General Information

First, please note that this page is mostly Javascript - the back button in your browser will not work the way you might be expecting it to. So, let's begin with something simple, shall we? Input your comic's title below.

This is a required field. You can not proceed without entering your title.

This is a required field. You can not proceed without entering your username.

Put your Comicgenesis username in this field. So, if to get to your site, you write cheeseburgers.comicgenesis.com, put in cheeseburgers.

Now that we have a required field out of the way, we have some optional fields. If you leave these as they are (or blank) nothing will be added.

First, if your comic has a subtitle, like "Dead Stick 2: The Reckoning", then you could put in "The Reckoning" and have it appear as a subtitle. The author field works the exact same way, but please note that the script does not add anything to what you have put in the box - there are simply too many variables as to how to put it. So, if you wish for your page to say "By Mr. Awesome Pants" then put that in, not "Mr. Awesome Pants".

Next, a small option - If you want the date that the comic went up in the title bar, check the box below. The title bar is what you see at the top of this window - right now it should say "HTML Generator".

One last option on this page - say you want to show your logo instead of the above junk - title, subtitle and author. If you check this box, you can - when we get to the upload portion, simply remember to upload your logo (or whatever really, it can be any image) with the filename banner.jpg

Main links

Ever notice on webcomic sites how they sometimes have neat features like cast pages, archives, or forums? These are extra pages, and because of their special nature, i can't really generate their content very well. What i can do though is make links to those pages. I'll give you a bit of help at the end via a template and some simple instructions, but it's really up to you.

Even if that little bit of HTML scares you, you can have a few. Notice how some of the items are blue? Those are special - if you want to, you can point them to some outside website. So, if you want a link to you deviant art page, you can click the gallery checkbox and type the address of your deviant art page. If you have a blog, you can put a link to it with the blog checkbox.

The others are less simple. They will simply create a link to a page you'll have to write the HTML to yourself. The same will happen if you leave the box under a blue option alone.

Because you'll have to write the HTML on your own, it's a good idea to click only the ones that you really need. I'll give you some help with a template, but it'll be up to you. If you don't think you're up to it, don't add them and then never make the file, or just put up a "under construction" page. Those are both sort of cheap, and you don't want to come off like that, do you?

Navigation

This is the last required choice. Choose where your comic navigation will appear - above, below, or on both sides of the comic.

At least one is required.

News

If you're a reader of most any webcomic, you've seen that a lot of creators like to put news posts on the front page along with the comic. If you don't want that, just click next right now.

If you do want that, you've got a decision to make - do i want to update a file called "news.html", and leave the indextemplate alone, do i want to just update indextemplate.html, or do i want to show my blog on the main page?

Obviously, the latter most option is the easiest. A lot of people like the news.html option, as it gives them more control over the look of the page than a blog without the potential troubles of just updating the indextempate. I personally update the indextemplate, but put a link below the post to my blog so people can post comments and such. I like that option because it avoids iFrames, a somewhat bothersome HTML element. You likely won't notice any of the bothersome bits of it though.

Then there's the todays_notes option. When you upload your comic, you'll also upload a file to /workspace/data/notes with the same date. This has the distict advantages of being automatic, and getting placed on every page, not just the indextemplate.

Secondary Links

This is the same as before, but these links will only appear on the main page and will not be given a prominent spot. Unless you put in an external site before, (like the example deviant art) it will point to the same page the main links point to. If you put in an external site, you'll have to re-type it (unless you want this link to point somewhere else).

Alright, time for you to actually do some work. It will be best if you make a folder to keep this stuff in. First, start up your favorite text editor. I use Notepad. Next, select the text below and copy it into notepad.Once the text is in, go to "Save As..." in the "File" menu.Switch "Save as Type" to "All Files". Finally, save the file as "indextemplate.html" (no quotes).

Now that that's done, do it again with this block of text, except this time, use "dailytemplate.html" instead of "indextemplate.html".

Here is where your work gets cut out for you if you decided to have cast pages and such. Use the same technique as before to save this, but this time, you'll have to follow the instructions within, and save the file multiple times as the noted filenames. You will use this file to create the extra pages for your website - archive, links, cast, ect. Just follow the instructions, save, and open the file in your web browser to check the results.

Congratulatons - you've finished generating your page's HTML files. If you want to, open them up and take a look. You should see the things you typed in the boxes, along with all the Comicgenesis tags you'll need, such as *todays_comics*. You'll also notice that they don't exactly look any better than what your site came with. That's because they dont have any CSS applied.

Continue to the CSS centre to make your pages look nice. (Or at the very least, somewhat better.)

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