USING FTP   FOR UPDATING YOUR WEBSITE

By Dave Rozelle, Webmaster

 WHY FTP

You’ve signed up for a web site, designed the site and written the HTML.   Now you’re ready to upload your HTML files to the site.  How do you do it???

Beginning webmasters can use the Http (i.e. web page based) methods typically supplied by the host (like Pagebuilder on Yahoo/Geocities sites) but uploading a single file at a time gets old real fast.

At that point you’re ready to use a method called FTP (FILE TRANSFER PROTOCOL, or for short.  This type of program was setup to transfer large files and sets of files, like you’ll need to do to run you web site, from you hard drive to the web server  -- FAST.

GETTING FTP

Many FTP programs are available, and several good ones are available free or nearly free for home use.  The one we’ll be using is WS_FTP LE (LE for “limited edition”) by Ipswitch is free for home/educational use.

To start with WS_FTP LE you first must download the installation files from the Ipswitch internet site. 

1.      Use your browser to go to the web site shown below:

2.     Fill in the form with your name and other information, then hit NEXT.

3.      Click one of the Colorado, USA Win95/NT sites under the “Download” arrow

4.      On the download box make sure the “Save this program to disk” button is marked, and specify a location for the file to be downloaded (make a note of the download location so you can find it later if necessary).

5.      Click OK and the file will be downloaded to your computer.

You now have copies of the WS_FTP LE program installation files on your hard drive.

INSTALLING FTP

1.      Prior to starting the installation process, shut down all open Windows programs.

2.      Using Windows Explorer, navigate until you see the downloaded program (ws_ftple.exe).

3.      Double-click the filename to start the installation program.

4.      Click NEXT and then YES to the question asking if you’re a student. 

5.      Click YES to accept the license agreement, then NEXT and NEXT to accept the default location for installing the program and shortcut folder

6.      Your final installation step is to hit FINISH.  If you want to look at the README file mark it’s button.  If you want to run WS_FTP LE right now mark it’s button.

FTP SETUP and CONNECTION TO WEB HOST

The first step in transferring your files to your webserver is to connect your PC to the server.  To begin, start WS_FTP LE running  ( Windows START, => PROGRAMs, => WS_FTP_LE)

A confusing “Session Properties” screen will appear.  It’s not anywhere as near as hard to handle this screen as it first looks.  Let’s walk through setting up an FTP session to a Geocities Web site:

First the easy one:  PROFILE NAME.  That’s a label YOU pick so you can find this setup next time your run WS_FTP.  Lets call it “GEOCITIES – webpractice” since I’ll be connecting to my “webpractice” page on the Geocities Web Host server

Second you have to setup the connection information. 

Before you can start you need to know where your server resides on the Internet. 

The three pieces of information you’ll need are described below.  This information is typically provided you when you sign up for a web site on one of the hosting services (thought you sometimes have to search a little for it)

Note:  On many (if not most) sites the User ID and Password entries are “Case Sensitive”, that means if you put a capital on the front of webpractice when you try to FTP but didn’t have one there when you signed up, you’ll be denied a connection.

Third, mark the “Save Pwd” box if you want your password saved for your next use of FTP.  Only do this if you’re the only one on your computer that ever uses FTP.

Finally, a place is also provided so you can enter a comment.  Use this for any information you might want to remember later on.

Below is a screen show of the Connection Setup

When you hit "OK", and all your information’s correct, you’ll be connected to your website. 

If you watch the box at the bottom of the WS_FTP screen, you can see your computer connecting to the host computer.  Watch carefully, the words flash by pretty fast. 

After it’s connected and has downloaded the directory list from your host site it will make a train whistle sound (if you have a sound card) and show the message “Transfer complete”. 

You are now ready to send your files to your web site!

TRANSFERING YOUR FILES TO YOUR WEBSITE HOST WITH FTP

After you reach this point, you can think about the process of putting files on your website with FTP very much like moving files with Windows Explorer or File Manager. 

You will see the window shown below, with your home computer files showing in the left pane, and your web site files showing in the right pane. 

The left pane below shows the files I’d like to upload to my web site, contained in Subdirectory “MyWebs”.

The right pane shows a single file “index.html” which is right now in my web site.  This file may be one I previously uploaded, or it might be a “Start-up” file provided by your web host when you signed up.

You can change directories in both panes by either hitting the “ChgDir” button then  typing in the path to the files you want, or you can navigate “Windows Explorer Like” by Double-Clicking the left mouse button on the desired directory name (i.e. “images”), or on the “Up-Arrow ..” spot to move to a higher level directory. 

When you have the correct directories showing in both panes you are ready to transfer the files.

 You do this by highlighting the file or files you want to send (hold down the control button and click a filename to add a second file to your original selection), the clicking the arrow which points from the left to the right pane on the center post between the two windows. 

Again watch the box in the bottom of the WS_FTP window.  It will flash many messages by and finally leave you with the message “Transfer complete” and play a little sound when it’s finished.  You’ve just uploaded your files to your web site!!!!

OTHER WS_FTP COMMANDS

WS_FTP has many capabilities for working with your files.  A few ones you’ll find useful are shown below:

USEFUL LINKS for WS_FTP by Ipswitch