Lets talk about saving HTML files first. It is a good idea to save your HTML file and all files that go with it in the same folder.(If you have arach. v4, it will automatically do this for you!) I know I've said this somewhere before, but...in my computer( C: drive) I have a folder called My Documents and in that folder I have a folder called WebPages (See fig.1) and in that folder I have separate folders for each one of my web pages or web "sections" (See fig.2) and I when I upload, I try to keep the same structure on my server!

fig.1

fig.2

The first thing you will want to know is that FTP stands for F ile T ranfer P rotocol. It is basically a program that allows you to upload files from your computer to the internet or download files from the internet to your computer.

There are quite a few programs out there that will do this such as WsFTP, CuteFTP and SmartFTP. This lesson will deal with SmartFTP as it is a good professional program and best of all it is free! If you search out forums dealing with html and the like and ask what the best FTP program is, most will tell you SmartFTP is the best...'nough said!
You can download a free copy for personal use here! =>

Once you have opened and looked over the program, one of the first things you will notice are some windows asking for an ftp address and login/password info, that should be self explainatory. The ftp address should look like fig.3

 fig.3

You will also see a window that says Port , its default should be 21, I have never had a need to change it! Once you have entered the information press the "connect" button. After it has finished downloading you should see something like in fig.4, you may have more or less folders, some may have different names but the structure should be the same!

 fig.4

You will see that I have a folder called "httpdocs", if you dont have one, you should have something like "root","top", "public html" or something like that (thats if you have your own domain name, if you dont, then you are probably already in your "root" folder), The "root" folder(as we will call it) is where you put the first page or "homepage" of your web site and it must be called index.html or index.php or something like that ! Your webhost may supply some way to change this to something like default.html if so make sure you do not have "index.html" as this will override default.html. For our examples we will use "index.html". (see fig.5)

 fig.5

The address to that file would be "http://www.yoursite.com" or "http://www.yoursite.com/" or "http://www.yoursite.com/index.html". There are a few things to note here:

1. That the "root" folder is not in the address.
2. That there is a "/" at the end of one of them.
3. That all three examples are saying "look in the root folder for index.html ".

1. The address assumes that it will look in the root folder for the new folder.
2. You can name your second page index.html as long as your second page is not in your "root" folder.(you cannot have 2 files with the same name in the same folder)
3. If you do call it index.html then the address can be shortened to "http://www.yoursite.com/newfolder/", the "/" is saying look in the new folder for "index.html", otherwise you will have to include the name of the file in the address.

Well that about does it! If you have followed along from lesson 1 you should now have a couple of pages on the internet! If you have some scripts you want to use on your site and your not sure how to do it come on back, my next lesson should be on "scripts and chmoding"

Now that your done take a TEST