Although I am no web page wizard, there are a few things that some of you who, like I do, learn by doing or imitation. I herewith present some facts about this page.
All of the editing and assembly was done on a Macintosh G5 computer using BBEdit. If you do not yet have BBEdit, I strongly suggest that you get it. BBEdit Lite is a shareware version which you can try out before buying the full version.
BBEdit will allow you to not only browse your own folders on the computer but you can also create a browser for your web site. From that point on reading, editing and saving files to and from either place is as simple as clicking on the file names and clicking "load". And when it comes time to save, simply select "save" from the menu or click "Apple S" or "Command S" as it is called.
Be forewarned, it is not a word processor. It is a text editor and a powerful one at that but offers none of the WYSIWYG features of word processors. As an example, it will not allow you to change fonts in a document since the important part of text editing is the words, not their format. If I need to format a particular piece of text I type it in BBEdit and then copy and paste it into Appleworks or other word processor.
After much trial and error over the years I decided to put all my html files in one folder and all the images in a folder within that one. That way if I decide to burn a DVD or move all the files to another directory, the links will still work. (If you really want to know the file name of any link you can simply "hover" the cursor over the link and notice the file name in the status line of your browser.)
But one of the most important reasons has to do with how BBEdit works. I can do a search and replace in all the files in a folder without bringing them into the edit window. (If I chose to do so, I "could" load hundreds of files at one time.) So if I decide to change something, I just issue a search and replace and select any group of files. BBEdit will change them, and either resave them after the change or leave them open for me to check. I can then issue a "save all" command and save them. Then a "Close all windows" and close the windows.
BBEdit has a function called "Clippings". Clippings allows you to create a file, and then paste that file into any file. But it does more than that. You can include certain information while you do that and BBEdit will substitute that info. For example, I can include #FILE# in the text of the clipping and instead of typing #FILE# it will type the name of the file. Another useful substitution is #SELECT# which includes any text you have selected. You can also include what is in the #CLIPBOARD#. This function could be used for instance, to put a return name and address into a letter with a simple keystroke.
And speaking of keystrokes, any command you can issue from any menu can be assigned to a single keystroke by the simple expedient of opening the preferences for BBEdit, finding the command and entering the key. If it is already in use, it'll tell you.
BBEdit also has a rich GREP array of functions so you can select almost any text pattern you can imagine for search and replace or find. You might notice, if you view the source html code in your browser that each file had a header that contains a copyright notice and several housekeeping functions for style sheet etc. All of that is insertable with one keystroke and with grep I can search and replace the whole group of lines.
To make sense of all the files in that one directory the file names are significant. "aen" designates files from the course menu, "faq" from the FAQ menu and "news" from the Newsletter menu. All Javascript files begin with javasctipt and all style (CSS) files start with "style". All are in lower case and have .html as extensions.
You may have noticed that no matter how much you scroll or change or click you never leave the screen. To accomplish this I use frames. Some of then scrollable and some fixed.
There are five frames. Three in the right column, two in the left. This breaks all the rules of web page design but it is for a purpose. This is a page that is designed to educate and that takes order and order is accomplished by never having the user lose his place.
The left column contains the main menu (in the logo frame) which offers a selection of Newsletters, FAQs, Automated Endo Course, A V-FAQ page, an address correction page, and Special Products Store. This frame is named "logo".
The top frame in the left column is a title frame that changes when the topic changes in the data window below it. This allows the reader to know exactly which file he is reading. I.e. it does not scroll with the text.
The second frame in the left column is the main data window appropriately named "data"
The top frame in the right-hand column is named "pictures" and is used for videos, or other graphics. When there is no other picture that is pertinent, the CE logo shows.
The middle frame in the right hand column is named "toc" for table of contents. The name of the section you are currently reading shows there. And when you select a new topic i.e. news, faq or aen, that title shows in this window.
The bottom frame in the right hand column is named "main" and contains the main menu to all of the files in that category. It contains the table of contents with links that allow the user to select the topic that will be displayed in the data window in the left column and occasionally the picture in the pictures frame.
A simple javascript reloads the top left frame with a new title, when the file loads in the data window.
CSS2 is used extensively. Using style sheets I can control the background colors, the color of fonts etc. from a cental source. Thus if a color does not show well on some computers, I can alter it through out the site by changing one number in one file.