BCN Page and Center Developer Resources

BCN Specific Reference Materials

Templates - the suggested templates for BCN Information Centers and Information Providers
- BCN Graphic Headers and Footers for Information Centers
- BCN Graphic Headers and Footers for Information Providers
Safe e-mail feedback
- mailto: links and many email forms tend to attract SPAM. BCN volunteers developed safemail to address this and other problems.
- Safemail uses nicknames to hide email addresses from SPAM. All BCN center developers and key developers have nicknames. If you need a new nickname contact Paul von Behren
- Here's an example of using safemail:
```
   Send comments to
   <a href="/cgi-bin/safemail.cgi?nickname=toolmaster">
    Paul von Behren.
   </a>
```
Server Side Includes (SSI)
- Server Side Includes allow you to add dynamic features to a web page.
- Files with .shtml suffixes are processed for SSIs.
Page Statistics and Counters
- How to add a hit counters and more useful alternatives for counting visitors.
Automated "Last Updated..." information for a page
- For .html or .htm pages add the following fragment:
  Last Update: <script type="text/javascript">document.write(document.lastModified);</script> ;
- For .shtml pages add the following fragment:

Reader Feedback

Who's linking to BCN?

Google can tell you who links to a page; just go to Google and type in "link: " followed by the URL instread of search terms. Update the path below and hit "Enter" to test this feature:

How to create a form to search a site hosted on BCN or block a site from search engines.

Modify this sample HTML file to redirect the browser to a new URL. You can get a copy of it via "File/Save as..." after loading it.
The key to the redirection lies in this command:
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="10;URL=http://bcn.boulder.co.us/community/tools/">
To keep search engines from sending folks to the old site, you should also add the following:
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW">
You should also locate other sites linking to the old BCN site and let them know the site has moved. Google can search for these sites. In the google search field, type "link:" followed by the site and path (no http://). For example, "link:bcn.boulder.co.us/voc".
For an explanation and listing of the META tag attributes, look at HTML Meta Tags
Getting Started A tutorial provided by the Ontario Prevention Clearinghouse (Canada) for Health Oriented Clients. The principles are the same for all WEB users.
Unix -- Basic Unix commands that will help you work with files on the BCN server.

COLORS
- Using Colors in HTML Files (Provided by Skunk Creek Computing Services)
NCD HTML Design Guide
- A complete Reference guide to HTML

Why Websites Fail - A tutorial, checklist, and bibliography by Michael C. Gilbert, author of the "Nonprofit Site Analyzer Reports".
Jakob Nielsen's Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design. Very insightful, very much common-sense.
Jayne Craven's Guide to Web Development and Maintenance
Accessibility Guidelines - The "How To" information you need & why you need it.

HTML Editors
Dr. HTML Dr. HTML will catch coding errors that Netscape will accommodate, but other browsers will not. Due to the fact that BCN is accessed by many browsers, using this tool is a necessary step in BCN's development process

WWW Consortium Validator
- This is an easy-to-use HTML validation service based on an SGML parser. It checks HTML documents for compliance with W3C HTML Recommendations and other HTML standards.
- To use the W3C HTML 4.0 Recommendation, start your document with one of the following doctype declarations:
  - <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/strict.dtd">
  - <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd">
  - <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Frameset//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/frameset.dtd">

Bobby is an HTML checker that tells you what's not compatible with a selection of Web browsers. For more information, look at: " BOBBYHOW "

Last Update: , by Paul von Behren BCN Page and Center Developer Resources
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