Sams Teach Yourself HTML, CSS & JavaScript Web Publishing in One Hour a Day

ptg16476052

632 LESSON 23: How to Publish Your Site

Keeping Your Files Organized with Directories

Probably the easiest way to organize your site is to include all the files in a single direc-

tory. If you have many extra files—images, for example—you can put them in a subdi-

rectory under that main directory. Your goal is to contain all your files in a single place

rather than scatter them around. You can then set all the links in those files to be relative

to that directory. This makes it easier to move the directory around to different servers

without breaking the links.

Having a Default Index File and Correct Filenames

Web servers usually have a default index file that’s loaded when a URL ends with a

directory name rather than a filename. One of the questions you should ask your web-

master is, “What’s the name of this default file?” For most web servers, this file is called

index.html. Your home page, or top-level index, for each site should have this name so

that the server knows which page to send as the default page. Each subdirectory should

also have a default file if it contains HTML files. If you use this default filename, the

URL to that page will be shorter because you don’t have to include the actual filename.

For example, your URL might be http://www.example.com/pages/ rather than http://

http://www.examplecom/pages/index.html.

If you don’t put an index file in a directory, many web servers will

enable people to browse the contents of the directory. If you don’t

want people to snoop around in your files, you should include an

index file or use the web server’s access controls to disable direc-

tory browsing. Ask your webmaster for help.

CAUTION

Also, each file should have an appropriate extension indicating its type so that the server

can map it to the appropriate file type. If you’ve been reading this book in sequential

order, all your files should have this special extension already and you shouldn’t have

any problems. Table 23.1 lists the common file extensions that you should be using for

your files and multimedia.

TABLE 23.1 Common File Types and Extensions

Format Extension

HTML .html, .htm

ASCII Text .txt

GIF .gif