Chapter 14: Web Sites versus Web Pages
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Although some subdirectories contain very little information, others are quite full. Take, for example, the subdirectory tyu24, for my book Teach Yourself Unix in 24 Hours, at the URL www.intuitive.com/tyu24/: $ ls -F tyu24 Graphics/ Previous/ author.shtml bottomslice.html browsex.html buyit.shtml chap19.shtml coming-soon.shtml dickens.html download.shtml
exchange/ exchange-cgi.html exchange.html exchange.zip exchange2.zip fget.html fget.zip fget2.zip hello.cgi index.shtml
links.shtml middleslice.html netiq.html printers.html reviews.shtml samples.shtml template.html toc.shtml topslice.html
I basically duplicate the directory structure you’ve already seen, with a Graphics subdirectory, an archive of the previous version of the HTML files called Previous, and a mix of HTML and CGI. Just for fun, peek into the Graphics subdirectory to see how many graphics files are being neatly sequestered: $ ls tyu24/Graphics 2nd-ed-cover.gif 3rd-ed-cover.jpg action-icon.gif amazon.gif author.gif background.gif buy-it.gif description-icon.gif
floppydisk.gif intsys.gif menubar.gif menubar.gif.old note-icon.gif quote.gif slice1.gif slice2.gif
slice3.gif slice4.gif slice5.gif stars-4-0.gif stars-5-0.gif summary-icon.gif tyu24-banner.gif
Quite a few files, don’t you think? You can see immediately why putting all these graphic files into their own subdirectory simplifies site management. It ensures that these graphics aren’t mixed in with the top-level graphics of the main intuitive.com pages, which are in another directory also called Graphics. The difference is that the top-level graphics are in /Graphics/, and these are in /tyu24/Graphics/—a critical difference. With a site that contains hundreds and hundreds of files of various types, it’s critical to cate gorize and organize. Think of the chaos that would result at the public library if it didn’t have a filing and organizational system, or how your local school district would grind to a halt with thousands of student files dumped into a single folder!
Protecting Web Sites and Directories After you have your Web site organized and you are beginning to do ongoing maintenance and updates, it’s time to think about another important topic: protecting specific areas of the site from unauthorized viewing.