"Default" Pages in MS FrontPage -Reply

[KAREN SCHNEIDER]

This isn't a Front Page issue.  I too am careful about naming any
main file "index.html" because all it takes is one distracted moment
and there I go clobbering the wrong file.  But I can name my
"main file" in any directory anything I want, and then do one of
several things:

1) Rename it on the fly while uploading--e.g. ftp foobird.html
index.html  (that's using Unix, but I'm sure some Windows ftp
programs offer this feature--WS_FTP mentions it in its options)

2) Give the file two names on the server; e.g. 

ln foobird.html index.html

Which means when I upload foobird.html, index.html is also
updated (because it's the same file)... I tend to do this, since it's the
safest (though you need to give the page a mnemonic so you
don't scratch your head wondering which of fifty files is the
"main" page)

3) Call it index.html in the first place, and then upload werry,
werry carefully.  I prefer 1 and 2 for obvious reasons--at least,
obvious to someone who puts peanut butter in the freezer when
the phone rings--and come to think of it, if you accept any of
Front Page's prefab websites, you may find yourself with a file
named index.html anyway.  Which you can change.  

I'm not a "webmaster" (the quotation marks appear for the magical
third time) but in my own plain way I've done a fair amount of
HTML.  There are other management techniques, but what I
catch here is what appears to be lack of knowledge or willingness
to solve a fairly simple problem.

Karen "feeling crusty" Schneider
opinions emphatically mine
schneider.karen at epamail.epa.gov