How to Manage Website Files

One of a webmaster’s most important tasks is to manage the website files. Some websites have many files. One of the worst habits a webmaster can develop is keeping all files in the same directory. This may seem very convenient at first, but it makes pruning the site much more difficult. No matter how well written your website is, you will eventually want to delete some web pages. This is especially important if you have a limited host space. It doesn’t do you any good to delete a web page file but leave the images and other support files associated with it. The web page file is very small compared to image and sound files.

Filenames

Each file must have a unique filename. This name can be descriptive or simply functional. Functional filenames like, “Page01.html” or “Image-2498.jpg” are perfectly adequate, but may need to be opened in order to find out what they are. Descriptive names allow the people editing the files to have at least some idea what they might contain. A filename like, “State_Convention_Aug07.html” or “ContactUs.html” describes its content.

One thing about webpage filenames, Internet servers do NOT like spaces, so don’t use any in your directory names or filenames. Instead use dashes, underlines, or CamelCase to make filenames easier to read. For example, MuseumTrip, Museum-Trip, or even museum_trip are much easier to read than museumtrip.

Each filename will have a suffix. This suffix tells the computer which application to use in order to open and use the file. Most web pages will have the .htm or .html suffix. Images could have .jpg, .gif, .bmp, or several other types of suffixes. Files with the .pdf suffix can be used to display self contained files with both text and images, but require Adobe Reader to view.

Directories and Sub-directories

Unless you have a very basic, simple website you will probably end up with many, many files. If you are using an online web editor / manager, it will create your directory structure for you, but if you are writing your web pages on your computer then uploading them, you will want to create subdirectories even before you begin writing your first page. This is important because you will need to link to images and other elements as you write your webpage. These links will work much better if the files are already in the appropriate subdirectory.

Create one main directory to hold your index and other simple web pages. This can be called Website or Our Club Site or any other name you want to use. This directory name is the only one that can contain spaces since you will upload its content, but not the entire directory. You will also need at least an Images subdirectory to store photographs and image files. If you have sound files, you will want a Sounds subdirectory for them.

Depending on the other features you want on your website, you may need subdirectories for Scrapbook, Newsletter, and/or any other feature you want to have. These subdirectories may also need subdirectories within them. For instance, the Newsletter subdirectory might contain a subdirectory for each year and each year’s subdirectory might contain its own Images subdirectory.

Creating these directories and subdirectories might be a lot of work, but will make managing the website itself much easier.

Below is an example directory tree for a basic website:

Webpage – This contains the html format files for the website’s homepage (index.html) and any other simple pages, like ContactUs.html, and UpcomingEvents.html.

Images – This contains the images, including buttons, bars, and any other graphic elements along with any photographs that appear on the web pages stored in the main directory or commonly used by many web pages.

Sound – This contains any sound files that are used by web pages stored in the main directory.

Newsletter – This contains the gateway webpage file for the newsletters. It may also contain any graphics common to all newsletters.

2007 – This contains the files for all newsletters issued during this year.

2006 – This contains the files for all newsletters issued during this year.

2005 – This contains the files for all newsletters issued during this year.

Scrapbook – This contains the scrapbook and/or history web page(s)

Images – This contains images shown on the scrapbook web page

Sound – This contains sound files used by the scrapbook web page

The above is only a basic example of a directory structure that might be useful for some organizations. You may find you need subdirectories under Scrapbook for each year or event. Or you might not need a subdirectory for each year of your newsletter. Your webpage directory structure will depend on your organization’s needs and interests.

Online Website Builders

If you use an online website builder, it will create a directory structure for you. Do not change it. You can add directories for web pages that are not available through the online website builder, but files or directories that the online website builder created should only be managed through that online website builder.

You should also keep all files not created by the online website builder in their own directory(ies). This way you will know which files you can manage through a file transfer protocol (FTP) Client and which must be managed via the online website builder.

Backing-up Files

This may seem very obvious, but it is probably the most overlooked aspect of file management. No matter how you create your website, you need to back up your online files regularly. If everything is created offline and uploaded from one computer, simply copying the entire working directory to a separate disk or flash drive is enough. In some cases it might be worthwhile to copy to CD or DVD for a more permanent record.

However, if your site is edited by several people at different locations or you use an online site builder, you will need to download any files and/or directories that are not on the primary webmastering computer. This can easily be done with an FTP Client application.

An FTP Client application connects to a website much the same way that a browser does, but unlike a browser, it shows a file and directory listing. Most current FTP Clients allow users to drag and drop directories and files between the computer and server. If the files are being copied to the server, it’s called “uploading.” Copying from the server to your computer is, of course, “downloading.”

Tags: computer, content, How to, online

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 at 3:52 am and is filed under Web Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.