culture.gov.au
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Australian weather and the seasons The Australian Gold Rush European discovery and the colonisation of Australia Sydney Olympic Games, 2000 Convicts and the British colonies in Australia Great Barrier Reef Australian Indigenous cultural heritage The Great Depression Modern Australian fashion Australian food and drinkGuide 7. How do I create my website?
Web design principles: directory structure (screen 6 of 17)
Directory structure
The files that are needed for each Web screen are held in directories on the server. They include the HTML for that screen of information and any graphics, applets, 'includes', video, or sound files which are part of that screen.
For an overview of directory structure have a look at this article on 
Builder.com(1).
As your website grows you may have many thousands of files. But no matter how big or small your website you should think carefully about how you are going to organise your files before you start. This means establishing a directory structure. You should organise your information into directories and subdirectories. Give the directories and subdirectories meaningful names. This is not only for your benefit but for the benefit of users who use this directory structure to navigate around your site.
The directory structure of this website means that any article included in the site will have a similar URL. For example,
http://culture.gov.au/articles/articlename/
Notice the use of a slash (/) to separate directory levels.
If someone
was looking for an article on the Culture and Recreation Portal site, they could go to the articles directory http://culture.gov.au/stories/(2) and
look at the index to find a particular article.
If you want to know more about what parts of a URL mean, look at this earlier Guide(3).
So you need to consider:
- How will you name your directories and subdirectories?
- How will you organise your information in each directory?
Image management
It is a good idea to create an images folder in each directory and subdirectory and keep all the images related to screens in that directory in the related images folder. Also develop a consistent naming regime for your images. You can give them numbers, or give them the same name as the document to which they relate.If you use a lot of images you may need to use image management software to keep track of versions, of copyright issues, limitations on use, acknowledgement text and so on - as well as ensuring you can find an image if you want to use it again!
Smart Pix Manager(4) is one such software program. There are others available.
Website documentation
Whatever directory structure and naming conventions you decide upon it is important you document these to ensure you have consistency in look, feel and document naming. This is so that others in the organisation - if they are creating Web screens for your site - can always apply the same approach because they can refer to a shared standard. If you have an Intranet, post this information there, and tell people where to find it.
Any new staff member should be able to use the documentation to guide their Web publishing activities in your organisation.
If you publish electronic documents for the Australian Federal Government,
you will need to be aware of, and implement as appropriate, the "Guidelines
for Commonwealth Information Published in Electronic Formats"(5).
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References
- Web design by Builder.com http://www.builder.com/
- Articles on this website http://culture.gov.au/stories/
- Guide 3 screen 4 http://culture.gov.au/resources/guides/g3/s4.htm
- Smart Pix Manager http://www.xequte.com/smartpix/index.html
- Guidelines for Commonwealth Information Published in Electronic Formats http://www.agimo.gov.au/information/publishing/formats
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