eWeb File System

Your NetForum installation will consist of two or three databases usually named: netforumACRONYMtest (where ACRONYM is your organization's corporate acronym) for the test site and netforumACRONYM for the live site. Physical files are located on the web server in matching folder names. Website assets such as images, attached documents and Style Sheets are stored in the physical file system as part of a NetForum project. There are common folders that contain your documents and images; there are virtual folders that are shared between eWeb and iWeb; and there are system files used by the application that compose the websites.

eWeb Sub Directory — Core files

Common Folders

If your NetForum implementation is hosted with Avectra on a shared server you will not have full access to the file system. However you will have access to a few important folders for eWeb. Access to these folders is granted through WebDAV (Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning). This is a fancy name for setting up drag and drop file access through a mapped drive. Drive mapping is common in a network environment and Avectra will supply instructions for mapping a drive to your desktop. Managing files on your eWeb site will be as easy as dragging and dropping.

• Images —No explanation needed here except that since you may have more than one website in your eWeb you may want to create a unique sub-folder for each one to keep your images organized.
• Docs —This is a general folder for any documents you want to make available online: PDFs, Word docs, or images. Again, you may want to make sub-folders to organize you documents.
• Style —CSS and XSL files are stored here.
• Upload —Online store product images and downloads are stored here.

File Paths

These common folders are located in the eWeb folder. When inserting links or references to files in these folders you will create file paths that look something like this:

"images/header.gif""docs/instructions.pdf"

Virtual Folders

Some files you will manage and upload through iWeb, such as product images for merchandise in the Online Store, or committee documents made available to chapter members. Because of general security measures, there is no direct connection to iWeb through eWeb. There would be no way for a customer to see product images uploaded through the Inventory system in iWeb. To answer that issue, virtual folders are set up on the server so iWeb and eWeb can share these common files. A virtual folder is simply a pointer to a common, isolated folder on the server where security can be maximized.

System Files

The rest of the files and folders in the eWeb file system are system files. These are mostly C# programmed application files used for the many functions of the eWeb site. You may come to recognize a couple of them: startpage.aspx and dynamicpage.aspx. These are the two most common files that are used to pull together all the disparate elements of an eWeb page and assemble them when someone clicks a link.

CSS Overview

As mentioned above, there are numerous forms and wizards pre-built as components in eWeb, as well as a complex HTML framework to support it. As such, a very large collection of CSS classes has been designed to specify the look and feel of this structure. This is what makes up the baseline CSS stylesheet document. You can edit this document as you wish, but it is a good idea to make a backup should you change something unaware of any site-wide implications. Certainly you will want to add your own classes to this document since it is loaded by the framework automatically as the primary CSS stylesheet.