• Edit Homepage
• Site admin for sysecol (Digital assets management (DAM) window)
• How-tos and FAQs
• Manual

To edit www.sysecol2.ethz.ch web pages use ssh and sftp (e.g. Fetch and using Alpha (Cocoa) as the editor).

Make sure to follow a few rules:

• Inasmuch as we tie into the ETH Web Content Management system consult that documentation.

• WA - Web Accessibility is the most important goal!

• Never use blanks, non-printable (< blank), or non-ascii characters (>'~' = tilde = 126C) in file or directory names. Use e.g. "_" instead of blanks.

• Always give an extension to all files! This is important to control how files are to be interpreted by the browser, e.g. html, txt, gif, hqx, bin etc. (recommended extensions). Be aware: Files without an extension may be handled differently by different browsers. Sometimes it may not even be possible to view a particular file without an extension, even when it is a plain text file. Unusual extensions, such as ".DAT", are likely to result in an unexpected browser behavior. The browser may download such a file, even if it is a simple text file. Since any browser can display text files, downloading is not desirable. For instance the Internet Explorer behaves this way. The solution is to customize the browser by menu command "Edit Preferences..." and adding an entry for the particular extension. It will then treat files with the particular extension properly. For instance, Internet Explorer will let you view the file with the extension ".DAT" within the browser without downloading, when you customize it to view such files from within the browser. In other cases you may wish to launch a particular application. For instance you can customize your browser by adding the application "Cricket Graph III" as a helper for any file with the extension ".cgg".

• Until recently the file SEHomePage.html was the master of our hompage and the file index.html was only a symbolic link. While moving the homepage to the geoserver however only index.html was copied and is the new master file now. The file SEHomePage.html will therefore be left on the balaton and is not in use anymore.

• Observe strictly cross-platform compatibility! To do this consult the sources given below and in particular the site Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) from the W3C (World Wide Web consortium).

• Watch Out for Special Characters! The internationally standardized ISO Latin-1 character set can be displayed almost all over the world by any browser. Use it! E.g. a Umlaut ü must not be written like you would normally on your computer. Instead insert this sequence of characters ü in your text. Note the character after the ampersand is the vowel which becomes the Umlaut; thus, simply exchange it against other vowels and you get the wanted Umlaut (case sensitive). Here you find the entire ISO Latin-1 with all html-encodings explained.

  Most browsers can also display other special characters. Ex.: Encode   •  as  •   Δ  as  Δ   δ  as  δ    ±  as  ±    µ  as  µ    °  as  ° etc. For a more complete list (some belonging to the ISO character set, some not) see here. Perhaps you find also this Chart of Common Diacriticals useful.

• Keep it simple Some people have a slow modem. Some have impaired vision or are even blind. Don't forget that the internet community is a very wide community. Many users visiting your site may operate in contexts very different from your own. All should be welcomed by your web design. In particular (excerpted from W3C guidelines):
   

  They may not be able to see, hear, move, or may not be able to process some types of information easily or at all. They may have a text-only screen, a small screen, or a slow Internet connection. They may not speak or understand fluently the language in which the document is written. They may be in a situation where their eyes, ears, or hands are busy or interfered with (e.g., driving to work, working in a loud environment, etc.). They may have an early version of a browser, a different browser entirely, a voice browser, or a different operating system.

How to learn html

• MUST READ (from Univ. Kansas): "The least you should know about html" (text file variant, download as zip)

• Another easy to read and well written primer is the NCSA (at UIUC) Beginner's Guide to HTML, which is no longer available on the net, but we can still offer it as: PDF

  Maybe you like NCSA's recommendations for alternative sources:

  • W3 Schools (excellent!)
  • W3 Schools - Learn HTML
  • W3 Schools - Learn CSS
  • HTML Code Tutorial
  • html goodies

• another nice site: Caltech Information Technology Services

• SelfHTML (German only)

• The manual of Alpha's html mode is well written and another recommended starting point, especially if you are editing your web sites with the Alpha editor. Alternatively to the link given here, launch AlphaX, enter mode 'html', and choose menu command Help in the mode's 2nd menu.

• The Mac Classic standalone applications HTML Vocabulary 2.0 (html variant) and MacWilbur offer a very pretty introduction as well as a reference.

• Die Webküche ist eine attraktive, deutschsprachige Alternative, angeboten von der Fachhochschule Biel vom Küchenchef Werner Hett.

• to learn programing of entry forms, cgi (common gateway interface) see some hints at CGI Programming or visit The CGI Resource Index for tutorials and sample code.

• working with styles: CSS2 Reference

• NCSA Imagemap Tutorial

References & Documentations of html

• folder " DevAux" contains useful html files which explain fully html 3.2 and html 4.0 and contain useful links to other sites in order to learn html
• Go to reference documentations for html 4.0 or download a html 3.2 reference manual (a double clickable application for the Mac (Classic)) or all these online sources (@ whitefiles.org).
• Visit this site for latest documentation on html and its successors like XML at W3C (www Consortium) Technical Reports & Publications

Hints on what to do and what to avoid

• "Top Ten Mistakes"by Jakob Nielsen
• MultiOS Browser Tests by Matthias Mauch
• the Art of Web Publishing by Reto Ambühler, Webmaster ETHZ
• W3C Accessibility Guidelines how to design for all visitors, such as blind, manually impaired, poor, busy etc.
• Tool to test accesibility for blind visitors

User Interface (UI) Guidelines

• Macintosh UI standard
• Windows UI standard
• Java UI standard

ETHZ Weboffice Guidelines

• Weboffice
• Corporate Communications

Some Color Samples

HTML 4.0 Kanzaki Quick Color Table

Smileys

     chmod 664 of the file*
     chmod g+s of the file*

-rw-rwSr--  1 www.se  1176818 Feb 17 21:04 MacMETH_3.2.5.sea.hqx
-rw-rwSr--  1 www.se  4532224 Feb 17 21:20 RAMSES_2.2.3b20.sea.bin
-rw-rwSr--  1 www.se  6165014 Feb 17 21:25 RAMSES_2.2.3b20.sea.hqx

-rw-rwSr--  1 www.se         38 Feb  8 21:22 .message
lrwxrwxrwx  1 www.se          8 Feb  8 21:23 00_Index -> .message

Responsible for content and site maintenance:   Systems Ecology Webmaster ( Last modified 10/29/24 )