User Tools

Site Tools


web5:create_sites

Create Web Sites

StudioLine makes it easy to work with websites of any size. If your website consists of only a small number of pages and files, then the need for advanced planning is minimized. As your site grows, you can subsequently add an organizational scheme.

Nevertheless, advance planning is advised if you expect to build a robust website with up to thousands of web pages which might contain images, media objects, and folders. Using StudioLine, the web designer can easily manage large projects or an extensive list of clients' sites by organizing all related files into folders.

Choice in Naming Conventions

Creating names for sites, pages, images, and folders is easy with StudioLine. Names can be created irrespective of character set limitations. Thus, it is a snap to search and find a folder, page, or image. Nevertheless, logical title choice and correct spelling will enhance your search results.

When a page is first published by StudioLine, correct and permanent external names are generated for the web server since character set limitations exist outside of StudioLine. The external name is not usually visible to the user, but nevertheless closely resembles the initial internal name.

The advantages of separating internal and external names becomes apparent as the site grows and/or the structure of the site changes. With StudioLine Explorer, a web master can rename objects or organize them in folders without restriction, even after the site has already been published. External names and web addresses (URLs) are completely unaffected by reorganization. Maintaining search engine positioning and keeping visitors' bookmarks valid are two additional, extremely valuable features.

Organizing with Folders

Sites

Most users maintain a small number of sites, and therefore will not require site folders. However, StudioLine can help you seamlessly maintain your clients intranet-, staging- , and internet production sites, by creating one folder that encompasses all related sites.

Layout Templates

If you are maintaining more than one site, each with multiple layout templates, it is a good idea to organize your custom templates in folders per client and/or per site.

Pages

Grouping related pages into folders will help un-clutter a large site or allow you to make use of automated folder links.

Image Archive

Image Archive folders may be created to represent clients, sites, subject areas, applications, or even periods of time. The best organization for you will depend on the type of images you collect over time. StudioLine offers an extremely effective search engine to locate images across all folders. Carefully chosen descriptions of your images utilizing logical keywords will pay off, especially once your site has grown to a respectable size. Folders for individual object types are entirely separate. You may choose to use folders for one type of object and not for another.

Publishing Profile

The Publishing Profile lists the server information for each website making it easy to go back and forth between different sites and the required information.

Sectioning a Large Web Site

Large web sites are often maintained by a team of web masters. Distinct sections, such as Products and Services, Customer Support, Corporate Public Relations may have different requirements or employ a specific look and feel. In StudioLine, one can treat each web site section as a unique site. In this way, each site can be based on different layout defaults and be maintained on different workstations.

Creating a Site

To create a new web site choose from the Menu Bar: “File” → “Site” → “New.” Next, choose a standard layout. By clicking on the list, an example of the layout is shown to the right. Then, click on the button “continue”.

A new window will open which will allow you to type in the name of your site. As an example, you could choose “Kingfisher”. Click “ok”.

The StudioLine Explorer automatically opens showing you a list of all the pages associated with your template. You can click on each page to edit them and add images or you can navigate the different pages via the left-hand navigation pane.

Should you prefer to create new names for the individual pages of the template site, you can easily change them in the left-hand navigation page. A window will open that prompts you confirm if you want the URL to match the new page name.

Publishing Considerations

Once a site is completed, it must be published to the respective subfolder on the web server. This is accomplished by specifying the appropriate “Remote Directory” in the publishing profile of a site.

Enter the name of your FTP server, login information, as well as the web address (URL) of your web server. You should be able to get these pieces of information from your web hosting provider. Using the StudioLine Explorer-Sites window, you can view the publishing profiles of each site.

Implications when Linking

When sites are kept on a single workstation, then it is simple to create links between pages by using simple drag and drop. If multiple workstations are used to maintain distinct sections of a large site, then web designers have to manually enter appropriate URLs to link between pages contained in different StudioLine sites.

web5/create_sites.txt · Last modified: 2013/11/13 09:12 by 127.0.0.1