Index
or Home Page
Your home page is the main gateway into your Web site, however
it is not the only entry for your visitors. The home page is usually
assigned the file name "index". For example, the URL/address
for the English Department's home page is
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/engl or
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/engl/index.shtml.
To arrive at the English Department's home page, a visitor does
not need to type the file name (index.shtml), because the index
page always appears by default.
By putting an index file in every directory you create, you make
it easier for people to get to your site. For example, let's say
you want to create a home page for the Office of Communications,
in the /offices/comm/ folder. If you start with an index.shtml file
as the home page, its URL will be:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/comm/index.shtml
However people will also be able to view this page by going to
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/comm/
If you did not create an index file, anyone who used the second
address would be able to see a listing of all the files in that
directory.
The Web server searches for these files, in the order listed:
index.menu
index.shtml
index.shm
index.html
index.htm
default.shtml
default.htm
If any of these are found, it is displayed instead of the directory
listing.
Dreamweaver Tip:
You can set preferences so that the file extension ".shtml"
is added when saving your documents. This encourages the same file
extension on all of your pages and saves you the time of having
to add the file extension each time you create a document.
From the "Edit" menu, select Preferences. In the Preferences
dialogue box, select "New Document", and add the file
extension ".shtml" in the "Default Document Type"
box.
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