Getting Started with Netscape Composer 7.x

Netscape Composer is an excellent Web design tool you can use to build dynamic, attractive Websites. Before you begin take some time to learn the application. Download and install the application then create a Netscape Composer shortcut on your desktop for fast program access. Open the program and start reviewing each of the menu items and trying them in turn. This will give you basic familiarity with the different aspects of the application. Don’t worry if you don’t understand how something works—in time you will learn everything you need to know. After you have done this go through each of the Netscape Composer tutorials on our support page. Do the exercises, creating sample pages that will not be part of your finished site.

Special Notes
1. When creating your Website you will need to define a local root folder on your computer. This means make a folder in My Documents or Desktop and name it after your Website or domain. You will save all your Web pages within this local root folder.
2. It is recommended that if you have several image files you create a sub-folder within your local root folder, name it images, and store all your image files there. This helps with organization so you don't have image files mixed in with Web page files.
3. Naming conventions are important in Web design. Name your home page index.html and give your other pages names that are all lower case and connected with an underscore or hyphen.
- For example: contact_us.htm or contact-us.htm are the proper format that is more readable to Web servers than names containing capitals or spaces.

Publishing Your Site
After you have built your site you will put it online using a process called FTP or file transfer protocol. This can be done using Netscape Composer 7.x. Simply go to File/Publish, enter the appropriate settings, and click Publish.

Here is an image file with the appropriate settings. Simply update this area with the information from your account (domain name and password) and it should publish fine.