web log 2002-09-16
Spending the day studying the behavior of web pages and browsers, still
trying to learn how to build web pages beyond simple text. Items
of interest:
-
If existing web site files are being edited, and a local copy is not available,
then one must be created.
-
For some methods of creating html comment and uploading it to the web,
editing the source of html files saved from the web site would be effective.
If a "mirror" site is maintained locally, and coherent segments or the
entire site uploaded as a unit, with references to associated files maintained,
then changes to the source which occur during the IE or NS saves from the
web should not be a problem when the site is uploaded to the web.
IE and NS both provide such services, and some FTP services may as well.
-
Internet Explorer 5.5 and Netscape 4.78 differ in the way they save web
pages to local disk. IE saves the source in an indented format, and
places referenced files in a sub-directory named according to the name
of the saved file. NS saves the source unindented, and saves referenced
files in the same directory as the saved html file. The separate
sub-directory for associated files might make IE preferable for some purposes.
Since my objective at this point is learning to read and modify html source,
the NS flat format, which I can indent and comment for my own understanding,
is more useful.
-
Since I work with individual files, it is preferable to have an unmodified
copy of the web page's source html. I use the "view source"
function of the browser, then select the html source, copy it, and
paste the copy into a Wordpad text file. That text file is editable,
and when saved as an html file (filename.html) and uploaded to the web
site to replace the original file it works fine. I validate
the revised file by uploading it to a pseudo filename and opening it in
the browser before replacing the old file.
