How do you Publish a Website?

September 21, 2024

One of ET-710's most burning questions, something us students grapple with every Wednesday and Friday in class. How do you get the thing to be on the other guy's thing and not fail the class entirely? Well, you're in the right place.

0. Have a website

This might sound like a recursive paradox, but this step is actually about creating the directories and files needed for a functioning website. If you have all of that already, skip to step 1. Otherwise, we will only be covering the absolute necessities needed for a functioning website here since this step could be a whole tutorial of its own.

Grab your USB drive and create folder on it with your name (e.g. John Doe). Then, log onto Dreamweaver using your @login.cuny.edu email and press Ctrl + N to create a new .html file. Put Homepage in the Title form and click Create. Press Ctrl + Shift + S and save it as default.html in the folder you previously created.

The file must be called default.html because when the time comes to access your website online, default.html will be the first and only file it looks for (unless you want to call it index.html).

Technically, that's it; however, your website won't be much fun to look at if you leave it as-is, so add some interesting stuff to it like hyperlinks!

1. Install Filezilla

For most people, there are a bunch of other boring and complicated steps between 0 and 1, but as an ET-710 student, you don't have to worry about any of that thanks to Professor Nystrom letting us use his web server and domain (www.nystromco.com). Filezilla is the program that will let us connect to www.nystromco.com and upload our website via FTP.

If you're using Windows, download the .zip version of the program and install it by extracting its contents to a dedicated Filezilla folder on your USB drive. This is because Windows can falsely flag the .exe installer as malware and it skips the rather boring dialog boxes of the .exe installer.

2. Connect to www.nystromco.com

With Filezilla opened, go to File → Site Manager. There, look to the bottom-left of the new window and click New Site and insert your name (e.g. John Doe). On the right-hand panel, you must then input these values:

Host = www.nystromco.com

Encryption = Only use plain FTP (insecure) ⚠

User =  first inital and last name (e.g. jdoe)

Password =  check Remind for one from the professor, ask him if you don't have one

Let Filezilla save your password since it will save on your USB drive instead of the local machine and save time down the line. Once you're done, click Connect at the bottom right of the same window and wait till the console on the top panel of the main window reads Status: Directory listing of "/" successful.

3. Upload to www.nystromco.com

I know this guide is wordy, but you're almost there!

On the left panel of the main window, navigate to the folder you made on your USB drive earlier. Select all of the files and directories inside of the folder (including default.html) using Ctrl + A and drag your selection to the panel to the right, which will upload/publish it to www.nystromco.com/jdoe or the equivalent for your name

4. Post-publishing addendum

Unless your website stays the same for the rest of time, you're going to have to republish your website with new and updated content once in a while to keep the audience interested (or keep your grades high).

You'll basically want to repeat steps 2 and 3, but there are some nuances after the first time doing it.

When you go to republish your website, don't simply drag the new content on top of the old content as that will force you to click through a lot of dialogue boxes. Instead, delete the old content and then drag in your new content.

If you navigate to the folder you made on your USB drive on Filezilla and then start changing its contents, Filezilla won't automatically update to show those changes, so to avoid uploading old files and directories to the server, press F5 to refresh it.

Congratulations on publishing your brand new website! From here, I reccommend expanding on your content as well as looking into adding more functionality and style through CSS, JavaScript, etc.

P.S. I plan to add pictures to reduce the malaise later.