ftp probs [Why you need to have an index or default htm|html in your directory]

[allen]

hello
ok i'm very new at this. i'm trying to build my 1st ftp site,i'm using 1st page 2000 to make my web pages and i have made the pages like i want but when i upload them to the host server i get a list of files not a web page I contacted the webmaster and i was told that i have the page titled wrong that i must title the page, index htm or html
now the problem is i don't know where to put the title or just how to title it.:(
i hope i have explained this clearly i'm somewhat at a lose as to how to solve this so any addvice you could give me would be a help

[Daybreak_0]

rename all your files to whateverYourlinksAre.htm, except your home page - call that one index.htm

Some like to have a index.html and a separate home page with ext .htm To me does not make much sense and index.htm works just as well as index.html.


You may have to rename them in Windows Explorer.


Its a bit hard to understand exactly what you have done, as your reference to a list of files means nothing. In my suggestion above I am assuming you failed to give them the htm ext (.htm)

I am not even sure of that as you mention a FTP site??

If I did not get it right please provide a list of filenames and what the site will be used for.

Regards
Day

[DCElliott]

Couple things:
By convention, when we go to a webSITE like www.example.com, we don't ask for a specific PAGE but we get served up a page named either index.htm|html or default.htm|html . This is because the server is configured to look for a page named that if no specific page is requested. The server may or may not be configured to serve up a directory listing if neither index|default are available. Seeing your directory listing could be a security concern if you had content you wanted hidden (like naked_bimbos.jpeg ;) ). One last tip - a large part of the net runs Apache server software on Linux because its cheap and reliable. Linux file-systems are case-sensitive so it is a good practice to make all filenames lowercase. If you are working in Windows you can't always tell what the case is because the first letter of filenames is capitalized.

DE

[MikeParent]

When you specify a URL like http://www.somesite.com, you are not specifying which page you want specifically. When this happens the web server will do the following things:

1) Try to load a "default" or home page. This is configurable, but by and large Microsoft web servers will automatically locate and load a page called default.htm or default.asp. Other web servers will try to load index.htm or index.html. You hosting provider will be able to tell you (and it sounds like they have)

2) If a home or default page is not found, the server will then do one of the following depending on how its configured:

a) Show a directory listing of all files in the root of the site. This is bad practice as it exposes files that you may not want the public to access directly. Your hosting provider must be none too sharp to allow this at the root of the site. This "directory browsing" capability is normally disabled.

b) Display an error message. Usually a 403 Forbidden.

In either case, You should rename the page you want as your "home" page to be called index.html, as per your provider's instructions.

Hope that helps!

[Edit - Oops, sorry DC, I had started my reply before you posted and got drawn away - didnt see your post until after I submitted]

[allen]

thx guys for all the info, i got it to work i had to rename my files when i saved them from 1st page to my c drive, i had to use index.html as the name and it went right through
when it came up the gif's i had put in my page were blank i used the insert image button and i used the copy url button on my upload client but my sound file and the 2 gifs i used are not working so now i'm trying to work that out
i have built house's for 26 years i can build em upside down and inside out if ya like but i gotta say i'm pretty lost building web sites. i'm trying to teach it to myself at night for a hobbie but whew !!
anyway thx for ya help, ya'll helped move things along to the next riddle lol
thx again
allen

[Daybreak_0]

enjoy! great hobby.

With your gifs it may be 2 problems.

1) the path

Lets say the gifs are in the same directory as the html page you ar showing them on. src="mypic.gif"

or if in an image directory src="image/mypic.gif" where the html file needs to be in the directory above the image directory.

2) I always save all file names in lower case. make sure that the name of the file is not wrong case, for example src="mypic.gif" but file name is MyPic.GIF as it will fail.

Regards Day

[MikeParent]

If you could give us a URL to look at - this would be much easier....

[allen]

ok guys i'll try to explain this the best i can
after much haggling ( lol ) on the phone with my isp and much frustration at trying to find out where from them i could get the correct URL of where i uploaded my gif's to, i got a help page from them that read like this


If you have a ftp based web site and you want to link to pages other than the default page you might have to use a alternative URL of this format

http://northpolepwp.net/*/#/portalloginname .

Replace "*" with the first character of the portal login name and "#" with the second character of the portal login name.

For example if your user name is "portaluser", your ftp based personal page URL will be

http://northpolepwp.net/p/o/portaluser/

Note the use of the first and second characters of the user name.

If you need to link to a page other than the home page the URL should be in this format

://northpolepwp.net/p/o/portaluser/subdirectoryname/filename.htm

i also got a addy that lets me log onto a page where i see a list of my files but when i right click and properties on it there i get a url that is not supported and this is the same url i'm getting when i use the copy url button on my up loading client

soooo....

useing my name here as a example the way i see it should be going by the above info is this

://northpolepwp.net/a/l/allen/subdirectoryname/earthro.htm

the name of the gif i'm using is earthro
my problem is i am unsure as to what my subdirectory's name is
i was told it would be northpolepwp.net but either i screwed it up or thats not it i'm not sure i tryed it a couple of times with no success

so rather than go into a nother phone call to my isp i figured i would give you guys a shot and see what ya had to say

also i have 1 more ? for ya while i here
while making my web page i put the 2 gif's of the rotating globes in each top corner of the page and between them i put the title of the page and when i put the title up i also put <MARQUEE> in to make the tittle move across the page, and man it looks great the tittle comes outta 1 globe and dissapears into the other :)
but lol the problem i have is i can't stop the MARQUEE LOL now all text i put up after that is going into the marquee :( how do i turn the beast off lol ? so i can add more text under the marquee ??????

anyway i'm gonna plug away at this
but i would like to say this is a great thing you have here having sumwhere to ask questions when ya get lost is very helpful

and thx again for the info on the index.html thing that at least got my page on the server and the marquee looks da## nice :)

thx again
allen

PS i had to remove a couple http's on examples cuz when i preveiwed my post they weren't showing up right...

[Daybreak_0]

It is difficult to understand what you are saying, and therefore difficult to help. So PLEASE answer these questions -

1) The exact address that your ISP told you to use to view your pages.


2) the exact names of every file you have created to be part of you web site.


We can look at getting any pictures to work at a later stage - lets get your pages working first.

Take all you text copy it and get rid of the Marquee, paste text back in. Worry about the fancy stuff when you get some more knowledge.

Regards
Day