Exercise 2: Create a Page, Upload, and Validate

Resources for this exercise:

Note: I've created a simple HTML template (using HTML 5) to make it easier to do this exercise. I recommend first trying to do this exercise without using the sample code of the template. But if you need more help in trying to figure out how to code this first coding exercise, feel free to use the code from the template. Note that the template does not include the text editor section; you will need to add that.

Read Text Editors for HTML and Script Editing before starting this exercise. You may need to download one of the text editors listed there.

1) Using a basic text editor (such as TextWrangler on Mac OS X, or Notepad++ on Windows) create an HTML document. This page will become your home page.

This file must be saved as text in UTF-8 format, with no byte order mark (BOM).

2) This page must display a headline (in an <h1> tag) that states your first name. This should be the very first line in the <body> section. It should say something like "John's DM60 Home Page".

3) Following this headline will be a sub-headline (in an <h2> tag) that says "My Web Design Experience".

4) Following this sub-head will be one or more paragraphs (literally coded as paragraphs, using <p> and </p> tags) that indicate your Web design experience.

5) Following this paragraph will be another sub-headline (in an <h2> tag) that says "My Personal Goals for This Course".

6) Following this sub-head will be one or more paragraphs (literally coded as paragraphs, using <p> and </p> tags) that indicate your personal goals are for the course.

7) Following this paragraph will be a sub-sub-headline (in an <h3> tag) that says "My Text Editor".

8) Following this sub-sub-head will be a simple paragraph (literally coded as a paragraph, using <p> and </p> tags) of one sentence that indicates the name of the text editor that you used to create this page. It should say something like "The text editor I used to create this page is TextWrangler" or "The text editor I used to create this page is Notepad++".

Do not add other stuff to this page right now; keep it simple and plain. You'll add more to it later. This page will become your home page for the class, and will eventually include your photo, and links to all your exercises. The most important thing now is not to make the page look pretty, but to use proper structural markup that validates.

9) This page's <title> must indicate that this is your home page for your class work, so it should say something like "John's DM60 Home Page". Remember that the <title> always must be in the <head> section.

10) Add the HTML 5 DocType that will enable you to use an HTML validator (as explained in How to Use the W3C HTML and CSS Validators). Make sure you use the code for HTML 5 (not XHTML 1.0 Strict nor HTML 4, for example). First, at the very beginning of your document, before the <html> tag, place this line of code:

<!DOCTYPE html>

11) Add the character encoding meta tag (as explained in Character Encoding for Web Pages). Because this tag tells the browser how to interpret the characters used in the document, it should be the first tag in the <head> section. So right after the <head> tag, place this line of code:

<meta charset="utf-8">

12) This page must contain links (either buttons or text links) to the HTML and CSS validators. See How to Put HTML and CSS Validate Buttons on Your Page for information on how I want you to to do this. Make sure you use the code for HTML 5 (not XHTML 1.0 Strict nor HTML 4, for example). (Use the block of code on this page to make the button links or text links, so that clicking on the links automatically lets you know if the page validates or not.)

Make sure you use the correct links (for HTML 5).

13) In summary, this page must correctly demonstrate the use of the following tags:

Description Tag
document type declaration (DTD) (see step 10 above)
character encoding meta tag (see step 11 above)
HTML document <html>
head section <head>
title <title>
body section <body>
heading 1 <h1>
heading 2 <h2>
heading 3 <h3>
paragraph <p>

14) Save this file as a text-only file, and when you save the file name it "index.html". Make sure you name it exactly as it says: the words "index" and "html" with a period between them, with no spaces and no capitals. (Do not include the quotation marks, either.)

15) Upload this page to your "public_html "folder on the webhawks.org server. Because this is your main home page, it must be at the root of (directly within) your "public_html" folder, not within a subfolder.

See the How to Upload to Webhawks.org with Fetch (Macintosh) or How to Upload to Webhawks.org with CoreFTP (Windows) for information on uploading.

16) View your page (the page on the server, not the page on your disk) in a Web browser:

Go to:
http://webhawks.org/~yourusername
to view your exercise 2 page (your home page).

Or, to make it easier, you can always get to your home page by going to the Student Sites page for our class.

If, when you point your browser at your home directory, instead of seeing your home page you get a message from the server that says: "Index of …" your home directory, or "Forbidden: You don't have permission to access …" your home directory, it simply means that you have no home page ("index.html") in your directory.

17) Make sure the HTML on this page validates (using the HTML 5 Doctype) with no errors, according to the W3C's online HTML Validator at http://validator.w3.org/. You can easily do this by clicking on your HTML validator link. For more information, see How to Use the W3C HTML and CSS Validators for step-by-step directions.

18) If you have used any CSS*, make sure the CSS on this page validates, with no errors, according to the W3C's online CSS Validator at: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/. You can easily do this by clicking on your CSS validator link. See the CSS section of How to Use the W3C HTML and CSS Validators for step-by-step directions.

*We will learn CSS later in this course. Please do not use CSS until then, unless you have previously learned CSS, and can use it correctly and it validates.

19) If there are any errors, fix them, re-upload the page, and validate it again.

20) Submit the feedback form. To receive full credit for this exercise you must submit this feedback form before it expires. This exercise is due on . Allowing for a one-day grace period, the form will expire at the end of the day following the due date, which means the form for this exercise will expire at 12:00 AM on //.

Grading rubric considerations for this exercise

For full credit: