Understanding Folders and Sub-directories
Accessing Files In Directories
Problems For Front Page and Dreamweaver Users
GeoCities:
Creating A Subdirectory
Renaming A Subdirectory
Deleting A Subdirectory
Uploading To A Subdirectory
Number of Sub-Directories
Understanding Folder And Sub-Directives
On your PC you have folders. On your site you have directories. At least this is how most people use these names. But actually the names are actually interchangeable. So if you have a folder on your PC where you keep all your web pages and it is named MY PAGES, this is probably in your C: DRIVE, which is the main directory (folder) on your PC. On your site, your pages probably in your FILE MANAGER.
The file manager is your main folder/directory on your site, i.e. the top level directory/folder. On your PC the top level is your C: DRIVE and it has all the folders in/under it. Ditto for your file manager, as it contains/hold/ has under it all the directories/folders. These folders/directories in your file manager are normally called SUB-DIRECTORIES.
Now, on your PC if you have a folder under another folder this is called a sub-folder or a folder-in-a-folder. Sub-folder is the preferred name.
These are the four terms you have to learn how to use:
First, where to keep your web pages? On your PC you can start out with all your web pages in one folder, say called/named MY WEB PAGES.
Second, the easiest way to work with web pages (files) and graphics is to have all the graphics either (a) in the same folder as your web pages (on your PC) or (b) in a sub-folder of the folder where you keep your web pages.
Why is this important? Because when you make web pages that have graphics you can REFERENCE them on your PC as to where they are on your PC. When the pages and graphics are transferred to your site all you have to do is put the web pages in your main file manager and the graphics in the same relative place that they are on your PC.
<img src="images/myphoto.jpg">
That's all there is to graphics and web pages.
I, on the other hand, keep the vast majority of my graphics in my main file manager and they are in the same folder on my PC as my web pages. Why? Because I just started out that way :o)
And I normally have all my web pages in the main file manager, i.e. I don't split up web pages in to other sub-directories (folder) on my site. But on my PC I do keep difference web pages in different folders on my PC. This is a contradiction but just the way I started. So, on my PC I have a separate folder from my HELP PAGES, PAGE BUILDER HELP PAGES, and all my tutorials BUT I KEEP ALL THESE IN THE MAIN FILE MANGER ON MY SITE.
I hope that the above helps you understand where to have images on your PC so you can have the work with your pages on your site. Probably the best way is like shown above, keep your graphics in a sub-folder of the folder where you keep your web pages and then use the HTML code for the graphics:
<img src="images/myphoto.jpg">
Then all you have to do is upload the web pages to the main file manager and the graphics to the sub-directory named "images".
When you work with pages/graphics on your PC you have to consider where the pages/graphics will be on your site. This means you have to understand folders and directories.
For example, let's say you have a folder on your PC named MY WEB PAGES. And when making your web pages you are using graphics that you have in a sub-folder name IMAGES under the folder MY WEB PAGES (to make things easy on yourself you should always use LOWER CASE LETTER in any folder/sub-directory, i.e. don't mix upper and lower case letters). Now suppose you have a graphic named "myphoto.jpg" in the sub-folder, images. To reference this graphic when you are making a page, which is in the folder "my web pages" you use this HTML code:
Then the graphic will appear on the page when you preview it on your PC and on the web if you upload the graphic to the sub-directory (of your file manager) named "images".
It probably is a good idea to keep graphics separate from the web pages, i.e. in a sub-folder or sub-directory. So your PC would look like this:
| NOTE: Yahoo/GeoCities Page Builder Can Not Access Sub-Directories! |
Accessing files in folders can be complicated but not if you follow these rules, which are detailed in the table below.
You have a current web page displayed and you need to access either another web page or graphic that could be in your directories, most likely not the current directory.
A Common Problem For Front Page (FP) and Dreamweaver (DW) Users.
FP and DW reference graphics and web pages that are stored on a PC exactly as they are store. Suppose there is an image in one folder on your C drive, subdirectory 1 file 3, and the web pages in another folder, subdirectory 2 file 5 above. When either FP or DW reference the graphic, file 3, from file 5, the web page, either of FP or DW will make the code like this:
../subdirectory 2/file 3
which means go up one level, to the top directory in this case above, and then to subdirectory 1 to file 3. But when the files get uploaded to their site the graphic and the web page are stored in the same directory and, thus, when the page is displayed on the web the graphic is blank with a red X in the left hand corner.
There are two ways to correct this:
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Creating Sub-directories In GeoCities File Manager
How do you put folders in your file manager? First, the official GeoCities' Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about subdirectories is located at:
http://search.help.yahoo.com/search/helpsrch?p=subdirectory&R=GeoCities
You can look it now or later. There are no screen snap shots of how to make and use subdirectories but there are questions and answers that should help you understand using subdirectories. The rest of this help will show you the file manager screens that you will using and tell you what to do.
In File Manager you will see the following:
Note the Delete button. If you ever need to get rid of a subdirectory click on this button and you will be able to select which subdirectory to remove.
Click on the [ NEW ] and this is the next screen:
I want to create a new subdirectory called GRAPHICS so that is what I put in the text box and then click CREATE DIRECTORY, which will take me back to my File Manager screen, part of which now looks like this:
If I want to add files to this subdirectory from my main directory, I can find the file in the main directory (File Manager) and then copy or move them to this subdirectory. See http://search.help.yahoo.com/search/helpsrch?p=subdirectory&R=GeoCities for specific instructions on how to copy and move files from one directory to another.
You will note that you can RENAME a subdirectory or DELETE it as well as CREATE a new subdirectory. Be advised that if you delete any subdirectory you will also be deleting any files located in that subdirectory.
Oh, yes, one more thing: you can have subdirectories of subdirectories, but I believe GeoCities only allows two levels of subdirectory in their free sites. Be advised that subdirectories are resource 'hogs' and require additional memory so you will not be able to store as much using subdirectories as you would by not using subdirectories.
Renaming A GeoCities Sub-Directory
To Rename a sub-directory click on the Rename Button and then select the sub-directory from the drop down menu.
Deleting A GeoCities Sub-Directory
To Delete any sub-directory, which will also delete all files in that sub-directory unless you move them some place else, click on the DELETE BUTTON:
This will bring up the screen:
Select the sub to delete from the list and click on Delete Subdirectory button.
Uploading To A GeoCities Sub-D rectory
In order to upload directly to a subdirectory you must:
Allowable Number Of GeoCities Sub-Directories
Free GeoCities page's File Manager say they can only have two levels of sub-directories but in tests I have found I could use up to 4 levels deep.
General Rules Of Thumb:
Current File
File To Be
Displayed
HREF=
File 1 File 2 "File 2"
File 1 File 3 "Subdirectory 1/File 3" File 1 File 4 "Subdirectory 2/SubDirectory 3/File 4" File 3 File 1 "../File 1" File 3 File 5 "../Subdirectory 2/Subdirectory 3/File 5" File 4 File 1 "../File 1" File 4 File 3 "../SubDirectory 1/File 3" File 5 File 3 "../../SubDirectory 1/File 3"
NOTE: Yahoo/GeoCities Page Builder can not access sub-directories!
