Hands-On Self-Training: Lesson 5
Make a Web page an official part of our T-Net site

First you may want to repeat some of the operations you learned in previous lessons, because there's no reason for a "just testing" page to become official and have some continuing existence and accessibility on the T-Net. And then you may want to read the guides to T-Net Authoring and TNRCC Public Web Site Authoring to pick up more information about roles and responsibilities and processes in the TNRCC Web Authoring world.

Because anyone in the world can see Web pages published to our www public Web site, a formal review/approval by Agency Communications is part of that publication process. But though the T-Net publication process is more informal, most of the information in TNRCC WWW Style Guide applies to T-Net authoring as well. So if you're stumped for what real information of use to TNRCC employees you could create a Web page to present, pay particular attention to the discussions of Developing and Organizing Web Content and Implementation and Maintenance.

Besides reading, you may want to confer with your Office Lead Internet Developer or some experienced Web developer in your Division. That person may have a suggestion about a needed Web page or let you know if someone else is already working on a similar task or has created a similar page.

As with any act of creation, you'll have to determine when your Web page is complete. Since writing HTML code is programming, you might want to know that a programmer must look for two kinds of problems with code: syntax errors and logic errors. Syntax errors are bits of invalid code, and there are ususally diagnostic tools to spot such errors. Logic errors are more subtle—the code compiles and runs, but does it do what it was intended to do?

Anyhow, you'll need to review your page both for the correctness of the HTML it incorporates and for the appropriateness and effectiveness of its content. For the former, you can turn to HTML validator software for help. For the latter, you'll need to share your page with one or more persons, particularly your manager. Is the purpose of your page clear? Is its content accurate and up-to-date? Is it easy to use? Does it provide links to related pages and make the relevance of the links clear?

OK. Enough talk. Now try your hand at the steps outlined below.

• Develop the Web page. (Look for some WordPerfect document with useful content that could be shared. Make use of the T-Net template or your Office's preferred template for structuring the content.)
• Check the HTML: Submit your page to Dr. HTML.
• Show the page to your manager and get your management's OK on content.
• Ask for and make use of feedback on how to make your page better.
• Send Kay Keys an email that gives the URL and provides information about the purpose and subject of the Web page, especially if it is directed to a broad audience of TNRCC employees.
• Also coordinate with the person maintaining your Office's T-Net page to add a link or links from that page to your page, especially if it is information from or intended for a particular organization in the agency.
• Watch for your page in What's New on T-Net.
• Test the links from T-Net menu pages and your Office's T-Net page.