Using Mozilla Composer or Nvu

If you want more control over your web pages, the “Nvu” (enn-view) HTML processor is easy to learn and gives much better control over your web page layouts.  Nvu runs on Windows and Mac OS X. You can find it at http://nvu.com/download.html.  If you already use the Mozilla browser, you can find this same HTML processor as the Mozilla “Composer”.

This technique is less convenient than simply doing a “Save As” from your favorite word processor.  However, some teachers choose to use Mozilla rather than upgrading their operating system to Windows XP Professional.

Here are detailed instructions for using Nvu or Mozilla Composer for posting files to your teacher folder.
  1. Launch your browser.  You will use this to look at the effects of your work.
  2. In your browser, browse to a pre-existing file you wish to edit.
  3. Select the web address (URL) and press Copy (Control-C).
  4. Launch Nvu, or launch Mozilla and press the little Composer icon on the lower left.
  5. Select File / Open Web Location, and paste the URL into the dialog.
    An example URL is http://liveoakacademy.org/faculty/~jdoe/vita.html
    The selected web page should appear in the Nvu/Composer window.
  6. Make a change to the web page, and select File / Publish As.
  7. The resulting dialog will collect information about the file itself, and about the web folder to which you are posting.  First, enter the web folder information.
  8. Click "New Site", or select the "Settings" tab to begin specifying your web folder.
  9. Under "Web Site Information", enter the URL of your public folder.
    For example:  http://liveoakacademy.org/faculty/~jdoe/ (include the last slash)
  10. Put the identical URL under the "Publishing Server" label.
  11. Enter your user name (jdoe) and password (5greencheeses) in the appropriate spaces.
  12. Click the "Save Password" box, to remember the password.
  13. Name the web site something useful, like "jdoe @ LOA".
  14. The previous several steps (8-13) are done once only.  Now go to the other tab in the "Publish As" dialog, and enter the information about this particular file.
  15. Make sure the "Page Title" field contains a good title for your web page.
    (It will appear along the top of browser windows when people look at your page.)
  16. Make sure the "File Name" field contains the name of your web page, such as vita.html
  17. Make sure the "Site Subdirectory" field is either empty, or is the name of one of your sub-folders.  (You have one for each class.)
  18. Click "Publish".  Wait for the little altert box to report success or failure.
  19. If you had success, go back to your browser to inspect your changes.
    Press "Reload" as necessary.
After you try out this technique, you will find that the files you post are “stuck” to the folder; you cannot delete them.  The webmaster will be happy to do this for you.  Or, you can create your own “index.html” file with links to the significant files and/or sub-folders in your account.  Such indexes replace the “industrial-strength ugly” folder indexes that are automatically generated by the web site.

Please contact webmaster@liveoakacademy.org if you have any questions.