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BlueGriffon V1.7 Manual

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BLUEGRIFFON
Published : 2011-10-12
License : None
1
INTRODUCTION
1. INTRODUCTION
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1. INTRODUCTION
A griffon vulture is a large scavenger bird. But what is BlueGriffon?
BlueGriffon is an Open Source Web editing application that allows WYSIWYG (What You See Is
What You Get) editing and creation of web pages. It is a successor to the NvU editor, which is
no longer maintained. BlueGriffon also includes support for new features in HT ML5, which have
been defined since the time when NvU and some other similar editors were developed. T he
BlueGriffon website is http://bluegriffon.org/ and it is released under the Mozilla Public License
Version 1.1.
Since it is not as complicated as similar commercial applications, BlueGriffon may be easier to
learn how to use. More importantly, it generates good clean HT ML code.
About this tutorial
All the examples in this tutorial are based on running BlueGriffon under the Linux operating
system. Fortunately, BlueGriffon operates with a very similar interface regardless of the
system under which system it runs. All the examples given will be equally applicable to OS X
and Windows. In the event that there is a difference, separate instructions for each operating
system will be provided.
T his tutorial is written for someone who has little or no previous experience creating web
pages or working with HT ML code, and is looking for a tool to quickly and easily get content
ready to put on the web. It should also be useful to anyone who is used to other WYSIWYG
web editing applications, and is looking to see what BlueGriffon has on offer. You will not need
any knowledge of HT ML to create a web page using this tutorial.
T his tutorial will cover:
How to construct a simple website
How to enter text and images
How links work
Using styles to easily control the look and feel of your page
Using Cascading Style Sheets to easily manage the use of styles
By the time you complete this tutorial, you should be able to create your own complete and
functional web page. You should also be able to use styles to customise the look and feel of
your site without affecting the content of the pages.
However, it is beyond the scope of this tutorial to cover the details of getting your site
published on the web or the inner workings of HT ML code. So this tutorial makes a couple of
assumptions about its readers:
You are familiar with the basics of your operating system (BlueGriffon works on OS X,
Linux, and Windows) and you know how to install applications on your computer.
You are familiar with the basics of resizing and manipulating images using a program
similar to the GIMP.
You have a hosting solution for your site, and have all the information needed to get the
pages you create posted on the web.
T he last assumption is not strictly required to use BlueGriffon or create web pages in general,
but will be necessary if you want others to be able to see your site.
3
GETTING STARTED
2. CONTENTS OF A SIMPLE WEBSITE
3. CREATING TEXT ON A WEB PAGE
4. ADDING AN IMAGE TO A PAGE
5. USING LINKS
4
2. CONTENTS OF A SIMPLE WEBSITE
At the most basic level a website is nothing more than a set of files written in a specific way
that can be interpreted (or parsed, in web lingo) by a web browser. In order for all browsers to
interpret the files the web pages must be written in a consistent manner. T his consistency of
form is HT ML, or HyperT ext Mark-up Language. Because HT ML is nothing more than a text file
written in a specific format, all that is needed to write web pages is a text editor. Creating
pages this way requires knowledge of the HT ML format, and while HT ML is not all that hard to
learn, most people prefer a more visual way of designing pages. Applications such as
BlueGriffon allow people to make functional websites by creating the mark-up language for
you, based on the information you provide as you create the content.
T he design of BlueGriffon makes the experience of web page design very similar to using a
word processor. While this makes learning the software easier for most, there are a few traps
that lurk in the shadows of this kind of approach. T he Hypertext part of HT ML is what makes
linking possible in web pages, and understanding how links work is crucial before successfully
creating a website. I'll give you a brief introduction here, but I recommend further reading for
more detail of how all this works.
T he tutorial is about to lead you through the steps of creating one small and simple web page
using BlueGriffon. If you have not already done so:
visit the BlueGriffon website to download and install this application, or
find the BlueGriffon application in the repository of your Linux distribution and install it
using your favorite package manager.
When you first open BlueGriffon, whether by e.g.:
Activities, Applications, BlueGriffon [via Gnome 3 on Linux],
Launcher [on OS X], or
Start, Programs, All Programs [on Windows]
you will be presented with a screen that resembles:
5
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3. CREATING TEXT ON A WEB PAGE
7
T he large textarea in the lower portion of the BlueGriffon window is where all the content of
the page is entered. T o enter text, simply select the window and start typing. Don't worry
about fonts or other formatting issues just yet, we'll get to that a little later. After entering a
bit of text, pause to save the file. Saving the page can be accomplished by selecting the Save
icon button near the upper left corner of the BlueGriffon window.
Since this is the first time this page is being saved, a dialogue box will prompt you to provide
a title for the page. You can enter any text you like here. T he text you enter will appear in the
title bar of the web browser when the page is viewed. You can always change this later if you
would like.
After selecting the OK command button, another dialogue box will appear prompting for the
name of this file, as well as its location. Since this is the first, or default page of the site, by
convention it should be called index.html. Most likely, the web server to which you will later
upload your site will automatically display the page named index.html when a visitor enters a
web address without naming a specific file.
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T he location (or folder or directory) where you choose to save this file is also significant. A
suggested habit is to create a folder on the hard drive of your computer that will hold all the
files needed for a given web site. T his folder should contain no files except those needed to
display this particular web site. By keeping everything contained in a folder in this way it will
make transferring your site to a server very easy. You can set this up without having to leave
BlueGriffon.
Use the various controls in the Save dialog (e.g. select a folder to view its contents in the
main pane) to navigate to the vicinity where you would like to preserve the files you
create while following this tutorial.
Select the Create Folder command button to make a new folder for this dedicated
purpose.
In the textbox displayed beside the new folder, type a name you select for the web site,
e.g. T utorial_Site. Beware that embedding the blank character within file names or folder
names which will be fed to a web browser or a web server will lead to extra
complications. For simplicity, many people choose to use the underscore character "_" as
a substitute for blanks in file or folder names.
After typing the name of the new folder for this web site, press the Enter key or select
the folder icon to navigate into this folder. T he main pane of the dialog will be empty,
as no files have yet been saved in this newly created folder or directory.
Once both the Name and its location (e.g. within the T utorial_Site folder) have been
correctly typed and selected, select the Save command button.
9
T o gain a tiny bit of immediate gratification, use the Preview icon button near the top right of
BlueGriffon.
Since BlueGriffon does not yet know which web browser you prefer to use, you will be
rewarded with a dialog where you need to specify which one among e.g. Google Chrome,
Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari or whatever browsers are installed on
your computer system. T o learn the full path to the program, you are likely to need to do
something like:
[linux] Within a T erminal window (e.g. Activities, Applications, T erminal):
[who@localhost ~]$ which firefox
/usr/bin/firefox
[who@localhost ~]$
[OS X] Within a T erminal window (e.g. Activities, Utilities, T erminal):
[localhost: ~] who% which firefox
/Applications/Firefox.app
[localhost: ~] who%
[Windows] Select with the secondary mouse button (typically the right mouse button) a
desktop shortcut to your most-frequently-used web browser, and in the resulting
context menu select Properties. In the Shortcut tab of the Properties dialog you can see
the path to the browser, e.g. c:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe
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