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General Web Site Information
Here's how to create pages that will work on our Tivilon web hosting servers.
Rules for Filenames
Any of the following characters can be used in directory or file names on the Web:
Lowercase Letters: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Uppercase Letters: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
Numbers: 1234567890
Special Characters: -_.
Please note: Filenames should not have spaces or any other unique characters not listed above. Spaces and unique
characters in filenames do not transfer well to the Web. Therefore, remove such spaces and characters from your filenames
before publishing.
contactus.html is a good example
contact_us.html is a good example
ContactUs.html is a good example
Contact Us.html is a bad example
You may also want to develop a standard naming convention for your files to make it easier to manage them on your site
later on. For instance, if you have a "partners" page on your site, containing all of your partner logos, you may want to
name each image partnername_logo.gif (as an example) and contain them within your images directory.
Another important reading: How to Get Your Home Page to Load Automatically
Important Conventions to Use
When creating your pages to be viewed on our server, there are certain conventions that you must follow in order for the
server to correctly serve your pages.
- When someone wishes to access your pages from our server, they will most likely type in your URL something like this:
http://www.domain.com/directory
In order for the server software to pull up your pages, there must be a page in your directory named "index.htm" or "index.html." This
is what the server looks for as a default file to bring up as the first page in your set of pages.
- You must also remember when you reference your own pages from within your html documents, the files are CASE SENSITIVE. For example, "mypage.html" is a
- Try not to incorporate spaces into any of the names of your files or folders, as it will just be more complicated for you, and anyone viewing your pages.
General HTML Do's and Don'ts
Here are some tips to help the overall quality of your pages.
DO - Before you create your pages, brainstorm your page goals. Ask yourself questions like these:
What information do you wish to convey, or have available?
What is my target audience?
What type of browsers do I wish to write for?
DO - Take time to organize your pages by drawing a storyboard of the page progression.
DON'T - Inundate your pages with oversized graphics. Graphics are an important element, but when used in excess, tend to make readers leave. Try using some
utilities to make the graphics you scan or create smaller.
DON'T - Make your pages too large in width or length. Not everyone has large monitors, and scrolling is something that turns off readers.
DO - Break up your pages into logical sections to make it easy for your reader to find what they are interested in.
DO - Look at the source code of any cool pages that you find to see how the author created their pages.
DO - Obtain texts on the subject for reference. HTML books are everywhere these days, so go to your local bookstore and explore the possibilities.
Another helpful suggestion is to stick with a set naming convention and directory structure, which makes creating your links much easier within your HTML. Be sure and use the same
extension on all HTML files, either .htm or .html. Mixing and matching both extensions can lead to broken links.
Transferring Your Pages
Once you have created your web site, you will need to transfer those html documents and graphics files to our server. FTP is the most common method used for
transferring files on the Web. We have developed a Getting Started with FTP (File Transfer Protocol) guide for our customers that will not be uploading their
files with Microsoft FrontPage. If you are new to FTP, please review the FTP Tutorial document or the FTP application's manual.
If you are already familiar with FTP, please refer to the following chart for the appropriate format to upload your files in. If you are using WS_FTP, with web
pages, images, and zip files you can usually get away with choosing Binary and Auto. For CGI scripts, you will likely want to make sure that only ASCII is selected.
| File |
Extension |
OS |
Upload Format |
| Web Page |
(*.htm, *.html, *.shtml, *.asp) |
PC |
ASCII |
| Web Page |
(*.htm, *.html, *.shtml, *.asp) |
Mac |
ASCII or Plain Text |
| Images |
(*.gif, *.jpg) |
PC |
PC Binary |
| Images |
(*.gif, *.jpg) |
Mac |
Mac Raw Data |
| ZIP |
(*.zip) |
PC |
PC Binary |
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Viewing Your Pages
Now that you have successfully transferred your files to our server, you should view them to make sure that all
of the links and graphics work. Use your browser and type in your URL. If you now see your front page, then congratulations! Your pages
are on the net! If you don't see your page, then you may not have named your page correctly, so check and make sure it is "index.html" or "index.htm."
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