WWW WORKSHOP  Website Organisation: Directory Structure

Directory Structure

The principle structuring device available to the html author is the directory. Directories may contain files or subdirectories. Use of the latter immediately provides a kind of hierarchy, as seen in the following diagram of structure underlying this course:

Note first of all that the main directory mainly contains subdirectories, each of which is devoted to a conceptually separate aspect of the course, hence: one directory for each session, another for the description, another for images, etc.

Note also that there are two files: links.html and index.html. The first is simply a file that happens contain a list of links that are pertinent to the course. The other file is a bit more special for two reasons.

1. It contains the course home page. This is important for the course, but it is also important for the directory to have a single file which acts as a kind of entry point to its contents, much as a store guide shows a client where to find items in a supermarket.
2. It is called "index.html". Servers are usually set up so that if asked for a directory rather than a file, they will automatically look for a standard filename in that directory. The most widely used standard name is "index.html"