

To Test your home page

You can now test your home page. In a web browser, open the URL

"http://math.asu.edu/~login_name/"

 Below is the link for existing web page for your reference which uses this template:

https://mathpost.asu.edu/~pff/index.html

 Below are the links for downloading the template:

SoMSS Template Students

SoMSS Template Faculty

Below is a link for an instructional video on creating your own web template:

Please click here for the video