Rapid-Website

How do I…

…create the menus in my website?

A worthy suggestion:

It is much easier to learn by example. You can download all the source files for this website by clicking here. Compare the file & folder structure with this website’s menu and you’ll get the concept very easily.

Basically

Each MS-Word file represents a clickable item in the menu.
Each folder represents a non clickable item in the menu that has a submenu.

…use zip?

A Zip file is a file that contains other files & folders inside it self. The zip file is a compressed version of the files & folders in it, meaning that the zip file is smaller than the sum of sizes of all individual files & folders in the zip file. Zip files are the most popular file compression utility in the world.

Why use zip files?

Originally it was to save storage space, but nowadays it is mostly a convenient method to send somebody a lot of files in one large file. For example, if you want to send someone about a 100 MS-Word documents, it is much easier to compress it into a zip file, and then to e-mail the zip file. It saves the person receiving the zip file even more time, because now he or she don’t have to click “File save as” for each of the 100 attachments in your email.

How do I learn to use zip files?

Zip files are very general on the internet. Most people will know how it works, so just ask around a little. It is much easier if somebody just show you how it works, rather than reading internet FAQ’s. We will really advise you just to ask someone; it will be worth the while.

… load popular files (like Excel, PDF, Jpeg, Zip, etc.) onto my website?

Just copy the file somewhere in your website input folder, and create a hyperlink to it from another Word document. To learn how to use hyperlinks in Word, click here.

…share a file with lots of people?

See “How do I load popular files (like Excel, PDF, Jpeg, Zip, etc.) onto my website?”

…share a file only with certain people?

The same way you share the file with lots of people except that you do not create a hyperlink to it. This way the file is uploaded to the web server, without anybody (except you) knowing it is there.

Now all you have to do is work out the URL (website address) of the file on the web server and email the link to them, so that they also know of it. This URL is your web root address (usually the same as your home page) concatenated with all the subfolders and the filename at the end.

For example if your web root is, http://www.mysite.com

And your web input folder is, C:\MyWebDocs

And the file you want to share is, C:\MyWebDocs\SecretFiles\file1.pdf

Then your file can be downloaded from http://www.mysite.com/SecretFiles/file1.pdf (This is the URL!) after you have generated the website.

Please note the following rules with web URL’s

Back slashes, “\”, changes to forward slashes, “/”
Subfolders are case sensitive (therefore http://www.mysite.com/secretfiles/file1.pdf won’t work) – domains however are not (therefore http://www.MySite.Com/SecretFiles/file1.pdf will work wonderfully)
Spaces, “ “, changes to “%20” (therefore if your file were “\Secret Files\file1.pdf, the URL would be http://www.mysite.com/Secret%20Files/file1.pdf ). Spaces still work most of the time, but now you know not to get frightened if your browser changes it to “%20”.

…put non-web language files (like Excel, PDF, jpg, etc.) in the menu?

Basically all you do is create an html file that forward to any other file (or URL). This is how to do it:

Copy the file in your input directory where you would have wanted it to be in the menu (much the same way as “How do I load popular files (like Excel, PDF, Jpeg, Zip, etc.) onto my website?”, but not creating a hyperlink)
Open a text editor, like Notepad, and paste the following HTML code into it:

<html>

<head>

<META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh"

CONTENT="0; URL=http://www.google.com">

</head>

<body>

</body>

</html>

Replace the "http://www.google.com" with the name of your file (remember it is case sensitive!)
Save the file in the same folder as the non-web language file.
The file can have any name, but must end with “.php” and start with “p.” – for example “p.ExcelGraphs.php”. The file can also have a number with the “p.” to determine its position in the menu – for example “3p.ExcelGraphs.php”
Run the website generator!

Still haven’t got the answer?

Please send more questions to technical@Rapid-website.com