[ Home or use back button to return ]

How to help with the web site

If you have general comments, email the webmaster dusty@stonemuse.com. If you want to help, what follows are some ways you can provide material.

Pencil markup. It may be easiest for you just to pencil in your changes on a printed web page and mail it to the web master or to the page owner if there is one. Otherwise describe the changes in an email to the webmaster.

Simple typed text. Even better, if you are submitting simple material, type it up with minimal formatting - mostly just headings and paragraphs in typewriter or simple text style. Don't use fancy styling such as line spacing, orphan control, different fonts and font sizes, etc.

HTML markup. Best, if you have the skills use your word processor or page editor and make the appropriate HTML page. To get a copy of the page one way is to simply view the page source on your browser and copy it into your page editor or word processor. Edit it, save it as HTML, and email it to the web master. Or become a page owner and update the web site directly.

Layout Issues. If you are interested in changing the layout of an existing page, contact the web master or page owner to work out the possibilities and constraints. We love new and exciting stuff, but will it translate to a web page that web browsers can produce? And is there someone with the time and skills to create the page? Doesn't hurt to bring it up and talk about. Who knows where it might lead.

Putting pictures online. There are many ways to incorporate pictures. So you should first gather the appropriate digital images in jpeg or png format. Then determine the text and links that go with the images.

  1. Use a public media server like flicker or picasa and have the web master create a link to it.
  2. Create a picture gallery using photoshop elements, iphoto, or other program.
  3. Have the web master or a friend help you create a photo gallery or custom page.

Flickr and Picasa are only two of dozens of media hosting sites. Here are some ideas for finding out about other places to serve your photos:

Here is the information you need to make a photo gallery:

Here are some web pages that show you how to create picture galleries for the web on your computer at home. The output can usually be put on any web site including this one if you don't have your own. Just create the web gallery and email the HTML files to this site's web master. Hopefully you are not using MS Frontpage which dosn't doesn't adhere to standards very well. There are several other free or inexpensive programs listed on the About.com site below:

Fancy design, Animation, Video, and other progressive things. We want to use anything that makes the user's experience better. So if you want to add things like flash animation, video, and other embedded objects work with the web master to figure out a reasonable way to do it. However, the top pages are designed for maximum accessibility. So first we make sure we won't break that principle. Most dynamic material is probably best on a secondary page. But we have to experiment to see what works best for the user. For example, it might make sense to embedded a youtube video on the home page if there was a really good video to share.

Note: A page owner is someone who has agreed to coordinate and/or edit one or more pages for some period of time. They either know how to do HTML pages or have arranged to have them done once they determine the changes. In reality the web master ends up being the page owner and/or html editor until someone else steps up to take over a page or several.