This assignment requires you to learn and evaluate a software package of your chosing, and create World Wide Web (WWW) pages that contain your evaluation of the software package. This assignment will familiarize you with the Web page fundamentals that you learn in your tutorial.
Get together in groups of two to four people from your tutorial. Learning a new software package can be quite challenging and it helps to work in groups. Groups are also useful when creating original and fun-to-use Web pages. Someone in your group must have access to the software package that you chose to evaluate. Everyone in the group must be in the same tutorial.
Decide on a software package to evaluate. Pick any commercial software package that someone in your group has legal access to. You are encouraged to pick a program available outside UoT, such as a program owned by one of your group members. All group members must try the software. If co-ordinating access to an outside program is not possible, you may evaluate a piece of software on the CDF-PC network. Speak to your TA or instructor for suggestions.
Your review should address (at least) the following questions:
(See the on-line HTML primer discussed in the second tutorial. Read the WinOOT section in the PC 96 booklet in your course notes. Also see the csc104 Web page, including the source code.) Learn to use the WinOOT editor and HTML. Since HTML files are normal text files, you can use the WinOOT editor to create the HTML source files for this assignment. The WinOOT editor is part of an environment designed to create, debug and run Turing programs. Since you are using the WinOOT editor to create text files only, many of the WinOOT menu options will not apply to your files. For example, you will not Run your HTML files.
Before creating HTML files, use the WinOOT editor to create an assignment cover sheet that includes the names and student numbers of each group member. Include the name of your TA and clearly indicate which group member is electronically submitting the files.
Organize your review into several Web pages. These Web pages need not be overly elaborate but they should at least contain the following characteristics:
Remember to end your HTML file names with .htm, which tells Netscape (and your marker) that the named file is an HTML file.
You may want to use some files that are not in HTML. For example, you may want to show the output from your software package. Netscape can display text files (ie. names must end in .txt) and some others. Check with your TA or instructor if you have any other file types in mind.
When creating your WWW document, you may want to preview it with Netscape. To do this, start Netscape as usual and click the open button. At the prompt, specify the file you want to preview. If you have the file mypage.htm in your home directory, then type file:///h|/mypage.htm. The prefix file tells Netscape to look for this file in your account instead of over the network. The h| portion of the URL tells Netscape that the file is located on your H drive.
The URL for the small library of images available for this assignment is
file:///G|/www/csc104h/images.htm
You can also find links to the images for this assignment from the CSC104 Web pages.
It is standard practice to use relative addressing to refer to different pages of a single document (such as your assignment). This allows the document to be moved to different sites on the Web without changing the references within the individual pages. When submitting your assignment, you ARE moving your Web pages to a different Web site; hence, be sure to use relative addressing between your Web pages. Do NOT include a <base> tag as a base address can mess up relative addressing if the <base> tag is not altered when the document is relocated on the web.
You will hand-in your Web pages electronically. Create a text file called README that explains the structure of your assignment including the Web pages and any other files. Include the README file in your submission, which will orient the TA in working through your assignment. Include in the README file all the names and students numbers of your group members. To submit electronically, click on the Hand in icon in the File Utilities window. You should see a list of your files. Choose one to submit and click the Hand in Assignment button. Repeat this until you have submitted all relevant files. You may hand in the same file more than once but only the last version will count. Because all your submitted files will be in a single directory for your account, do NOT use subdirectories in your original Web pages on the H drive. Only one group member does the submission.
Hand-in a printout of the header page that you created in step 3.
Your tutor will be viewing your web pages to see how friendly and informative they are.
Working with computers can be unpredictable and sometimes frustrating. The following may help: