1. Google to launch operating system
(NEWS/GLOBAL DEVELOPMENTS)

Is the launch of Google Chrome Operating System a move to strike at the heart of Microsoft's software empire? In July, Google announced that it is developing an operating system (OS) for

2. New visual search on Bing
(NEWS/GLOBAL DEVELOPMENTS)

Microsoft introduces "visual search" to its Bing search engine in a clear attempt to differentiate it from Google.   Bing's search interface Microsoft recently int

3. 2.8a Online content sharing services
(WEBGUIDE/WEB PUBLICATION BASICS)

Please note the content on this page is still under review by the Web Guide Editorial Board Some Web sites store users' content (such as links or videos) and allow them

4. 2.8b Using YouTube to store and share FAO videos
(WEBGUIDE/WEB PUBLICATION BASICS)

...title, tags and ownership) appear on screen next to each video. Each video is also accompanied by the HTML code required to link to the video and/or embed it within another Web page (unless the vid...

5. Customized search from Google
(NEWS/GLOBAL DEVELOPMENTS)

Google has unveiled a tool that allows users to personalize internet searches with their own notes and changes. On 20 Nov 2008 Google launched SearchWiki which allows users to delete search r

6. Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design, by Jakob Nielsen
(NEWS/GLOBAL DEVELOPMENTS)

Jakob Nielsen (who has been called "the king of usability") has written an article that presents the very worst mistakes of Web design. Jakob Nielsen's top ten mistakes in Web desig

7. End of Support for Netscape Web Browser
(NEWS/GLOBAL DEVELOPMENTS)

Netscape's long and storied history as a web browser will come to an end on March 1, as AOL has officially set a date for the browser's demise. AOL originally put Netscape on death row at the

8. 2.8 Social Media Policy
(WEBGUIDE/WEB PUBLICATION BASICS)

This section is intended for those people who are considering implementing official collaborative tools, sites or services, or are simply investigating the possibilities. With the advent of &

9. Web 2.0. So?
(NEWS/GLOBAL DEVELOPMENTS)

What exactly is Web 2.0? Web 2.0, a phrase coined in 2004, refers to a perceived second generation of Web-based services - such as collabrative tools (wikis for example), communication tools

10. Acronyms
(RESOURCES/RESOURCES)

...X Hexadecimal   HTML Hypertext Markup Language   ...

11. 7.1 Testing approaches
(WEBGUIDE/TESTING)

... This software has not been tested by KCE, but more information can be found at the WebQA Web site. HTML Link Validator is a professional tool for checking Web sites for broken links. This fast an...

12. 6.11 Domains, URLs and aliases
(WEBGUIDE/CONSTRUCTION)

Policy www.fao.org is the entry point to all FAO information on the Internet and is the domain under which, in principle, all information published by FAO on the Internet should be located. Except

13. 6.9 Printable pages
(WEBGUIDE/CONSTRUCTION)

...st important element is that the text and content is readable. This can be done by either adjusting the HTML code for tables and images to fit within the prescribed width, by using a print-friendly st...

14. 6.5 Conversion of electronic documents
(WEBGUIDE/CONSTRUCTION)

...ge) or CutePDF (a free tool that converts Word documents into simple PDF files). Conversion into HTML is more difficult, especially if you have a large document that you cannot convert manually...

15. 6.4 Graphics
(WEBGUIDE/CONSTRUCTION)

Policy Images must be properly resized using graphics software such as Adobe Photoshop. Do not use HTML code to reduce the images' width and height. Images should not be animated, unless th

16. 6.3 Use of style sheets
(WEBGUIDE/CONSTRUCTION)

Use of style sheets HTML tags were originally designed to define the content of a document. The layout of the document was to be rendered by the browser, without using any formatting tags.

17. 6.2 HTML and coding
(WEBGUIDE/CONSTRUCTION)

18. 5.3c Web site design usability principles
(WEBGUIDE/DESIGN)

Policy Use of flash The FAO Web Quality Assurance Checklist recommends that the use of Flash or other interactive animation plugins should not be used for navigation or design effects. They shou

19. 5.4 Define technical implementation
(WEBGUIDE/DESIGN)

...mized databases). For a full glossary of additional Web site editing tools, see 6.12 Tools. HTML editing tools Web sites are often built and maintained using HTML editing tools. The mo...

20. 4.4f Metadata, search engines and their robots
(WEBGUIDE/CONTENT COLLECTION)

...spider robots), or that the linked pages should not be indexed. The robots meat tag, placed in the HTML "head" section of a page, can specify either or both of these actions. Mos...

21. 4.4e FAO standards for encoded metadata
(WEBGUIDE/CONTENT COLLECTION)

...an allow us to locate, evaluate and finally access Web resources. The metadata tags provided by XHTML are widely understood by search engines; at the same time, several search engines (suc...

22. 4.4d How to create or improve current metadata
(WEBGUIDE/CONTENT COLLECTION)

...data already residing within a Web page. Following is a checklist for embedding metadata in HTML meta tags of your Web pages. familiarize yourself with the AgMES/DC Metadat...

23. 4.4c How to embed basic metadata in the HTML *head* section
(WEBGUIDE/CONTENT COLLECTION)

... information. The metadata should be in the language of the Web page. How to embed metadata in the XHTML <head> section The "head" section of a Web page is used to store the m...

24. 4.4 Metadata
(WEBGUIDE/CONTENT COLLECTION)

This section refers to XHTML 1.1. The specification for XHTML 2.0 is somewhat different. This topic provides an overview of metadata standards, how they are used and applied and guidelin

25. 4.3d How to optimize content for search engines
(WEBGUIDE/CONTENT COLLECTION)

...ces you might consider including keywords would be in ALT tags and perhaps COMMENT tags inserted in the HTML. For example: COMMENT: <!-- FAO News & Highlights --> Use keywords in...

26. 4.3b FAO resources for writers
(WEBGUIDE/CONTENT COLLECTION)

Hidden on the Intranet are a number of useful resources to help you write and edit good online content. Did you know for example, that the official way to write "website" at FAO is in fact

27. 4.2 FAO content repositories
(WEBGUIDE/CONTENT COLLECTION)

...be created from the CDR to other portions of the Web site. This applies to electronic documents such as HTML, Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat PDF. Incorporating documents into the CDR means that they...

28. 4.1 Developing a content inventory
(WEBGUIDE/CONTENT COLLECTION)

...ponsible for maintaining the content (doing the coding, conversion, production); document type (e.g. HTML pages, Word documents, PDF documents); links/URLs to existing material; and required/...

29. 3.1 Consultation
(WEBGUIDE/PLANNING)

...and visual design?   KCC - do you need translations? In how many languages? In what formats: XML, HTML, Word? in what encoding? What is your time frame? Contact KCCM-Programming@fao.org for more...

30. 2.7 Static and dynamic content
(WEBGUIDE/WEB PUBLICATION BASICS)

Web pages are either static HTML or dynamic pages. Static HTML pages are text files that are simply displayed by your browser. Alternatively, Dynamic Web pages are assembled as they are requested an

31. 1.2 Quality criteria of Web sites
(WEBGUIDE/INTRODUCTION)

Guideline There are some simple objective indicators of the quality of information on Web sites that can help frame general guidelines. For instance, quality can be judged in terms of accuracy, ti

32. 1.1 FAO and the Internet: What is an FAO Web site?
(WEBGUIDE/INTRODUCTION)

...d, the electronic files are processed by the Document Repository team in KCEW to publish them online as HTML and/or as a PDF version. Various exceptions can occur in the workflow, according t...

33. 6.12c Graphics, document and conversion tools
(WEBGUIDE/CONSTRUCTION)

... it. Contact your ITO to find out more about the licensing of this product within your department. HTML Transit HTML Transit converts specified source documents from Word to HTML or XML. It ...

34. 6.12b Web site content management systems
(WEBGUIDE/CONSTRUCTION)

...that has been used to construct FAO Web sites. DWS allows content managers or Web site authors, without HTML knowledge, to manage sites and pages dynamically and publish HTML pages based on a set of p...

35. 6.12a Recommended editing tools for Web site construction
(WEBGUIDE/CONSTRUCTION)

...ode-only editor for Web development. Advanced coding features enable you to instantly create and modify HTML, CFML, JSP, and XHTML tags, while enhanced productivity tools allow you to validate, reuse,...

36. 6.9b Other ways of preparing print-safe Web pages
(WEBGUIDE/CONSTRUCTION)

... files in the folder of your current Web site (printlink.asp and print.asp). Example: <html> <head> <title>A sample page</title> </he...

37. 6.9a How to prepare print-safe Web pages using CSS
(WEBGUIDE/CONSTRUCTION)

Guideline Most of the problems of incorrectly printed Web pages are associated with the use of HTML tables. Therefore, it is recommended to limit the width in these tables to 600 pixels, which is

38. 6.8d Avoid spamming on e-mail addresses
(WEBGUIDE/CONSTRUCTION)

Guideline  Following are some basic options to avoid receiving spam through your online FAO e-mail address. Unfortunately, for accounts like Webmaster@fao.org (and others published on the Internet

39. 6.7b Multilingual interfaces
(WEBGUIDE/CONSTRUCTION)

....g. Arial Unicode); save the file as a *.txt file changing Encoding to UTF-8; open the file in an HTML Editor (Macromedia's HomeSite or Dreamweaver), ignoring the first few characters that expla...

40. 6.7a Guidelines for language encoding
(WEBGUIDE/CONSTRUCTION)

... important to specify in the Web page that the text should be displayed from right to left: <HTML dir="RTL" lang="ar"> Unicode UTF-8 (Unicode Transformation ...

41. 6.5c Converting documents from InDesign or QuarkXPress into PDF or HTML
(WEBGUIDE/CONSTRUCTION)

...into PDF is similar to what has been described for Word documents. Regarding the conversion into HTML, the problems underlined above for Word are applicable also in this case. The automatic HTM...

42. 6.5b Converting Word documents into HTML
(WEBGUIDE/CONSTRUCTION)

Guideline  A number of options are outlined below: Open the document with Word and save it as HTML This is very quick but the quality of the resulting HTML code is very poor (i.e. it cont

43. 6.4b Use of images on the Web
(WEBGUIDE/CONSTRUCTION)

Guideline  Not all graphic formats are suitable for the Web. The most commonly used formats are GIF and JPEG, as they are supported by all browsers and can produce images and photos with a very sm

44. 6.3c XSLT
(WEBGUIDE/CONSTRUCTION)

...instance of the class is transformed into an XML document that uses a formatting vocabulary, such as (X)HTML or XSL-FO.   ...

45. 6.3a Cascading Style sheets (CSS)
(WEBGUIDE/CONSTRUCTION)

Guideline   What is CSS? CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets; Styles define how to display HTML elements; Styles are normally stored in external Style Sheets (CSS files); External

46. 6.2e HTML metadata tag
(WEBGUIDE/CONSTRUCTION)

HTML includes a meta element that goes inside the "head" tag at the top of Web pages. The purpose of this meta element is to provide meta-information about the page so that browsers or sea

47. 6.2d JavaScript
(WEBGUIDE/CONSTRUCTION)

...ajor browsers (usually version 3.0 or higher). What can a JavaScript do? JavaScript gives HTML designers a programming tool, without being a programmer; JavaScript can put dynamic te...

48. 6.2c Frames, new windows and pop-ups
(WEBGUIDE/CONSTRUCTION)

...g for a user. The solution recommended in the FAO Web Quality Assurance Checklist is to ensure that the HTML code for linking (a href=http://www.fao.org></a>) contains the following code: tar...

49. 6.2b Browser compatibility
(WEBGUIDE/CONSTRUCTION)

...spective of the type of browser software you are using. The standards for browsers (to translate HTML pages) are established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The W3C is an international ...

50. 6.2a HTML and XHTML
(WEBGUIDE/CONSTRUCTION)

Guideline   HTML The HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is designed for the presentation of information on the World Wide Web, using a Web browser. HTML evolved from the need to share d