Building a one-name study website

Building a one-name study website

<p>A one-name study website is an excellent way to publish your results as it is easy to update as new information is found. It also maximises the chance of others finding your study. Members report that they get more contacts through their website than any other source, including the Guild itself.</p> <p>Even if you don't have a website, do make sure you create a <a href="/managing-your-one-name-study-profile-page/" target="_blank">Guild profile page</a>, which is really easy to do.</p> <p>When starting a website, it is useful to read the Guild's own guidelines for those entering its annual Web Award competition, which can be found <a href="/members/webaward.html" target="_blank">here</a>. This is excellent guidance on the "do's and don'ts" of websites. More advice can also be found in Teresa Pask's presentation on <a href="/publishing-your-one-name-study-seminar/" target="_blank">Creating a one-name study website</a> at a Guild Seminar.</p> <h3>What you will need</h3> <ul> <li>Some webspace: <ul> <li>Your ISP may provide some free</li> <li>Take advantage of the Guild's <a href="/the-members-websites-project-mwp/" target="_blank">Members' Websites Project</a>.</li> </ul> </li> <li>Optionally, a domain name</li> <li>A means to design, create and edit your pages</li> <li>A program to upload the finished pages to the web space</li> </ul> <h3>Criteria for choosing your webspace</h3> <ul> <li>Cost</li> <li>Size of space</li> <li>Download volume (limits or pricing)</li> <li>Banner &amp; pop-up adverts (to be avoided)</li> <li>May not support FTP uploads</li> <li>Integrated web-based editor (for simple sites, so no need for your own web editor</li> <li>Support for server-side programs (for advanced users who want CGI, PHP, SQL etc)</li> <li>Integration with domain name (you can point a domain name to any space, or it can be directly associated with it)</li> </ul> <h3>Think about your own domain name</h3> <p>Which looks better:</p> <p>http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~yourname/<br /> or<br /> http://www.yourname.name or <br /> http://www.yourname.info</p> <p>Avoid .com or .co.uk domain names as these imply a commercial website.</p> <h3>Web editors</h3> <ul> <li>A plain text editor (eg Notepad) <ul> <li>Very hard work</li> </ul> </li> <li>A Web Editor program <ul> <li>Some HTML knowledge needed</li> </ul> </li> <li>A WYSIWYG web editor <ul> <li>No HTML knowledge needed, but may produce bloated web pages that can behave unpredictably</li> </ul> </li> <li>Save a word-processed document as HTML <ul> <li>As above; bloated code inevitable</li> </ul> </li> <li>A web-based WYSIWYG editor <ul> <li>May have limited functionality</li> </ul> </li> </ul> <p>The industry standard is Dreamweaver (over £400), or there are free editors available to download, such as <a href="http://www.nvu.com" target="_blank">Nvu</a> and many more in between. Try to avoid using a WYSIWYG editor (like Microsoft Frontpage) if you can, as once you've used one to generate the site code, it is almost impossible to edit it manually. Further experiences of members can be found in <a href="/wiki/guild-wiki/publish/web-publishing-software-programs/" target="_blank">Web publishing software programs</a>.</p> <p>Many Web Editors have a built-in FTP program to upload your pages to the site, but a standalone FTP program is always useful to have. Some free ones are available.</p> <h3>Design approach</h3> <ul> <li>Design the site plan: what pages are you going to have?</li> <li>Design the page template and navigation and make sure every page follows it</li> <li>Build individual pages</li> </ul> <p>Do look at previous Guild <a href="/members/awards.html#website" target="_blank">Web Award winners</a> for ideas.</p> <h3>The home page</h3> <ul> <li>First impressions are important</li> <li>Make it quick to load and avoid too much detail</li> <li>Don’t use huge graphics which are slow to load</li> <li>Introduce your site and explain what’s in it</li> <li>Make it clear it’s a one-name study (don't mix with your own family history)</li> </ul> <h3>Page design</h3> <ul> <li>Create a consistent style and structure for colours, text, menus and navigation <ul> <li>A consistently presented ‘navbar’ is ideal</li> <li>If you can learn to use CSS Stylesheets, this can help maintain your style</li> </ul> </li> <li>Create a logical flow through the pages: don't force visitors back to the main menu every time</li> <li>Ensure visitors don’t get ‘lost’, provide some ‘breadcrumbs’. <ul> <li>Consider using ‘Hansel Lines’ e.g. for the page “My Team”:</li> <li>Home &gt; This Study &gt; My team</li> </ul> </li> <li>Choose font sizes with care and don’t use too many <ul> <li>Unless you use <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/typography/web/embedding/default.htm" target="_blank">Font Embedding</a> (and this only works with the IE browser anyway), don’t use unusual fonts as site visitors won’t have them on their machines</li> <li>Sans serif fonts are easier to read at small sizes: Verdana was created by Microsoft for this purpose (you are reading Verdana here)</li> </ul> </li> <li>Ensure text and background colour or graphics do not clash</li> <li>Avoid fixed size background wallpapers</li> <li>Don’t overload the page: white-space is good!</li> <li>Provide a site index and/or map</li> <li>Check spelling and grammar</li> <li>Check all your links!</li> <li>Avoid excessive scrolling and over-wide text <ul> <li>Constraining text inside borderless tables can help (using CSS to do this is even better!)</li> </ul> </li> <li>Do use photos and graphics, but with care <ul> <li>Use 96dpi, medium compression and display at native size</li> </ul> </li> <li>If you wish to use ‘Clever Navbars’ – it is best to use Javascript rather than Java Applets</li> <li>Check compatibility with different screen sizes <ul> <li>800x600</li> <li>1024x768</li> <li>1280x1024</li> </ul> </li> <li>Check compatibility with different browsers (This is especially important if you use complex CSS or Javascript): <ul> <li>Google Chrome</li> <li>MS Internet Explorer</li> <li>Netscape Navigator</li> <li>Opera</li> <li>Mozilla Firefox</li> </ul> </li> <li>Encode any e-mail addresses to prevent spammers harvesting them. <a href="http://primus.tucows.com/preview/266685.html" target="_blank">EmailEncoder</a> is a useful utility to do this.</li> <li>Finally, validate your site coding using the <a href="http://validator.w3.org/" target="_blank">W3C validator</a>.</li> </ul> <h3>One-name content</h3> <ul> <li>Make sure it’s clear that the site is about a one-name study <ul> <li>Don’t mix it with your own family history</li> </ul> </li> <li>Do provide a link to the Guild site (logos are available <a href="/guild-banner-and-badge/" target="_blank">here</a> for you to use)</li> <li>State which variants are studied</li> <li>Meaning of surname (e.g. locative, occupational, nickname, patronymic)</li> <li>Origin of the name or earliest references</li> <li>Distribution of the name <ul> <li>Across the globe (remember your study is world-wide!)</li> <li>Over time</li> <li>Patterns of emigration and immigration</li> <li>Frequency</li> </ul> </li> <li>Principal family groups</li> <li>Notable people carrying the name</li> <li>Other interesting tales</li> <li>Where you fit in (briefly)</li> <li>Heraldry (with warnings!)</li> <li>Photo Gallery</li> <li>Sources extracted</li> <li>Raw data (if you wish)</li> <li>Link to Guild Archive (if used)</li> <li>Assembled pedigrees &amp; trees (if you wish) <ul> <li>Many genealogy programs can automatically produce web pages from their databases. These produce a large number of static HTML pages.</li> <li>There are also many utilities that can convert a Gedcom file to static web pages, see for example <a href="http://www.cyndislist.com/gedcom.htm#HTML" target="_blank">here</a>.</li> <li>As an alternative, consider the use of 'active databases' such as <a href="http://www.phpgedview.net" target="_blank">PhpGedView</a> or <a href="http://www.tngsitebuilding.com" target="_blank">The Next Generation</a>; both require PHP and SQL on your server.</li> </ul> </li> <li>Documents to download</li> <li>Other web sites and useful links</li> <li>Other researchers</li> <li>Mailing list, guestbook or blog</li> <li>What’s New</li> <li>Make sure your page is listed on the Guild's Register database.</li> </ul> <p>All members should be able to benefit from the similar template system being offered by Google for constructing simple websites online. Further details are <a href="https://sites.google.com" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>