Publishing Your Web

Tom Kelliher, CS 102

Oct. 31, 2005

Introduction

When designing your personal Web site, you have two alternatives in where the site is stored. Either approach is acceptable to me. The first alternative is to create the site within the FrontPage folder on your G: drive, as we have already practiced. As you will see today, from there you publish the site. The advantage of this approach is that the world doesn't see your Web site until you've published it (Actually, it's unlikely someone will see your Web site unless your give them your URL -- your Web address. Search engine spiders will need some time before finding and indexing your Web site.).

The second alternative is to create your Web site directly on the Web server. We'll learn how to do that today. The advantage of this approach is that you don't have to go through the work of publishing your Web site -- it's always published. Neither do you have to worry whether or not your Web Pages are properly located within a Web.

Either way, the entry page to your Web site must have the file name index.htm. To view your Web in Internet Explorer or Netscape, just enter your URL into the browser.

The location (URL) of your Web will look like this:

http://students.goucher.edu/fjones

except that you replace the username fjones with your name, obviously. You use this location when publishing your Web, when opening your Web, or when telling your friends and family to check-out your Web site.

Opening Your Web

1. Start FrontPage.

2. Open the File menu and choose Open Site....

3. An Open Site dialog box pops up. In the Site name field, enter the URL of your Web, as listed above. After you've opened your Web the first time, you'll probably see a shortcut to your Web folder in the dialog box. You can open the shortcut, rather than type in the URL. Or, you can look at the Recent Sites choice under the File menu.

4. Click the Open button.

5. A Connect dialog box opens. Enter your username, prepended by gcadmin (for example, gcadmin\fjones), and password, if required.

6. Back in the Open Site dialog box, click the Open button. Your Web should now be open. You can begin creating Web pages.

Managing Your Web

First things first: Open your Web.

Creating Web Pages

Creating Web pages on your Web is completely the same as creating Web pages within a Web in your FrontPage folder. So, you already know how to do this.

Saving Web Pages

This is also just the same as saving Web Pages to a Web on your G: drive. When asked, make sure you save all embedded files.

Deleting Web Pages and Other Files

There are several things you should not delete:

• Your main Web folder.
• The _private folder.
• The images folder.
• The toolbox folder or anything within it.

1. Select any files and folders to delete, and delete them as you normally delete files and folders.

Publishing a Local Web to the Web Server

1. Use FrontPage to open a Web in your FrontPage folder on your G: drive.

2. From the File menu, select Publish Site.... (If this option is grayed-out, you don't have a Web open. You have to open a Web before publishing.)

3. A Remote Web Site Properties window will open. (You will only see this the first time you publish your Web.) The Remote Web server type should be FrontPage or SharePoint Services. For Remote Web site location, type in the location of your Web (see above for the format).

   Click OK.

4. You will now see a split Remote Web site window, with your local site files on the left and the remote site files on the right. At the bottom of the window, on the right, select Local to remote and click Publish Web site.

5. After successfully publishing, you can view the remote Web site by selecting View your Remote Web site from the bottom of the window, on the left.

   If, after publishing, you view your Web and get an ``Index'' listing rather that a Web page, click the Refresh button in the Web browser. If you still get the index listing, then you need to use FrontPage to re-name your main Web page file to index.htm

Viewing Your Web

Using Internet Explorer or another browser, enter your Web's URL. The Web file you named index.htm will be displayed. If not, first trying using the Refresh button in the browser.

If you're getting an ``Index'' listing, you need to go back to FrontPage and re-name one of your Web page file names index.htm. If the wrong file is being displayed, you'll need to go back to FrontPage and re-name two Web page files.

Note that sound files probably won't play correctly in Netscape. They should play just fine in IE.

Tom Kelliher