File Management

Using files in your site

It’s important that your website’s folder structure be planned out before you start using it. If you installed the package yourself and have access to your site’s root on the host server (using an FTP client), you can add folders any time you wish. If someone else installed it for you, you will need to ask that person to add new folders for you. All folders you upload files to (from the Admin Upload panel) need to have their permission settings changed to “777”. At the very least, you’ll probably want folders called utilities for files that perform functions from outside the site’s core engine; art_img for images used in articles; extrafiles for other files you might include in articles and pages. More information on file usage is provided further down on this page.

Uploading files to folders

Uploading files to your website is easy. You simply choose a folder from the first drop-down field, then browse to the file on your computer using the Browse… button below, and click the Upload button. These steps will upload the file to the folder you have chosen.

Folder permissions: Folders visible from the drop-down are located in the root (main) directory of your website on the host server. This directory contains all files and folders for your website. If you need additional folders,and the root directory is not accessible to you, contact your webmaster to have them added. If there are folders you do not want visible in the drop-down, have your webmaster change the file permissions for you… they are hard-coded in the engine code.

Viewing files in folders

Files located in visible folders can be viewed by opening the drop-down field and choosing a folder. After clicking the View button, all files in that folder will be listed, by name, below the drop-down field. The path to the files will also be added to the panel title… in this case we’re viewing image files located in the images folder, within the userguide folder… located in the root directory. Once they are listed, you can actually view a file by clicking on the file-name… provided you have permission to view it. If you want to delete a visible file from the host server, use the Delete link beside the file-name.

File permissions: Not all files in your site’s root directory are visible, and not all visible files are viewable. Viewing privileges are restricted on some files to protect them from being accidentally altered, over-written or deleted. If there are specific files, file-types, or folders that you no longer want viewable, contact your webmaster to change view permissions for you.

Creating files for inclusion

We know how to create content for an article or a page. But… as the old saying goes… there’s always more than one way to ‘skin the cat’ and the same holds true when creating content. Depending on your knowledge of web programming languages, you can create several file-types and include their contents when creating a new article or page. This example shows the strings required to include three file-types. The first is a text file created in Microsoft NotePad, located in the files folder in the site’s root directory. The second is an html (.htm) file contained in the same folder. The third is a php file that contains a php function, and it is contained in the utilities folder, also in the site’s root directory. No matter which file-type you include, the file-path (folder and file-name) must be wrapped in the opening and closing “include” tags.

As long as the folders have been created in your site’s root directory, and they are visible in the drop-down in the File Upload (admin) Panel, all you need to do is upload your file(s) to the folder(s) you want them in. Then when creating your article or page, just ensure that you have the correct folder and file-name within the include-string. The file will display its content as desired when you save your work.

Using HTML in Notepad

You don’t need a code editing program to create a file that uses HTML tags. As long as you know how to use the tags, you can do it with Microsoft’s NotePad. The example shows a simple file. Since your website’s engine already creates the opening and closing HTML for all articles and pages dynamically, we only need to use tags that control the content itself. You don’t need the article or page title here, but you might want to use a sub-title. The example shown has a sub-title wrapped in H3 tags, followed by two short paragraphs. The first paragraph defaults to the site’s p-tag style, and the second makes the text justified.

Creating HTML in a code editor

Important Note: It’s a good idea to not use a WYSIWYG web editor like MS FrontPage or Dreamweaver to create HTML files for use in your website. These programs are very useful when used as intended, but the code they produce can conflict with the stylesheet declarations already used to control the display of your site’s pages. Be absolutely sure the code you produce does not conflict. A good way to do that is by using a code editor that does not automatically create the code for you. There are several free ones available and can be found by searching on the web, or have a quick look at our useful-tools page.