What does a webmaster do

What does a webmaster do?

What does a webmaster do? Tech Alumni Webmaster Gene Gill's answer: "He takes care of a website". Of course "taking care of" includes designing new pages, preparing the new pages for the internet, uploading them to the internet, plus keeping all pages on the website continuously updated with changes and additions, as well as frequently adding new photos, and making sure that broken links are promptly repaired. He also arranges for the purchase of domain names (memphistechhigh.com), signs up and pays the monthly/yearly fee for web hosting, and takes care of the website's email.

Knowing exactly what goes into designing pages for the internet, or how the pages suddenly appear on the internet, is generally a mystery to most folks. This page will show you step by step illustrations of what the webmaster actually does to get a page "up" - or on the internet.

The illustrations, below, show the process of adding a complete Tech Yearbook to the Tech Alumni website. The yearbooks are generally scanned by others and the scanned files of each page are sent to the webmaster. That's where this process begins. Each illustration is an actual "screen shot" of the webmaster's computer, as he goes through the process.

Click on small photos for an enlargement.

1. Open each scanned page (file), one by one, in a program called PhotoShop - which is a photo editing software program.. Page 8 appears in the illustration.

2. Begin editing each scanned page - lighten, darken, adjust contrast, sharpen - as necessary.

Note: What is the difference between a page, a file, a .jpg photo? When a yearbook page is scanned, the scanner takes a picture of the page. The picture is saved as a .jpg file. Thus, "yearbook page 8" in this illustration is actually "photo 8.jpg". To distinguish between the photos in the yearbook and photo files of the yearbook pages, we will refer to them as either "page" or "file"

3. Format each scanned page to fit the design of the website.

4. Reduce the file size of each scanned page so it doesn't take too long to load on the website. A new edited page/file has now been created and must be saved.

When all the scanned yearbook pages have been edited, formatted and saved as a new .jpg page/file, it's time to create a special ".html page" to appear on the internet, where all these newly created .jpg files will be posted.

5. Save each new page/file as a .jpg file. The folder holding all the new files will begin to look like this.

6. Open a web editing software program called FrontPage and begin to create a totally new .html page where all the newly created yearbook files will be posted.

7. The new .html page layout is planned with "tables"(those dotted lines), colors, and heading text. Tables are "invisible" and are used to keep the various parts of the layout, in place and from "jumping around" when the .html page is on the internet.

8. With background color and text color added, the new .html page layout will now look like this.

9. Add a background color to some of the "tables". This area is where the new files will be posted/inserted one by one.

10. When the new pages are first posted/inserted they are FULL SIZE.

11. A thumbnail photo (TN) of the full size page must be created ...

12. ...and then inserted in the proper space. Text is added below the TN.

13. Steps 10, 11, 12 will be repeated for the additional yearbook page/files.

14. Most yearbooks contain over 100 pages. The illustration above is only up to page 8.

15. Code must be added to each TN so that when the TN is clicked, a full size pop up of that page will appear.

This code, which is "behind" the page and is unseen is:
<a href="cover.jpg" rel="lightbox" title="<b></b>"> The illustration shows all the code. (More about this code later)

When all pages/ files have been added to the .html page, it's time to create a navigation "menu" for the top of the .html page.

16. Open a software program called ToolBox and create "buttons" for "Home", "1969 Yearbook", "New Photos", etc.

17. These buttons will be added to the top of the .html page to create a menu.

18. Links (unseen code) must be added to each button so that when it is clicked, it will open a different page.

19. The identical menu must be copied to each page of the 1969 section - page by page.

When the above process has been finished for all pages and files, it's time to "send up" the files to the internet. You send up the files using "FTP" which means "file transfer process". To use FTP, you must have a domain name (memphistechhigh.com) and pay a company to host this domain on the internet. You pay them for so much space on the internet and you pretty much control what you put in this space.

20. Open a program called WS-FTP. When it opens, you see two large windows. The window on the left shows all the files on the webmaster's computer. The window on the right shows all the files that have been sent up to the internet. (You will have pre-programmed the window on the right to open to the space on the internet that you pay for).

21. Go to the left window and select each new file that has been created (click on them and they turn blue). In the middle between the left and right windows you see two arrows, one pointing to the left and one pointing to the right. Since the selected files are going to be sent to the internet (right side), click on the right arrow. Immediately the files begin being transferred to the Tech Alumni space on the internet.

Whenever you make the slightest change to a website file on your computer, if you want it to be seen on the internet, you must send up the file again. When it's sent up again, it will over-ride the file that's already on the internet and the change(s) will show up immediately.

More about that hidden Code...

When the internet first began, everything that appeared on a computer was written as code. You were never sure what your design would look like, until you saw it on the internet. Very complicated. Gradually, software programs were developed that allowed "what you see is what you get" design. As you designed a page, the software program wrote the actual code for you "behind the page, where it would not be seen". But it's there - on every single page that's on the internet. The internet reads that code and interprets it as the shape, color, photo, or text that we see.

Don't believe me? The "screen shot" on the right shows the actual source code for the complete yearbook of the Memphis Tech High-Class of 1969 page.

If you want to see for yourself what the code looks like for absolutely any page, do this: When the page is open on your computer, RIGHT CLICK anywhere on the page and then select "VIEW SOURCE".

A pop up window will appear showing you the source code for that page. But if you're not familiar with code, you won't understand it.

Some web designers don't want folks to view their source code and they enter additional code which blocks the source code so you can't see it. As a webmaster, it is necessary to gradually learn a little of this code so you will know, at least, how to interpret it. Otherwise you aren't able to completely control what goes into your designs.

Conclusion: To make a minor change to any existing page that's already on the Tech Alumni website (such as a misspelled word), the webmaster must go through at least half of these steps. To add a single photo to an existing page, the webmaster will go through almost every step. To add an obituary, the webmaster will go through almost every step three times, because he creates the new obituary (1), works on the existing Obituary Page (2), and works on the existing Yearbook Page (3).

PS: There are over 5,100 pages on the Tech Alumni website. over 100,000 photos, and over 500 folders, holding over 200,000 individual files. It is a BIG website.