Getting started

Getting started
Getting your web site off the ground couldn't be easier. This document is designed to give enough information to get started with your web site on Demon's commercial web services. Advanced information such as scripting, using image maps, etc. can be found in the Developing your site further section.

Contents:

Uploading your pages
Testing your pages

Uploading your pages

To upload your pages you will need an FTP program: Windows users can use the a program like Terrapin, WS-FTP or CuteFTP; Macintosh users can use Fetch.

Note: To ftp files to your Demon webspace via a browser enter the following in the address bar of the browser:

ftp://username:password@uk-upload.demon.co.uk/

Where username and password should be substituted for your Demon Commercial Web Hosting account username and password. These should not be confused with your dial-up username and password.

The address shown above will put you into the root directory of your commercial web space.

Once you are in the directory you want to transfer your files to you can drag and drop the files from your local machine to your webspace.

When you have finished copying files to your webspace you can either close the browser or type in a new url in the address bar and press "go" or "return" to go to that url, you do not have to log out.

General help with ftp can be found at www.demon.net/helpdesk/producthelp/ftp/ftp and using FTP with Demon's servers at www.demon.net/helpdesk/products/ftp/ftp/upload.html

To upload your pages you will need to FTP to

uk-upload.demon.co.uk

and place your html files and image files into the docs directory. The following steps take you through this process:

With your FTP program connect to the machine or host uk-upload.demon.co.uk, giving your login name and password as prompted. This will be the login and password you gave when you ordered the web space.
Depending on your FTP program you will see your web space directories including the docs directory. Move into this directory. If you do not see the normal web space directories then you should find your way to the /home/#<yourlogin> directory.
You now need to follow the instructions for your FTP program for copying files from your local system (i.e. your machine) to the remote system (i.e our web server)

Once all the files you want are in the docs directory then you can check them using your browser (although you will want to read the section below on testing your web site before trying this).

Please note that FTPing straight into the docs directory will mean that your web pages will be immediately available via your URL, provided the DNS for your domain is working. If you would rather the files weren't immediately available then you can upload them to the private directory instead; the private directory is not reachable via your URL but doing this will mean you will need to telnet to your space to move the files to docs.

Hint: The first page you want people to see when they use your URL should be called index.html. This page is served automatically. If you do not have an index.html file then people using your URL to get to your site will see a directory listing of all your files, instead of the desired homepage.

Please note that you may be able to use Microsoft FrontPage to upload your pages, but you will not be able to use the features of FrontPage that require special software on the web servers.

Testing your pages
A separate note here on how best to test your pages. If you have only just had your web account set up then it is unlikely that the DNS for your domain is available for you to test your web pages using your URL.

So if you find that your URL does not work and you have only just purchased your web account, then you can test your web pages using a temporary URL. This should have been given to you in the new starter information when your web space was setup.

The temporary URL for referencing your pages will be:

http://<yourusername>.newcomweb.demon.com

and for testing your scripts you will need to call them from your html using:

http://cgi.www.demon.net/cgi-bin/<yourusername>.newcomweb.demon.com/<script>

Where <yourusername> is the user name that you specified on your order and used for uploading your pages, and <script> is the name of your script.

NOTE: that these temporary addresses should only be used for testing purposes whilst your web domain is being sorted out.