How to Plan Your Website

These sub sites are built on separate domain files so that I can load them into iWeb, update them and publish them individually.

This saves a lot of time if you are building several websites and is essential if you want to have sub sites.

Its common practice in the iWeb community to build several sites on one domain file and then split them off to separate ones by duplicating the domain file as many times as you want and then deleting the surplus sites. Each domain file is then kept in a separate folder and launched in iWeb by double clicking it.

You can also use a third party application like iWebSites to handle these files.

To avoid the possibility of domain file corruption and the inevitable loss of websites, I like to build my sites on fresh blank domain files and I keep one in a folder so that I can duplicate it to start a new site.

The best time to create and save this blank domain file is when you only have one domain file and its in the default  location - Home Folder/Library/Application Support/iWeb. Quit iWeb, drag this file into the trash, relaunch iWeb and the application will create a new one. Save this with just one blank page and drag it into a suitably named folder for future use and then reinstate your original one from the trash.

When your sub site is ready, publish it to a local folder.

The files for the website “VisualMedia” are shown in [A].

Change the name of the index.html file to SubSiteName.html as in figure [B].

Upload both the file and the folder to the root folder on your server.

The URL to get to any page on this sub site is.......

http://www.mainwebsite.com/SubSiteName/PageName.html

If you plan to have a site with more than 20 to 30 pages you should consider building your site on several domain files. This makes it a lot easier to handle by allowing you to load the sections into iWeb, update and publish them one at a time.

iWeb for Musicians is built this way. The sections are linked by a main navigation menu that employs external hyperlinks. The individual sections are navigated using a sub menu that uses  internal links.

You can see how the site is structured at .......... http://www.iwebformusicians.com/iWebMusicWebsite/WebsiteMap.html

Due to iWeb’s inability to import published files its essential to keep up to date backups of your Domain files. Even if you have a Time Machine backup, its a good idea to upload a copy of the current Domain file to your server every time you publish changes. This way you will be covered if your hard drive crashes or your house burns down!