Organizing the Site
What is Dreamweaver?
Dreamweaver is a graphical web page editor that will allow you to create a web
site without knowing HTML coding. It lets you work in a window that looks like
a web page so you can see the effects of your work as you create the page. It
will let you set up the display of each page and navigable links between the
pages you create. If you wish to learn HTML coding at a later date, Dreamweaver
will allow you to view and edit the HTML.
What is the
web from a web author's perspective?
Each web site (collection of web pages) is housed on a web server computer in
a directory/folder which is readable by web browsers.The site is made up of:
web pages, individual text documents coded in HTML (Hypertext Mark-up Language)
which are created by Dreamweaver. The web page may also include image files
and other multimedia files. Files are linked together in a hierarchical structure
that allows users of the site to navigate through the available files.
Why organize
your web site?
The basis of any well structured web site is creating a web local root folder
(top of your web site). Organizing your web site from the outset and maintaining
a structure for your site on your local drive (hard drive, zip drive or floppy
disk) will save many hours of fixing broken links and missing files.
When you publish your site, you will move a copy of the interlinked structure
with all the folders, documents and files to the web server computer. Your local
copy of files will also serve as a back-up if anything happens to
the web server.
What is the
lead document in any web folder called?
Inside the folder is a table of contents document called index.html This
document is a directory to all of the other documents in your site. It must
be named this to automatically load as the lead document. If there is no document
named index.html the browser will show an ugly listing of files in your www
directory instead of a web page. All other sub-directories in your web site
should also have a document serving as its lead document called index.html Think
of index.html documents as a table of contents to your site. Everything you
want users of your site to see will be linked to this document to guide them
through your content.
What else goes
in the web root folder?
The illustratration below is a personal web site with two courses attached
to it.
 |
1. The lead
document is a personal page called index.html with a photo linked to it.
(me.gif) 2. Secondary documents in the hierarchy are a personal resume (resume.html) and a link to 2 course folders (course1 and course2). Each of the sub-directories (course1 and course2 will contain a document named index.html to act as their lead index document for the course or project. |
Plan the web site in a hierarchical structure or tree. Outline on paper the different pages and sub-web pages in your web site. Think of the content you will provide and how to logically organize it. Each course could have its own sub-directory to make the related files easy to find. (For example course1 and course2 below each have their own directory and index.html document.
The file organization shown below should parallel the basic organization you have planned.
All of your information for your web site should be in your site folder. When you create new documents and edit them follow the guidelines below: