Uploading Files - Free Web Space
Uploading Files - Free Web Space
An upload is the process of copying files to your website from your local
computer.
The instructions below are for uploading files to the free non-commercial, non-domain
space that comes with every Internet access account. If you are attempting to upload files
to a domain, please visit the help pages on
uploading files to your domain.
If you have a web page or graphics that you want to put on the Internet you may
do so by using a file transfer protocol program.
You can then upload the files to one of the servers where it will be stored and be
able to be accessed on the Internet. Simply follow the step by step instructions
below and you can upload your website or graphics to the Internet.
The instructions below presume you have an FTP program such as WS_FTP or Fetch installed and
ready to use.
Please use the help files and associated documentation with your download progam for its use
and configuration.
The first step in setting up your personal page is to contact the
Server Administrators so they
can set up your home directory. They will then email you instructions on how to access
your home directory and get started on your home page.
After contacting the administrators, they will tell you what server your site will be located on.
Use that server name for any instance below where you see "[your server]". For example, if
your server is integra.net, use "ftp.integra.net" in the first example below.
- First you need to be logged in and online.
- Then double click on your FTP icon.
- Under Profile Name type: ftp.[your server]
- Under Host Name type: ftp.[your server]
- Under UserID type in your login.
- Under Password type your password. Then press enter.
- The screen will then change. Under Remote System in the right hand side/upper half)
double click on public_html. If you do not have a public_html directory it will be necessary
for you to make one:
- Click the MkDir button.
- In the box that comes up type in public_html, then click O.K.
It is very important that your files are stored in the
public_html directory and not within your home directory. Otherwise, they will not appear when
you go on to the Internet to view your site.
- Under Local System (on the left hand side of the screen) browse to wherever your files are located.
The top portion of the screen refers to the drive where the file(s) are located. (A:, B:, C:, or D:) You
should then see your files in the lower part of the screen on the Local System side.
- Double click on the file(s) to upload them into your public_html directory. The files will appear
under Remote System on the bottom portion.
- The final step in the posting of your web page to the Internet is very important. Highlight the file that is
to be the first page or main page of your web site and rename this file to index.html
and then click OK.
It may be necessary for you to change the links in your other pages as well to reference your main
page (index.html) as you have changed the name. Then when you have completed the transfer
and the main page file name change, click on the Close button on the bottom of the screen and
then click on Exit.
- Your web page can then be accessed if you type in the URL:
http://www.[your server]/~username
- If you are only posting pictures they will need to be pulled up if you type the URL:
http://www.[your server]/~username/filename.jpg
or
http://www.[your server]/~username/filename.gif
Important Tips
- Be sure that all the pages and all the
graphics for your site are transferred and that all the links within the pages are referencing
the correct files within your directory. For example, if you link to images or pages
that are in the same directory as the loaded page, the link should look something like this:
<IMG src="myimage.gif" width="20" height="20" alt="My Image">
Or
<A href"nextpage.html">Next Page</A>
- Set your transfer mode for Automatic. If the pictures look scrambled or don't come up
correctly, this automatic mode may not be working correctly. Re-upload any page files in ASCII
mode and any images, PDF files, video, Flash objects, Java Applets, or other non-text elements
in BINARY mode.
- Some home pages may be on NT servers. ALthough the "8/3" filenaming convention died
with the passing of Windows 3.11, we still recommend making a habit of naming your files
only 8 characters long and a three-character extension. ie., logo123.jpg (with the exception
of the HTML extension.)
- It is important that you use no special characters or spaces in your file names.
- When you call another page or load an image, the filename called out in your page is case-sensitive.
For example, if you have an image in your page
<IMG src="myimage.gif" width="20" height="20" alt="My Image">
and you name the file
MYimage.gif or MYIMAGE.gif or myimage.GIF
The broken-image icon will display on the page instead of the image. Be sure to use the
same case structure in the page that you use in the filename. The same is true of naming your
linked HTML pages.
- You may name your home page one of several
names, but for simplicity name it index.html, all in lower case. When someone calls your site
without the filename, as in
http://www.[your server]/~yourusername
the web server's indexing configuration will automatically look for index.html first and
return your home page.
As an added note, A web server normally indexes any directory's home page in a specific order.
This is determined by the server's configuration file, and the standard indexing lookup order is
index.html, index.htm, home.html, then other files, although this order can be changed or added to.
If the first is not found, it looks for the next and so on. Your page
will always index correctly if it is named index.html. This is useful if you want to
set up subdirectories:
index.html
mypics/index.html
mypics/vacation/index.html
These can then be linked from your page or called from a browser by the directory name only:
http://www.[your server]/~yourusername/mypics
http://www.[your server]/~yourusername/mypics/vacation
