What is it?
File Transfer Protocol is a means of communicating across the Internet by sending and receiving large files of data. It allows your computer to directly access a server in different location. Usually you will look at files held by your ISP, downloading any that you need, or updating and transferring your own files. You can also browse public FTP servers for patches, software demos and documents that you can download to your own PC/Mac.
Why do I need to use it?
You will have spent a lot of time making your web pages in class, and hopefully at home too. However in order that the rest of the world can view them, you need to upload them to your ISP's server. Your pages will then permanently reside on the hard disk(s) of the machine belonging to your ISP, which means that even when you're not online, people can view the fruits of all your hard work.
Also you can store big files here, if you want to share them, for example at work or with members of a club or society, or with customers.
OK then, what software do I need?
Here there is no standardisation, most web publishers will use a mixture of communications software to do their publishing. Let's look at the most popular ways of publishing your site:
Cute is probably the easiest FTP program around, and it has the big advantage of being Shareware, which means you can try it for nothing, and if you like it you send a small fee off to the program's publisher, GlobalSCAPE.
How does it work?
Once you've installed your FTP program, and connected to your ISP, start the FTP session. Cute will take you through a 'wizard' to create a shortcut to your ISP.
Whatever you're using, you will find that the screen is split into two areas: local and remote:
From here it's really easy. You just drag and drop the folder with your web page onto the corresponding folder on the remote site. Cute will prompt you for any updates that might be required.
You do need to get some information from your ISP though:
We'll go into this further when we look at setting up Dreamweaver to handle communications for you.
Can't I do all this in Dreamweaver?
The answer is yes you can! However, this is not one of the best-designed features of Dreamweaver, and you might want to start with Cute or something like that until you know what you're doing!
Anyway, let's see how it works:
Like anything in Dreamweaver, Site definition is the key to successful management. When you are happy with your pages, open up the site map page:
...and then ask Dreamweaver to 'Define Sites' for you. You can see that like a good little web designer all my lovely files sit in a nice folder together, and that my site map shows no broken links. Good web design practice at an early stage really pays off here.
If you reach this stage and your folders are a mess and the links are broken you need to go back and repair the site. It is no good publishing your site if it's not working.
Notice that there is no subfolder called 'images' or 'pics', or something like that. This is for simplicity's sake, so that I can see everything at a glance. This isn't a very big site, and if I was working on a larger one I might create some subfolders, but I don't recommend it, at least for beginners.
Anyway let's ask Dreamweaver to do our communications for us:
Instead of defining 'Local Info' I have moved to 'Web Server Info' and filled in the boxes:
Server Access = FTP
FTP host = My ISP's public server
Host Directory = Where on the server my folders sit
Login = my user ID
Password = my password
This information should be provided to you when you set up your account with a internet service provider. This is what you pay your money for. If you have an account with a free ISP, you probably won't be able to use FTP. This is a pain, because you lose the site and folder management features of FTP. Free ISPs are likely to direct you to a special web page (URL) where directories are pre-set. Also if you're transferring big files, it can take a lot longer. You don't get anything any good for nothing, as my granny used to say…
So let's say OK to all of that:
Right, that seems OK. Notice that I have pressed the button that says 'connect', and it lights up in green, saying 'disconnect', showing that I'm online. I've also clicked the left-hand button, on the extreme left of the page to give me a display of the folders on the remote site and my local site. Now I've got a range of options: I can upload or down load using the rather quirkily titled 'get' and 'put' buttons, or I can synchronise the entire site using 'refresh'.
I'm not sure that I like the design of this but it does allow you to view everything and continue editing and posting pages within one package. It's probably best where you have a big site that needs regular updating with news and new pictures. If it's just a static one-off site I'd be tempted to use Cute and have done.
What else is FTP for?
Lots of web sites maintain a public FTP archive with lots of useful files you can download. Be careful that you're not down loading stuff like MP3s or MPEGs that you can't use or that your machine won't handle. Here's one FTP site I've found that you might like to try:
Have a go at browsing this and downloading some files. Save and print the results for your Portfolio for module 124.
OK, What's next?
When your recording studio front page is finished, upload it to your server using FTP.