Getting Started

Now that you have some website space on the internet, your next step is to develop or create content on your website for all the world to see.

Development of your website may be accomplished in a number of ways. However, before any development can begin, you must have a basic understanding of what is involved in the development of a website, proper terminology, directory structures, file types, etc.. You must also have some knowledge as to the various methods of website development that are available to you.

This document is intended to provide you with the basic information you need and should be read by all our customers in it's entirety, regardless of the actual method you select to development your website with.

 

Assumptions

This documentation makes the following assumptions
  1. Hooked On Phonics has worked for you!
  2. You have a basic knowledge of how to properly operate and locate files on your home or office computer system.
  3. You already are connected to the Internet through a dependable Internet Service Provider (ISP).
  4. You know your correct email address and have provided us with such.
  5. You are willing to spend the time required to gain the knowledge & skills necessary to develop your website. or, you are having your website developed by someone who has the necessary skills and is willing to spend the time required to read through this documentation and become familiar with how our systems work.

 

Terminology

  • The terms Username and Account Name are the identical thing. It is the name assigned by us to identify your website account. It is also used for logging in to your website.

  • The term directory as used throughout our documentation is identical to the term folder as used with Microsoft & Apple operating systems. There is no difference. A directory is a folder!

  • The terms root directory and home directory are the same thing. It is a place where your homepage is located as well as sub-directories and files contained within them. It is the main directory of your website.

  • The the term homepage is the main file that is served up when users visit your website. The actual filename for your homepage is index.html. The index.html file located in your home directory is your homepage!

  • The term URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator. It is the same thing as Web Address. Simply put, it tells your web browser where on the internet to go and find the website or webpage you are looking for. Sort of like the way a telephone phone number indicates to the phone company equipment the location of the exact pair of wires that connect to your telephone in your home.

  • The term local system is the actual computer you are working on at the time. For all intensive purposes it is your home or office computer.

  • The term remote system is a computer that is locate somewhere other than locally. Your website is located on our web server and thus is located on a remote system.

  • The term upload means to take a selected file on your local computer system and copy it to a designated directory of your website.

  • The term download means to take a selected file on you website and copy it to a designated directory on your local computer system.

  • The term publish means to upload or copy the webpages and files that you have on your local computer system to a remote system such as your website. The terms publish and upload are often used interchangeably.

     

    Basic Directory Structure

    A directory is a designated area of you website where files such as webpages, graphics files, etc. are stored. Directories & sub-directories provide a logical means of storing various files. This is of particular value if your website is quite large. By utilizing directories and sub-directories for storing files, it becomes much easier to locate those files latter when you need them.

    For instance;
    your graphic files may be stored in a sub-directory named "images". If you are using our AutoPage Development System, it stores all uploaded graphic files in the sub-directory named "uploads". So latter, when you need to locate a particular graphic file, you know the first place to look is in your sub-directory named "images" or in the case of AutoPage, the "uploads" sub-directory. That said, it should be noted that many people choose to simply upload all their files to the home directory of their website. There is nothing wrong with that as long as you are willing to spend the time required wading through all the other files within the same directory. The most important thing is that you know the exact location and filename of the file you are working with and your webpages are provided with that information.

    When your website account is first setup, we create a directory structure for your website consisting of a home directory and sub-directories. We then install various files within them.

    Many of the files contained within your website directory structure are required for the proper operation of your website. Therefore, it is very important that you do not delete any files or directories that we have installed. A good rule of thumb is. . . if you don't know what it is or fully understand its purpose... don't delete it!

    Below is a typical website directory structure as viewed using an FTP program. The actual directory structure of your website may vary a bit depending on what add-on features you may have ordered for your website.

    Sample Directory Structure
    Sample Directory Structure

    In the sample above, notice that the address bar (located towards the top just below the words "Remote system") indicates our current location in the directory structure is the root (AKA home) directory which is represented by a forward slash /.

    Below the address bar, we can see various sub-directories (AKA folders) as well a file named index.html located within the root directory itself. The index.html is the actual homepage of your website which you may edit or replace as you like. When a user enters your web address into the address bar of their web browser, our web servers will automatically go to the root directory of your website and serve up the index.html as your homepage.

    For instance;
    Our Domain Name is pageweb.com. When entering our web address into the address bar of your browser you would type http//www.pageweb.com, our web servers would then look in our root directory for the file named index.html (our homepage) and serve it up. However, if it is our intention to have them go to a webpage other than out homepage, say webpage5.html of our website, then they must enter the exact filename (in proper case) after the domain name and proceeded by a forward slash. In other word like this http//www.pageweb.com/webpage5.html.

     

    File Names

    A filename actually consists of two parts. The first part is the actual descriptive name of the file such as; webpage2. The second part is know as the file extension and consists of 3-4 characters preceded by a dot or period such as .html. A complete filename should look something like; webpage2.html. The first part (descriptive name) is used by us humans to help us understand what the file is or what it contains. The second part (file extension) is used by computers to tell them what type of file it is and how to properly process file. It also lets us humans know what type of file it is. Without file extension, a computer will not know what to do with it and therefore will not be able to properly process the file.

    For instance;
    A webpage must have a file extension of .htm or .html. This lets the computer system know that it is a webpage file and thus the system can properly process the file for display as a webpage.
    A photo file must have a file extension of .jpg or .jpeg. This lets the computer system know that it is a photograph and thus the system can properly process this particular file for display as a photo.

    It should be noted that simply renaming a file from say myphoto.pcx to myphoto.jpg will not work. A graphic or photo file must saved as a particular file type by using some form of graphics software. More information on working graphic & photo files is discussed later on in the Preparing Your Graphics section of these instructions. But for now what is important, is that you understand that a filenames must be complete by containing both the first descriptive part as well as the file extension part. Otherwise it will not be properly, if at all!

    Various operating systems such as Windows, contain features which allow you to either hide or display the file extensions. In order to work with files for use on the internet, your local computer system must be set to allow the display of the file extensions.

      On a windows system this can be accomplished by using your Windows Explorer (not to be confused with your web browser (Internet Explorer).

    1. Locate and click on your Windows Explorer to start the program.
    2. From the tools menu select "Folder Options".
    3. Now select the "View" tab.
    4. Locate the "Hide File Extensions" check box and make sure it is not checked. If it is, un-check it.
    5. Now click the [ Apply } button.
    6. Next Click the [ Ok ] button.
    7. Now look at the various filenames that appear in your Windows Explorer. You should see filenames that contain a 3-4 character extension preceded by a dot. If you do, your done and can close down your Windows Explorer. If you don't see the files extensions, then you will need to repeat steps 2 thru 7 again.

      Please Note There are many types of file extensions. You may not see the extensions ".jpg" or ".html" if those file types are not located in the directory your windows explorer is currently in. The important thing here is that you do see some type of file extensions!
      Common file extensions that you may see are ( ".xls", ".doc", ".txt", ".jpg", ".gif" etc. ).

     

    File / Directory Names & Case Sensitivity

    Many of the computer systems which comprise the internet make use of the Unix (or Unix like) operating system. Unlike Windows and Apple operating systems, Unix is case sensitive and does not allow special characters and spaces in file and directory names. In other words a file named Index.HTML is not the same as a file named index.html. A directory named Images is not the same as a directory named images. Names containing spaces and special character such as ( ! , ] } ) etc. must not be used. To assure your website and webpages function properly it is imperative that you utilize the exact case in which your directories and files are named on your website and not use any names containing spaces or special characters.

    Our recommended method, is to name everything in contiguous all lowercase letters. If however, a file or directory name needs to be separated for clarity, separation may be achieved by using either a dash or an underscore in the name.

    For instance;
    It is ok name a file webpage-2.html or webpage_2.html.
    It is ok to name a directory my-images or my_images.

    Domain Names are the one exception in which case is not a factor.

    For instance;
    When entering our web address into the address bar of your browser you would type http//www.pageweb.com, our web servers would then look in our root directory for the file named index.html (our homepage) and serve it up. However, as Domain Names are not case sensitive you could also enter http//www.PageWeb.com and get the same result. That said, it should be noted that, any file or sub-directory names that appear after the domain name must be in the proper case and not contain any spaces or special characters! Only the Domain Name itself is non-case sensitive.

    Remember, what may appear to work on your local Windows or Apple computer system does not mean it will work at all on the internet. Properly naming your directories & files will assure your website and files are compatible with most all operating systems in use today.

     

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