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4. Advanced Techniques and Features

4.1 Translating your page into other languages


AltaVista provides the Systran translation software which allows you to provide your users with the option of translating your pages into a number of European languages.
For example, the url http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com/cgi-bin/translate?urltext=http://www2.austlii.edu.au/~graham/ will give you the option to translate the home page of one of the authors of this Tutorial.
To create a translation option from your own page, create a link named something like 'Translate this page' and use to link it to
http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com/cgi-bin/translate?urltext=URLof my page

4.2 Checking your web pages for bad links and bad HTML

Once you have published your pages onto the web, there are various sites which enable you to test aspects of your pages.
The W3C (the Web Standards Body – http://www.w3c.org) provide a free HTML checker called “HTML-Tidy” at http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett/tidy/. You will find this especially useful if you are using Microsoft Word to create HTML, as it will clean up Microsoft’s HTML and make it comply with the HTML standards.
NetMechanic (http://www.netmechanic.com/)offers various services but the two most fundamental are:
Use these features of NetMechanic to check your own page - try the - see the free sample page[21] to test..
There are numerous other diagnostic tools listed on Yahoo's HTML Validation and Checkers[22] page.




Titles







Copy HTML



4.3	The META tag: Controlling how others index your page 


You can control how your page is indexed by remote search
engines that do robot indexing (e.g. Google), using the META tag to specify
keywords to be indexed, and a short description of your page. 


META tags contain  both the name of the type of information
that is contained in the tag, and the content of that information. For
example:



<META  name="description" content="Graham’s IP page - a ramble about the deficiencies of Australia's intellectual property laws.">
<META  name="keywords" content="copyright, intellectual property, moral rights">



Some search engines will then index both fields, so a search
on either ‘IP’ or ‘intellectual property’ will match and
will cause the page to have a higher ranking in the list of search results than
it would otherwise. In some cases the description will be included in the search
results. Otherwise, some search engines only show the first couple of lines of
the page, or just the
title.



4.3.1.	Insert a META tag in your page


Meta-tags can be added using [Format | Page Properties |
General].



4.4.	Adding a search box – Google Integration


Providing the ability for users of your website to search over
your site is a feature which will add considerable value to the content which
you are making available.


Large sites such as AustLII usually maintain their own search
engine.  However, this requires computing expertise and more access to the
hosting machines than is normally available to the general public.  


Luckily, Google have made an interface to their search engine
available which will allow you to specify a Google search over the material on
your site.


Go to
http://www.google.com/services/
for a list of the services which Google provide.  If you just want to put a
Google search box on your site (for searching the web in general) then go to
http://www.google.com/searchcode.html
and copy and paste the HTML that you find there onto your page.


To add a search box which searches over your site, go to
http://www.google.com/services/free.html
and register, then follow the instructions.  An example of a site which uses
this technique is the ArtsLaw Centre of Australia
(http://artslaw.org.au).



4.5.	Converting word processing documents automatically (RTFtoHTML)


RTFtoHTML [23]
allows you to convert word processing documents and other documents which can be
saved as Rich Text Format (also known as Interchange Format) directly into
HTML.


RTFtoHTML Version 4.17 can be downloaded from
http://www.sunpack.com/RTF/latest.
It is shareware and can be purchased for unlimited use. Some limited trial use
is available after downloading - instructions are at
http://www.sunpack.com/RTF/guide05.htm.


The
Pricing information[24]
states "RTFtoHTML may be run for 30 days from the date of acquisition of the
software for the purpose of evaluating the software. After 30 days, you must
either purchase a license for the software, or remove it from your computer
system."



4.5.1.	RTFtoHTML User Guide


For details on how to use RTFtoHTML, see the
User Guide[25].
You will need to refer to it to make effective use of RTFtoHTML. 


Start by reading the
Features[26]
list.



4.5.2.	Creating a document using heading levels  


Heading levels (‘Heading 1’, ‘Heading
2’ ... to ‘Heading 6’ are used in HTML to give a consistent
appearance to text which is formatted at that level, irrespective of the browser
used, or its sophistication.  In general, ‘Heading 2’ headings are
used as sub-headings under ‘Heading 1’ headings, ‘Heading
3’ indicated sub-headings under ‘Heading 2’ etc. 


To achieve consistency over large numbers of web pages, or
large bodies of text, use of headings is recommended strongly.


One drawback of Headings is that all text in a paragraph must
be at the same heading level.


Identification of heading levels in text is also one of the
main ways by which RTFtoHTML automatically converts word processing documents
into sophisticated hypertexts.


On your test page, type some lines of text and format 
 different lines variously as
Heading 1, Heading 2 etc, so as to see the variations in
format.



4.5.3.	Using a pre-existing word-processing document


You will need a word-processed copy of an essay or other
document you have created (or someone else's document that you are entitled to
use).


First , open the document in Word (or other word processor)
(unless it is already saved as rtf). If it does not have any significant
structure, give it a structure by applying Word’s  ‘Heading
1’, ‘Heading 2’ etc (from the [Format | Style] menu, or from
the Style window) to headings or other significant structural divisions in your
document.


Also apply a number of style elements such as italics and bold
to some of the text.


Save the re-structured document as Rich Text Format (RTF),
with a .rtf suffix.


Now follow the instructions above for use of
RTFtoHTML.



4.5.4.	Alternative - without a pre-existing word-processing document


Create a short document of a few paragraphs using Word 6,
using at least 2 levels of headings to give the document some structure (see
above). Also apply a number of style elements such as italics and bold to some
of the text.


Then save the document as RTF (see above), and continue the
exercises using that
document.



4.5.5.	Cleaning up converted documents


There are usually a few things which need to be done after
converting a document using RTF to HTML, to ensure that it has maximum utility.
Here are a few to watch out for:



4.5.6.	Using RTFtoHTML to create multi-page web documents automatically


RTFtoHTML is effective in breaking long documents (more than a
few print pages) into a series of interlinked HTML pages. Read the RTFtoHTML
User Guide  concerning
file splitting.


Run RTFtoHTML again over the document you used for the
previous exercise, but this time use it with the flag ‘-h1’ (to
break the document up at level 1 headings) or, if the document is long and
complicated enough, by using the ‘-h2’ flag (to break the document
up at level 2
headings).



4.5.7.	Other RTF to HTML features


Read the RTFtoHTML User Guide and experiment using at
least one of the additional features: footnotes, tables, images and embedded
hypertext links.





[21]
http://www.netmechanic.com/maintain.htm


[22]
http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Data_Formats/HTML/Validation_and_Checkers/


[23]
http://www.sunpack.com/RTF/


[24]
http://www.logictran.com/RTF/pricing.html


[25]
http://www.sunpack.com/RTF/guide.htm


[26]
http://www.sunpack.com/RTF/guide07.htm







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