Keenspace "Tagtorial"

STEP 1 - Your workspace directory Warning! - you need to know how to use FTP (file transfer protocol) or have a program that does FTP for you to successfully use this portion of our system. BoxJam has created an FTP Tutorial that will help you learn FTP if you don't already know how to use it. It's simple and powerful. Good luck. Your workspace directory is where you will upload all your files that the AutoKeen scripts will use to generate your webpages. Your actual webpages will be constructed in public_html. It is not recommended that you make any changes in your public_html directory. In your workspace directory, you will notice several subdirectories. These are: workspace/comics workspace/data workspace/webpages and two files: workspace/dailytemplate.html workspace/indextemplate.html The purpose of these are as follows: workspace/comics - This is where you should upload all of your cartoon strips, including future strips. In order for the AutoKeen scripts to know the date that pertains to each strip, the date must appear in the filename of your comic strip in the YYYYMMDD format (YYYY=four digit year, MM=two digit month, DD=two digit day). There must not be any other numbers in the filename. Examples are: nukees19970121a.gif 19970121.jpg 19970121b.html Each of these filename refers to a comic to be displayed on January 21, 1997. Note that you may also use a simple numbering system instead of dates if you wish (1.gif, 2.gif, 3.gif, etc...). However, you will not be able to take advantage of any features that rely on dates (eg: dates, calendars, dated archives, etc...), and you will not be able to upload future strips more than a single day ahead of time. If you would like more than one comic or html file to appear on a particular day, you should give the files suffixes to indicate, alphabetically, which file is to be displayed first. workspace/data - This is where "special" files go that certain functions of AutoKeen need, such as the names and dates of your storylines for a storyline dropdown navigator. It will be discussed further in this Tagtorial when necessary. workspace/webpages - This is where you should put all your webpages, encoded with ***tags*** (to be discussed in Step 3), which will be processed and turned into your website. You should not put your main index.html page in this directory, however. workspace/dailytemplate.html - This is the file from which all of your daily archive pages will be created. workspace/indextemplate.html - This is the file from which your front page (index.html) will be created. Do not edit any of these files yet. You will learn how in Step 3. For now, upload your comics, with filenames as specified above, using your favorite ftp program. If you have problems using or obtaining an ftp program, consult your favorite computer-saavy friend.

STEP 2 - Updates Your site will update automatically once a day at the time that you specified when you signed up for a Keenspace account. Times may vary somewhat from night to night. You can also request an update at any time online at your Members Page under "Site Maintenance." After you have named your comic strip files and uploaded them to workspace/comics, go to your "Site Maintenance" page and click on "Update My Page". (Ignore the options for now). The update does not take place immediately. You may have to wait a few minutes for the update to occur. When it does, you should be able to see the results at your website by hitting "Reload" on your browser.

STEP 3 - ***tags*** Your next step is to customize your webpages. Let's start with indextemplate.html. Download it to your computer using your favorite ftp program and then open it with a text editor or webpage construction program. The first thing you might notices is the common use of asterisks in this file. These are known as ***tags***, which are always surrounded by three asterisks. All features of AutoKeen operate by replacing these ***tags*** automatically with appropriate features, such as your comic strip, an archive calendar, or the date. Otherwise, you can edit this file as you would any normal html file. Try moving the ***tags*** to different places or adding new tags. When you're finished customizing this page, upload it back to your Keenspace account, and request a new update, as in Step 2. For a complete list of all the ***tags*** you can use and their functions, see the Taglossary.

STEP 4 - Create your site! By now, you should know all the basics of how to create your automated website. To create a full-featured website, proceed with these steps: Create your homepage (workspace/indextemplate.html) Edit your daily template (workspace/dailytemplate.html). Each of your daily archive pages will be created from this template. Your daily archive pages will have filenames in the form /d/YYYYMMDD.html (such as d/19970121.html, for instance). You should use the appropriate ***next_day*** and ***previous_day*** tags to allow nagivation through these pages. Add all other html files to workspace/webpages. The ***tags*** on these pages will update relative to the date of the most recent comic (ie: the one used to update your home page) Add non-comic images you will use on your site into workspace/images/. Reference them in your html files with <img src="/images/filename.gif">. Make sure you reference images with a relative path (ie: starting with a "/"), especially in your dailytemplate.html file Add navigation buttons to images. For the navigation tags (such as ***next_day***) you can add custom images that will be used instead of text. They must be placed in your workspace/images/ directory and named the following: first_day.gif, previous_day.gif, next_day.gif, last_day.gif. You may also use jpg files if you like. When creating your pages, you should keep a few things in mind: You must include the ***advertisement*** tag somewhere at the top of every page. Not including advertisements on your pages will be considered grounds for canceling your account. A good way to get hints on how to put things together is by looking at the format of other Keenspace sites, or by asking questions of other Keenspace users on the Keenspace Forum