To understand how it works, let's go back to the way a traditional web page is created. In a classical web page, you input some text in the middle of which you insert some HTML (acronym of Hyper Text Markup Language) tags that tell to the web browser (Netscape or Internet Explorer for example) how to place and format the different components (text, images, links...) in the page.
You then need to manually link the different pages between them using the HTML linking tag. And, each time you want to change the look & feel of your web site, you have to work back on all pages...
This is a heavy and tedious job, and you easily come to spend more time managing the formatting of your pages than their content !
Now exist full web programming languages that allows you to manage the Internet content like any software that runs on your PC. GuppY uses the most used of them being PHP (which stands for Hypertext PreProcessor).
The principle of GuppY is the following one : the content (which is stocked in a little "textfile" database) is separated from the formating (which is managed by the PHP scripts that make GuppY).
And, we then get what is called a CMS (acronym of Content Management System). So, at the end, you only have to input the information in the appropriated areas (papers, news, etc...) using an administration interface (which you reach through the Admin icon at the top right corner of the screen) and GuppY takes care of the management and the formating of this information according to the clicks of your web site's visitors.
As HTML tagging is allowed, you can use all HTML tags that you want (IMG, A, B, I, U, etc...) in papers, news, links, etc... Check and make sure each time that these tags don't prevent your web site to display correctly.
Note : your site will also be very beautiful if you don't dare using HTML tags.
The visitors of your site can by themselves post news, messages in the guestbook or in the forum. The use of HTML tags has been slightly restricted for them, in order to avoid any interference with your site's displaying, but a tiny editor helps them in using most used tags.
You have 5 directories available to put specific objects (through the use of the Files icon):
- file : to put downloadable files. You will then refer to this file with the use of the following HTML tag: [A href="http://localhost/guppy460b2/file/fichier.ext"]texte[/A] (replacing the [ and ] by < and >).
- img : to put background images, your logo and all images with which you wish to embellish your site. You will then refer to an image with the following HTML tag : [IMG src="http://localhost/guppy460b2/img/image.ext"] (replacing the [ and ] by < and >).
- photo : to put the photos of your diaporama. The diaporama automatically detects the images that were put in this directory and will present them for displaying.
- pages : to put specific HTML or PHP pages. You will then refer to this file with the use of the following HTML tag : [A href="http://localhost/guppy460b2/pages/page.ext"]texte[/A] replacing the [ and ] by < and >).
- flash : to put videos except flash banners that must stay in img directory.
Another important directory managing the look of your pages is skin. In that directory you put the skins of your site.