Sometimes you may experience difficulty being connected to the Internet. Traffic is high ... or a server somewhere around the world is down and won't let you have access to something. You want to work on your homework, but you can't get it ftp'ed to DS9 in order to view it and/or reload (refresh) the file. You don't want to wait ... so what's a person to do?

There is a way to view your HTML files through a browser off of your local machine. There are a couple of things you need to be aware of first.

1. Just like DS9, the files that you are working on and accessing (this includes graphics) need to reside in the same kind of directory format. For example, on my home computer ... I have the E drive all to myself (we have 2 hard drives ... My husband get's the D drive). Under this directory, I have another directory called Leanne ... then another called IUPUI ... then another called CS241. In this directory, I have a copy of all my files for this class -- including graphics. The CS241 directory looks exactly like the public_html directory on DS9. What if you have everything on a floppy? It's the same thing as having everything in the same directory.

2. If you do not have all of the files that you are using in the same directory, your relative links won't work and you will get the broken graphics. If you are not worried about that and just want to get the layout and text in, not a problem. As I type this, I actually have this file on my desktop. None of the graphics are on the desktop so I get the broken graphics. In know that when I ftp it to DS9, the graphics will appear because they will be in the correct directory, etc. (If they don't appear, then I know that there is something wrong in my code.)

Viewing Your HTML File

Open up your browser. You will get a message that it can't find a server, that you are not connected to the Internet, or it might even open up your networking window. Just hit cancel and close those small windows. Your browser is still open.

Now, you may still get a page on your browser. That is because your browser stores old HTML files in your cache or memory.

Instead of typing in a URL in the location box, go to your menu bar. Click on File - Open. You will get a little window. Click on Browse or Choose file. Go through the directory structure until you find your file. Now open it up.

Voila! This will help cut down on some of the woes of developing with the Internet open.

But wait ... I want to use emacs ... sorry. This will only work if you are developing on your local machine. If you are using a text editor on the server ... you must be connected to the Internet.

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Don't forget ... you will still need to save your document and reload or refresh the browser ... just like before.

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