Freepages-Help-L Archives

Archiver > Freepages-Help > 2000-01 > 0947008346


From: Rod Neep <>
Subject: Re: [FreeHelp] MORE QUESTIONS (Confused/Intimidated Newbie)
Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2000 17:52:26 +0000


In article <>, Dianne
Roberson <> writes
>This
>weekend, following Rod NEEP's instructions (Thank you, thank you, thank you!), I
>managed to get AOLPress in my computer and am carefully (& labouriously) going
>through the Tutorial.

Great ;-)

>Now, my questions:

>2- I've got the same confusion with the AOLPress Tutorial - saving a web page.
>(There, it's the "Choose another drive &/or directory on the computer...Type or
>select the name of the file.... a file extension...." instructions)

I am swapping your questions around and answering this one first, as it
will help to explain the second one too.

On your own hard disk, it helps *considerably* if you have a separate
folder for all your web files stuff (html files from AOLPress, picture
files, etc.)

Let's get you really well organised:

First... using Windows Explorer
create a new folder on your hard disk called simply "web"

\web\

double click on that new web folder and create some more new folders as
sub folders of it:

\web\rwfreepages\
\web\zpracticepages\

double click on the new sub folder rwfreepages, and create another sub
folder of that one called "graphics", and another called "pics".

On your hard disk (drive C:) you will now have the following structure
of folders

\web\
\web\rwfreepages\ your main html web files go here
\web\rwfreepages\graphics\ your buttons, backgrounds etc. go here
\web\rwfreepages\pics\ your own photos, etc. go in here
\web\zpracticepages\ your practice pages go in here

Now... when you create a page in AOLPress, click on save, and on the
list of folders that comes up... change to the \web\rwfreepages\ folder
and save your file there. (Any practice pages, save to the
"zpracticepages" folder. (Note that I suggested a z at the start of the
folder name - that puts it at the bottom of the list - having that
separate from your "rwfreepages" folder keeps those files separate and
out of the way).

Note that I suggested a separate sub-folder for your button graphics,
etc. This keeps those tidy, separate and together too. If you want to
use one of those graphics in a page.... using AOL Press... go to insert
an image as usual ... but look for it in the \rwfreepages\graphics\
folder. AOL Press will automatically create the right code for you
pointing to that folder for the graphic.

Now the really important part:

On the *Rootsweb Server* have the *same* folder structure.
i.e. in the genealogy_htm folder (which is your "root" folder)
create a two new folders:

(root) your html pages go here (from your rwfreepages folder)
/graphics your buttons, backgrounds etc. go here
/pics your own photos, etc. go in here

.... Just as they were in the same *relative* places on your own hard
disk. All the links to your buttons, background images, photos, etc. on
your pages will then work perfectly when live on the web.

Getting your files organised into sub folders (and having exactly the
same structure on the Rootsweb server) really helps! Once you start to
have a lot more files on your web site, you can start thinking about
more sub-folders... for example

\web\rwfreepages\smith\ your smith family pages go in here
\web\rwfreepages\jones\ your jones family pages go in here
\web\rwfreepages\brown\ your brown family pages go in here

Now comes an even more important tip! If you intend to do this at
sometime in the future (and I'll bet you will!) then **do it now!**
The reason for this is that it is a real pain to have to change links in
lots of pages later to point to files you have moved into "family"
folders!

On one of my web sites I have thousands of files, in 224 sub folders to
keep them all organised. I'm not suggesting that you will need that many
<grin> but I have folders for each "topic" or aspect of the site. I
promise you that it will help if you follow the same procedure now
rather than later.

Even in my "little" Rootsweb Freepages site I have 6 sub-folders in
order to keep the files organised.


Now... your next question, which is actually a related topic to the one
above... that of organising your files into separate folders on your own
hard disk.

>1- I'm not quite able to understand the instructions in the PAF User's Guide on
>how to make a GEDCOM or how to send it somewhere (like WorldConnect, which I
>*really* want to do!) once I've made it. ((PLEASE don't laugh too hard, y'all
>might hurt yourselves!)) I'm getting lost at the "Select the drive & folder
>where you want to save" instruction. On the little screen that comes up (after
>I've waded through all the options on what to include) has the following spaces
>already filled in --
>
>SAVE IN: My Documents
>FILE NAME: *.ged
>SAVE AS TYPE: GEDCOM Files (*.ged)
>
>Now, it's at this point I panic - Am I supposed to leave them as they are or
>change them (& if so, to what?) or what?!?

Have a separate folder on your hard disk called "genealogy" or "gen"
Have sub folders under that for various topics...

for example mine has:

\gen\
\gen\bk5data all my files from Brother's Keeper
\gen\book-mis
\gen\book-registers
\gen\counties
\gen\counties\notts and lots more county sub folders
\gen\database all my Access database files
\gen\database\registers
\gen\database\neep my own family database
\gen\gedcoms my gedcom files

Now can you guess where I would save my gedcom files to?

>SAVE IN: My Documents
>FILE NAME: *.ged
>SAVE AS TYPE: GEDCOM Files (*.ged)

SAVE IN : change to your \gen\gedcoms\ folder
FILENAME : type in: myfamily.ged
SAVE AS TYPE: GEDCOM Files (*.ged) - leave this line as it is

Finally... when you come to transfer your gedcom file to the Project
pages at Rootsweb, one of the questions it will ask you is "where is the
gedcom file on your computer?"

you will need to type in:
c:\gen\gedcoms\myfamily.ged

i.e. the *full* "path" of folder and sub folder names and the file name.

>(PS: Rod, your instructions on how to get AOLPress were perfect - but after
>reading them, printing them, & re-reading them I made a pot of *strong* coffee
>first!)

Go make another <grin>

best regards
Rod
--
Rod Neep - Gloucestershire, England

http://www.fweb.org.uk/dea

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