Pat, That answers my question about how to access the sub-directories. So I do have these sub-directories in my account and not sharing those sub-directories with other account holders. That makes more sense. So the end result is, if I understand, that I can upload to any of these sub-directories in my account but the viewer won't know it because this info is not made visible to them in the url. If I am wrong, please correct me. On a related subject, what are the pros and cons of using multiple sub-directories? Lorrie On 02/16/11 16:10, Pat Asher wrote: > At 04:29 PM 2/16/2011, Barry Carlson wrote: >> Am I explaining it well? I think probably not, and maybe a graphic in a >> webpage might be the answer. There may already be one out there. Pat >> Asher might be able to help. > > Lorrie, > > Barry has it almost -- but not quite right. The structure of the > Freepages server is somewhat unique, and it is easy to get confused. > > Your account ~lorrielasky (or any Freepages account) is located on a > server named freepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com > Since there is a permanent redirect in place from rootsweb.com to > rootsweb.ancestry.com, I am going to remove ancestry from the example > URLs to keep them as simple as possible. > > Now, within your account, ~lorrielasky, you have multiple > subdirectories before you yourself create and upload anything to your > account. There is > freepages.rootsweb.com/~lorrielasky/famiily_html/ > freepages.rootsweb.com/!lorrielasky/genealogy_html/ > freepages.rootsweb.com/!lorrielasky/history_html > freepages.rootsweb.com/!lorrielasky/military_html > freepages.rootsweb.com/!lorrielasky/misc_html > etc. There are a total of 10 subdirectories in your account, and you > may use any of them. > > Where it can be confusing is that, in order to make a Freepages > account as versatile as possible, the powers that be decided to > symlink all those subdirectories in each account. You can use any or > all of them as unique URLs. > > So, when you login to your account and elect to upload a page to > family_html, instead of the URL being > http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~lorrielasky/family_html/yourpage.html > the symlink directs it to > http://freepages.family.rootsweb.com/~lorrielasky/yourpage.html > > You can also upload a page named yourpage.html to any of the other > subdirectories in your account, and each will have a unique URL > according to subdirectory you have selected. > > The Miscellaneous directory is, as Barry and others have pointed out, > the root directory for your account, so if you omit a directory name > from the URL, as in > freepages.rootsweb.com/~lorrielasky > the server will deliver > freepages.misc.rootsweb.com/~lorrielasky > by default. > > Probably more than you wanted to know <g> > > > Pat Asher >

Pat, No. You understand correctly but my assumption was wrong. The sub-directory will show up in the url which is what I misunderstood. This raises another question. Does this not make managing a website on your local machine more difficult? Are multiple websites required for multiple sub-directories? Of course this is getting into an area that will no doubt have many answers depending on the webmaster's set up on their local computer. But it does make me think about using the sub-directories. I wonder how others have used them? Any advantages over just creating a sub-directory in the original website? Lorrie On 02/16/11 19:40, Patricia Geary wrote: > At 08:28 PM 2/16/2011, Lorrie Laskey wrote: >> So >> the end result is, if I understand, that I can upload to any of these >> sub-directories in my account but the viewer won't know it because this >> info is not made visible to them in the url. > =========== > > Lorrie, if you are going to use the subdirectories available to you > for different sites or different parts of the site, the viewer is > going to know because to access the pages within these subdirectories, > the viwer is going to have the url. Or am I totally misunderstanding > what you are asking?? > > Using Judy's site as an example > > http://freepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~florian/ > <http://freepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/%7Eflorian/> the misc subdirectory > > http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~florian/ > <http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/%7Eflorian/%A0> the > genealogy subdirectory > > http://freepages.religions.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~florian/ > <http://freepages.religions.rootsweb.ancestry.com/%7Eflorian/> the > religions subdirectory > > http://freepages.school-alumni.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~florian/ > <http://freepages.school-alumni.rootsweb.ancestry.com/%7Eflorian/> the > school-alumni > > pat

At 08:28 PM 2/16/2011, Lorrie Laskey wrote: >So >the end result is, if I understand, that I can upload to any of these >sub-directories in my account but the viewer won't know it because this >info is not made visible to them in the url. =========== Lorrie, if you are going to use the subdirectories available to you for different sites or different parts of the site, the viewer is going to know because to access the pages within these subdirectories, the viwer is going to have the url. Or am I totally misunderstanding what you are asking?? Using Judy's site as an example http://freepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~florian/ the misc subdirectory http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~florian/ the genealogy subdirectory http://freepages.religions.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~florian/ the religions subdirectory http://freepages.school-alumni.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~florian/ the school-alumni pat

Lorrie, First, let me start off by clarifying the words used. Rootsweb/Ancestry calls them "communities". I call them "categories" because in my mind, "sub directory" can be confused with a sub-directory *I* made in one of them. Some people call them "sub-directories" (of the "root" directory of your account). Since each "community" can use "sub-directories" inside each, I think calling each community (category) as a "sub-directory" can get confusing. Sign in to http://freepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/fileman/ with your accountname and password. The "communities" are shown there; you must change to the community you want to look at to see it. The basic structure is: Rootsweb/Ancestry Server Root Server ~youraccount (with "misc" being the primary "community" but symlinked to all the rest) (sub) miscellaneous (misc) (I'm putting the rest in alpha order) (sub) college-alumni (sub) computers (sub) family (sub) folklore (sub) genealogy (sub) history (sub) military (sub) nostalgia (sub) religions (sub) school-alumni Each of the above "names" will appear it its own URL: example http://freepages.misc.rootsweb.com/~florian/ (replace misc with another "name"/"category" and you're in a different "sub-directory.") Miscellaneous is the only one that gets shortened to misc On your PC/Local you should match the directory naming. So under folder My Webs you'll have folders for whichever ones you are actively using, for example: sub-folder genealogy ---------which then can have numerous sub folders under it sub-folder family ---------which then can have numerous sub folders under it etc etc etc Many people start making their first freepages website by using "family" or "genealogy" -- mostly because the symlink aspect is not made clear when a person requests an account. The other categories or sub-directories of your root account are always at your disposal to use. As my family and genealogy "sites" got bigger I wanted to use 'religions' and 'school-alumni'. At that point, Pat G. suggested I use the "misc" one as a 'front door' so to speak to all my websites. You asked about Pros/ Cons. Let's start with "Neither"/"Both" 1. You always have these "categories" available to use as separate "webs" (all in one "account"), regardless of whether you use any of them or just one. (or use many) 2. You can think of it as having different "websites". 3. Whether you use the "misc" as a "front door" for all your webs, or if you don't, you can still categorize your content and put it in whichever community you think best fits. 4. You can make each "community" look different. But if you decide to use "misc" AND to link all the communities together, you'll need some navigation between misc and the others. Pros of using "misc": 1. The URL is shorter. Barry pointed out how short it becomes. 2. Visitors can Bookmark just one site, IF you link all your "communities" to the front page of the "misc" site. 3. Once you can picture (conceptualize) all the communities as being "separate but together", you can micro-organize all the communities you choose to use... put military pictures on "military"... put just your family on "family" -- or however you decide your content best fits each "community". Even though you begin to micro-organize, you keep in mind that "misc" acts as your Primary website. 4. It gets confusing to tell visitors: Well, that is on my "family" pages... That is on my "genealogy" pages... etc. Visitors don't know or understand the "communities" as different websites but all as being "one account". But using "misc" helps reduce confusion. 5. If you use one on-site search box on ALL of your categories/communities, visitors will find what you have on ALL of them. Cons of using "misc", especially if you already used other ones to start: 1. You really have to wrap your mind around having many separate "webs" but a Primary site of "misc". 2. If you first made one "community"... then expanded to two... then to three... It can be hard AT FIRST to start re-organizing. It took me months to pull "schools" from other communities and put it in "school-alumni". I ended up leaving some content where I put it orignally, but vowed to keep it all organized from now on. 3. If you made each one look different from the beginning, but now use "misc", then you might want ALL to look the SAME. But if you already had 1,200 pages in "family" and 3,000 in "genealogy", well, it's much harder to convert ALL of those to one color scheme, one style, etc. 4. Visitors AT FIRST are confused when you now say, "Just go to the misc URL of...." They say, "well I know it had genealogy in the URL"... You just need to get them to go to "misc" one time to understand that they can find everything from there. I'm split on my opinion. I like using "misc" now. BUT I still like the separateness. Some days, I like that each of my communities looks different from my others (colors, styles). Other days, I wish they all looked the same. But I'm too old and busy to change all those pages. I expanded quickly from my 1st page. It's nice to know I can expand even more. But, I don't know if I could keep more communities straight! Here's my basic "organization" or what I attempted to do: genealogy -- has mostly newspapers (A newspaper company gave me a re-print permission from 1800 up to early 2000.) family -- this has stories and memories about towns and people in a county.... might fit better on "nostalgia" but I like it better here school-alumni -- has schools in 1 county religions -- anything to do with churches and worship in one county history -- those "Personal Glances" out of newspapers misc -- links all of them but also on misc is Postcards, recently taken photos of places in the county, images intended to stir up visitor's memories, and "experiences" people had growing up (again, some could fit under "nostalgia" but I just prefer my organization) Note: I have official county records on the county GenWeb site. Birth, marriage, death... Census... Cemeteries... etc. Everyone chooses his / her own way. The best thing I ever did was write down what kinds of stuff (records, newspapers, pictures, etc)I had, and write on PAPER what I wanted to do. I used a Composition Book for each "community" and separate pages for each "sub-folder" that I put into (made in) a community. I used those notebooks for the first 2 to 3 years to keep it all straight in my head. It gets harder as you expand to keep in mind what you have intended to do. Judy