Answers to Reader's E-mail Questions

Be sure to check this page as you're working through the 24 hours of the book. Newer questions appear on top.

HATRED OF GREECE

Q: I am making progress through your book. I hope that hatred for nations-states does not appear regularly. Have you sold many copies of your book in Greece? -- C.T.

A: It took me a while, but I finally figured out that you were referring to the Edward George Bulwer-Lytton quotation criticizing Greece in 1826. I included it in an example because it was odd, not because I was endorsing or celebrating Lytton's dislike for the country. I don't know how well the book has done in Greece, but the lack of a single e-mail from that country in more than 32 months makes me fear the news is bad.

IMAGE BORDERS

Q: I spent a whole day creating images which later I converted into hyperlink (hypertext). It was very disappointing to see that the linked images has blue square outline. Is there a way to get rid of the lines? -- M.A.

A: This is easy to remove in Claris Home Page. Click the image once so a blue line appears around it, then click the Object Editor button, which has a wrench on it. The Image dialog box will appear, and one of the things you can change on this dialog is the Border textfield. Give the image a border value of 0 and the blue outline will disappear.

JAVASCRIPT

Q: Can JavaScript be added to the HTML of the sites created with Claris Home Page? Also, is there a Teach Yourself JavaScript in 24 Hours or At Least Before You Die book? -- T.B.

A: JavaScript requires the ability to work directly with the HTML tags on a Web page. This isn't possible in Home Page Lite, but is fully supported in Home Page 3.0, which has an extra HTML editing mode. A 30-day trial demo of the program is available from the Claris Home Page Web site. There are several books in the Teach Yourself series covering JavaScript: the upcoming Sams' Teach Yourself JavaScript 1.2 in a Week, and its previous editions, Sams' Teach Yourself JavaScript 1.1 in a Week and Sams' Teach Yourself JavaScript 1.0 in a Week. JavaScript enables the "mouse-over" animation that causes images to change when you move a mouse over them and other special effects.

CD-ROM PROBLEMS

Q: I just bought your book, and I couldn't get the CD to work. What can I do to get it fixed or get a replacement? -- G.M.

A: It sounds like your CD is defective -- the CD should contain source files for all of the book's Web pages, images, other resource files, and all of the software listed in Appendix C. If you can use the CD to see its contents, check what you have against the full directory listing for the book's CD. If you want to contact Sams to request a replacement CD, you can call (800) 858-7674 or send e-mail to the Technical Support department.

BOOKS ABOUT HOME PAGE 2.0 AND 3.0

Q: I want to keep learning after reading your book. Have you written any about Claris Home Page 2.0 or 3.0? -A.M.M.

A: I don't have any current plans to write a book about the newer versions of Home Page, but I've been using version 3.0 lately and it's an excellent upgrade. There's more support for what-you-see-is-what-you-get editing, which means that pages look similar in the editor and a Web browser. Also, there's a feature to edit the HTML code of a page directly, and other much-appreciated improvements. Visit this site's links page for a way to download the trial version.

IMAGES ON THE MAC

Q: I'm a Macintosh user, and I'm having trouble loading the images for exercises in the book. What can I do? -- M.H.

A: Some Mac users are experiencing some incompatibilities with the example graphics files. They are all available on this Web site in the examples section, so you can use those as an alternative.

CAN'T PUBLISH IMAGES THROUGH FTP

Q: I created a home page with the software supplied with the book, but when I tried to publish it through FTP to a free site (HyperMart), the pages appear but the images do not. When I previewed the pages in Netscape Navigator off line, everything was OK. Why is this happening? -- V.

A: Take a look at your Web pages using Navigator's Page Source feature (View | Page Source in Navigator 4.0). Make sure that the images do not contain references to local file folders on your system as in C:\Webwork\MyPage\images\logo.gif. Home Page Lite sometimes will insert a full folder reference when you insert an image rather than using just a partial folder reference such as images/logo.gif. To fix this, right-click the image in Home Page Lite, select Edit Src and delete anything referring to a folder on your system. In the preceding example, the correct setting for the image probably should be just images/logo.gif.

PREFERRED WEB BROWSER

Q: I'm on page 27 and can't seem to use preferred Web browser. How can I fix this? -- U.V.

A: You need to configure Home Page Lite to find your preferred browser. To do this, select the menu command Edit | Preferences... and then click the Browser Preview tab. A dialog box will open with some browser-related settings. Click Set... to find your Web browser's main executable file and select it. On a Windows system, most browsers probably are in a folder such as Program Files\Netscape or Program Files\Internet Explorer.