II Something
by Clark Hugh Stiles
January 9, 2002 

Lynx is the primary browser in use on the Apple II, and even the GS/OS tools that have been developed aren't able to deliver the graphics rich www environment due to limitations of the GS hardware. Lynx uses a monospaced font to simulate the text placement of most web pages, and short of ANSI support, that yields a result similar to using Talk Is Cheap. TIC and I were inseparable for most of my online time on the Apple IIe and IIgs, and in the earlier incarnation of II Something (that's in italics, for those using Lynx) and not only did it work for most web surfing, after I figured out how to download, edit, and upload my bookmarks file (this was on Delphi) I really felt comfortable. 

The problems came in when I hit FRAMES, a TABLE, or in some cases, a FORM. Those tended to display in crazy ways, or not at all. And of course, some nimrods used the NOFRAMES tag to remind me that my browser didn't support FRAMES, without providing an alternative. That's just rude. From someone (probably Joe Kohn, but I don't know for sure) I learned the great value of using ALT tags in graphics when I started making my own pages. I also avoided the use of FRAME-ing, mostly because of seeing so many crappy implementations. 

The FRAME method makes it easy to maintain a site, and on a hobby site I have I've begun to implement them at last. I've done so in a way that is compatible with the remaining old format pages, in order to make it easy on me as I convert everything. Since finding coherent information about the use of FRAME is so difficult (that goes for COOKIE setting and getting, cgi-bin, and a few other things which have the potential of being very handy), I thought I'd give this a try. I'm sure someone somewhere has done this and done it better than I will, but I've never seen it. There's probably a financial reason -- the people who know this stuff have WYSIWYG software for sale. 

Let's start with the basics. In order to start a website, you'll have to find a place that permits this. Often the company providing your internet access offers you webspace to store the pages. For you see, the webpage is just a file residing on the hard drive or other storage on some computer humming in some nondescript office building somewhere. Here's the basic, barebones contents of a typical webpage. 
[see listing 1 in next message] 
Notice that there are less than signs and greater than signs to show the beginning and ending of the TAGS. This is in a sort of programming language -- interpreted in the same way BASIC programs often are -- called Hyper Text Markup Language, or HTML. It's loosely based on some old typesetter languages -- John, who used to work for Ambrosia Software, mentioned this to me once upon a time -- and can be written in any old text file editor program. You can write HTML in a program you write yourself in AppleSoft BASIC, or you can use FreeWriter, AppleWriter, AppleWorks, Herb's Text Editor (HTE), EgoEd, or, if you've been seduced by the Dark Side of the Force, in Notepad, Wordpad, Word, or (in my case right now) TexEdit, an excellent program for the Mac. I used to write all my web pages in FreeWriter (or if I needed a lot of them, generated them with BASIC, something I still do on occasion). Let's alter the listing a little: 
[see listing 2 in next message] 
This is a sort of "Hello World" in HTML, and isn't anything spectacular. When loaded into a browser, it opens the viewing window, and the text appears where it describes. Those HR tags add lines. That's a style choice on my part -- it marks the beginning and ending of the page. More on page division later. Let's add a link or two, then leave the beginner basics behind. 
[see listing 3 in next message] 
Thanks again to Joe Kohn, I was in love with AltaVista for years. In the past year or so I've gone to using Google nearly exclusively, mainly because of the "translate" link that is included automatically for pages not in English. That reminds me: 
[see listing 4 in next message] 
That's some header stuff from an old file (I've not checked the link, but note that it is included) showing the strict, up to date standard for headers. The reason people should use this when hand coding (I think most WYSIWYG editors do so automatically) is so that search engines can tell what language and font set is used on the page. And for that matter, so can the various users' browsers. 

Before we plunge off into FRAME, I plan to go into a little more detail about the way to design links. I'm pretty sure I've done this before, in one of the back issues of II Something, but frankly I'm too lazy to look right now. If I do look and do find it, I'll just include it or adapt it to save typing. 

II Infinitum! 