Adding A Page

To see the printer friendly version of this tutorial, click HERE

Please note: You can only create a new page in a group where you're a manager or an assistant manager.

If you haven't already done so, you need to upload your web set in to an MSN album. See my tutorial here that show's you how to to create a new album and upload your set.

Ok, let's make your welcome page :o)

First thing you need to do is open your group twice. To do this, open your group then right click on My Groups at the top of the page. Click on Open in new window. Now click on your group. When it opens, you need to go to your album with your web set in and open it.

Go back to the first group you opened and click on Managers Tools at the bottom of the menu.

Click on Add a page

Click on A Custom Web Page

 

When the new window opens, give your page a name and a description

OK, we need to know what all the tools are. Because of the normal size of the following screenshot, I've made it into a thumbnail. If you click on the following screenshot, the full size screenshot will open in a new window.

The following list tells you what each tool is:

  1. Cut

  2. Copy

  3. Paste

  4. Paragraph Style

  5. Font Style

  6. Font Size

  7. Bold

  8. Italic

  9. Underline

  10. Left Justify

  11. Centre Justify

  12. Right Justify

  13. Numbered List

  14. Bulleted List

  15. Decrease Indent

  16. Increase Indent

  17. Insert Line

  18. Insert Link

  19. Insert Table

  20. Insert Picture

  21. Background Colour

  22. Text Colour

  23. Emoticons

1) OK, we're going to add our first background tile now. Click on the Insert Table icon.

2) A new window will open. The first thing to do is to change the number in the rows and columns boxes too 1

3) Now Click on Padding and Spacing. The padding size depends on how much of your bottom layer you want showing. I set mine to 5 or 10 for the first layer and the Cell Spacing to 0

4) Click on borders and set it to 0 unless you want to have a border. If you do, set the border width the size you want it then choose a border colour that will complement your web set.

5) Now click on Background. Remember we opened our group twice at the start of this tutorial? Well here's why we did that. Click on the other group you opened. You should be in your album where you uploaded your set. Click on the first background tile you want to use, I find the gradient tile looks best on the first layer (I used the blinds tile on the screenshots to make it easier for you to see) When the page opens, right click on the tile and go to properties.

6) Now we need to copy the URL of the tile. To do this, click once anywhere on the URL then on your keyboard, press ctrl and a then ctrl and c

This selects all of the URL and then copies it.

7) Go back to the group with your new page in progress and click in the box at the side of where it says Background Image URL. On your keyboard, press ctrl and v

This pastes the URL into the box

Click Insert Table

You will now have this

8) Click in the square and use your backspace key to delete any spaces that might have been put there (the adding table option tends to place spaces in the table to make it easier for you to place your cursor inside but the spaces can sometimes make your page distort.) then put a tick in the box at the bottom of the page where it says Use HTML to create your page

9) You now need to place your cursor right next to the 0 where it says cell padding=10

Press the space bar once then type

width=100%

exactly as I have typed it then press your space once more.

10) Un-tick the HTML box and you should now have this

OK, that's your first background done :o)

Click inside the first table and now you're ready to add your next table on top of it.

Repeat steps 1-10 but this time set your cell padding to 25 and use a different tile.

Again repeat steps 1-10 setting your cell padding to 5 or 10 and use your gradient tile.

For the last time, repeat steps 1-10 this time setting your cell padding to 5 and using the light tile.

 

On fourth (top table) table I set my cell padding at 5, the padding stops your text and pictures going right to the edge of the table.

 

Time now to add the rest of your set. I like to centre the content of my page. Click on the Centre Justify icon and click on your page where you want your header to go.

Click on the Insert Picture icon

When the window opens, click on the group where you uploaded your set and then click on the album.

When the album opens, click on your header then click Add Photos.

You can add any items that are uploaded to your album by clicking on Insert Picture. You can also add text.

Choose your font size, style and colour and type out your text.

The next stage is optional.

I wanted my buttons to go in a box, so under my text, I added a new table and used my gradient tile as the background. I centred it, made my cell padding 5 and my cell spacing 0. Instead of making my width 100% like I did for the three backgrounds, I made the width 70%

I then added another table inside that one with the same settings except the width has to be 100% this time. I used my top tile as the background.

With the cursor in the middle of my new box I added my buttons.

You can just add your buttons anywhere on the page if you prefer.

Ok, we now need to link our buttons to the pages in our group.

I made buttons for Chat, Pictures and Message boards.

Click on the chat button. Little boxes will appear around the edge of the button. Now click on the Insert Link button.

When the new window opens, click on the little arrow at the side of the Select a group page

When the drop down menu opens, click on chat

Now Click on Insert.

Repeat this for the rest of your buttons.

If you want to link a button to a page that isn't in your group all you have to do is type the address of the page you want to link to in the box next to where it says http://

You don't have to have a button to do a link, you can put a link using text.

Highlight the text you want to add the link to by clicking at the start of the text and keeping your mouse pressed, drag your mouse over the text. It will now be highlighted blue or black. Add your link same as before.

You  can also put a link on a button or text so that people can click to email you.

To do this, highlight the text or button you want to add the link too.

 Now click on the Insert Link icon and when the window opens click on the little arrow at the side of where it says http://

A drop down menu will open, click on mailto:

Now type in your email address in the next box and click insert

When you've finished adding content to your page, click on Use HTML to create your page. Press CTRL and a then CTRL and c to copy the html code.

Open Notepad and press CTRL and v to paste the html code into notepad. Now you have a backup of your page in case anything happens to it ;)

Make sure you list all credits at the bottom of the page, some tube sites insist that you place a link to the site you downloaded the tube from if you use it on a page but even if they don't it's just good 'netiquette'  to provide links for everything that hasn't been created or written by you. Remember also though, to give yourself credit for the things you have made and let everyone know whether it's link ware or not. If you don't want anyone using your set, state that on your page. It doesn't stop everyone but it stops the nice people who prefer to ask for permission rather than just steal ;)

Click Create Page (or save page if you've previously saved it) and you're done!

Click here and here to see the finished pages.