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Archiver > Freepages-Help > 2004-05 > 1086039674


From: Glenn Holliday <>
Subject: Re: [FreeHelp] Avoiding "Index of/~"
Date: Mon, 31 May 2004 17:41:14 -0400
References: <FLEMIKNHLLGHONCKAJMKGECOCAAA.colin.jenkins3@ntlworld.com>


Hi Colin,

Colin Jenkins wrote:
>
> I have successfully transfered my web page to Rootsweb, but would like the
> page to open immediately instead of opening with
> Index of /~(site name), parent directory, filename etc.
>
> I should be grateful if you would let me know how this is done, or whereb I
> can find the information.
>
> URL: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~cdj1927/

This URL describes where to find a directory, not a specific
Web page in that directory. ~cdj1927/ means the home
directory of user name cdj1927.

When a browser asks a Web server to see a directory, several
things can happen. A Web server will first look for a
default file name, and if it finds it, return that as the
home page for the directory. The standard filename to look for
is index.html. It is also possible to set up a Web server to
look for other default filen ames, but I won't worry about
that complication now.

You can do a couple of things. Instead of the URL
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~cdj1927/,
you can use an explicit URL to the page you want people
to see. That would look like
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~cdj1927/ENTER%20SITE.html.

But notice what I did to represent your file name in a URL.
Spaces are illegal in the standard for how to write a URL,
so if you need a file name with a space in it, you need to
encode the spaces in the URL.

I think you'll be happier if you rename your home page from
ENTER SITE.html to index.html. That will let people find it
from the original URL you supplied, for the directory alone.

--
Glenn Holliday


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