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Files and Folders - Structures and Addressing (housekeeping on your site) This page is essential background knowledge for managing your files |
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| INDEX.HTM Your
Home Page is called index.htm, by convention. Unless another page
is specified in the address given to the server, it will 'serve-up'
this page to the browser, and this index.htm is what nearly all visitors
will see first on your site |
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The home directory. Your home page must be called index.htm and it must be in the home directory. On this server, the home directory is public_htm, and this must contain index.htm. All addresses to files must be relative to the home directory. e.g. /manage/file.htm is in a sub-directory of the home, /manage/email/file.htm is in a sub-sub-directory, and so on. It doesn't matter how many levels of directories you have, as long as it is clear to you (and that it will still be clear in a years time !!) |
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| Links to Other Files on Your Site.
Each .htm web page can have other files embedded in it, such as logos,
image, or graphic files, and special files for buttons and other purposes
The HTML text must contain a link to these, giving a location such
as /folder/file.htm so that the server can find the file and either
include it in the webpage in the way that you have specified in the
code, or, if it is a link, it will serve-up a new page to the visitor
to your site. The addresses must be correct, or the files will not
appear. |
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File Numbers on your Site. Before you start to build your site, estimate how many HTML pages you will eventually have, and how many images and photos If you want 4 pages and 3 pictures, then it is easy to have them all in the home directory of the server (public_html directory) If you have 50 pages and 50 images (like this site), then is is better to use a directory structure (folders) to organise your images and files so that it will still be clear to you in a year's time. If you will have more than 10 pages and images, then I recommend using folders. I especially think it helps to keep all the images in one <images> folder |
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| File and Directory
Structure. I very highly recommend that you have the same file
and directory structure on your computer as in the public_html directory
on the server. This makes file transfer and organising links very
much easier. |
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| Rule - 3 Clicks to
Find What they Want. When you plan or re-organise your site,
please remember that visitors get bored very easily - they want to
find what they are looking for with 3 clicks of the mouse. If they don't think they are finding it, they will get bored and go somewhere else.. |
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Keeping Track. If you want to change your
file structure later, you may have to change all your links. Dreamweaver
and other editing programs can do this for you, but they cannot
rescue you from disaster. If you do coding directly in HTML, it
could be very difficult to change. It is best to get the file structure
correct at the start !! If the pages form a sequence (like in this section of my site),
then it is an idea to use both a number and a name, which can help
greatly in keeping track (this page is 3filestruct.htm) |