Organizing Your Web Site
While a Web page is a single HTML document, a Web site is a collection of related HTML documents, plus all the extra files, such as images and movies, that appear on the Web pages. A common question for beginning Web designers is how to organize and store the various files that make up the site.The answer is pretty straightforward: Just use the folders of your computer's operating system.Most Web designers begin a new project by creating a folder that will hold all the site's files. This is called the local folder or local root folder. Think of it as a convenience: It's handy to keep all the site files in one place. You don't want them scattered across your hard drive. But having a local root folder is important for technical reasons, too. When you upload your site to the Web, you want the locations of the files on your personal computer to match their locations on the Web server as closely as possible. If this kind of parallel organization doesn't exist, you may have trouble getting the links among the various pages to work correctly. So make sure you start off on the right foot and create a local root folder.
GEEKSPEAKA Web site is a collection of related HTML documents, plus all the images, movies, and other files that appear on the site's pages. |
GEEKSPEAKA local folder or local root folder is the folder on your personal computer that holds all the files for a Web site. |
GEEKSPEAKThe structure of a Web site is the way in which you organize the files into categories and subcategories. |
The general rule of thumb states that you should create a folder inside your local root folder for each of the main categories of your site. In the preceding example, you need four folders inside the local root folder: one for each of the four categories. Don't put the folders one inside the other. Instead, set up your structure so that, when you double-click the local root folder to open it, you see all four folders insideon the same level, to borrow the technical jargon.
GEEKSPEAKThe level of a folder is its position in the hierarchy of your site structure. The folders for the main categories belong at the top levelthat is, directly inside the local root folder. |
Now, watch what happens. When you begin creating the pages for your site, you can guess pretty easily where they belong. You put the pages about your hobbies in the hobbies folder. You put the pages about your favorite jokes in the jokes folder. It's as simple as that.If you need to divide a main category into subcategories, no problem. Create subfolders:hobbiessportsmoviescomputersgamesbooksjokesabout_me
The extra structure gives you a more precise filing system. Now you know exactly where all your pages about movies go, for example.You need one more folder for your sitethe images folder:hobbiessportsmoviescomputersgamesbooksjokesabout_meimages
As you can see, it goes at the top level of your structure, directly inside the local root folder. Use the images folder to store all the graphics for the various pages of your site.
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