How to change homepage to index.html in iWeb?

Hi,

I'm trying to publish my web site using iWeb - and the web hosting provider needs the default homepage to be set to index.html.

Can someone please explain how I can do this in iWeb? I'm very much a newbie to it.

I have published my web site (and all the ftp settings are correct) - but the 'old' site is still there - presumably because I can't figure out how to change the homepage to index.html.

When publishing, iWeb did ask if i wanted to overwrite the existing file, and I said yes - but this hasn't overwritten the 'old' files. My new page is on the server but it's not visible (only visible through 'visit published site' in iWeb).

Any suggestions/help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

The index.html file is created when iWeb publishes. What really happens is that iWeb creates index.html which forwards to the real home page. You don't have to worry about it.

It sounds like you published to a local folder, or published to folder on your server which is not your root (top) webpage folder.

If you published directly to your server, often there is a subfolder that is set as the root. It may be named public_html, www, or something else. The easiest way to tell might be to just log in via FTP and get a directory listing to see the layout. If you don't know how to use the command line FTP, then download Cyberduck. When you have figured the right folder name, place it into the "Directory/Path" field for your iWeb site which appears just below your password. For me, that would be just www.

xstep said:

The index.html file is created when iWeb publishes. What really happens is that iWeb creates index.html which forwards to the real home page. You don't have to worry about it.

It sounds like you published to a local folder, or published to folder on your server which is not your root (top) webpage folder.

If you published directly to your server, often there is a subfolder that is set as the root. It may be named public_html, www, or something else. The easiest way to tell might be to just log in via FTP and get a directory listing to see the layout. If you don't know how to use the command line FTP, then download Cyberduck. When you have figured the right folder name, place it into the "Directory/Path" field for your iWeb site which appears just below your password. For me, that would be just www.

Click to expand...

Hi

Thanks for the info.

I have included the sub folder (it's set as /public_html) - but even including this doesn't overwrite the old files.

iWeb seems to have created a new area for the updated pages.

So my web address for the iWeb pages are somehow:
GRAHAM WEstwell, MBACP, Dip Couns.

[This first page I need to somehow set as the index page (I think)...]

-- whereas when I look at the main domain:

Graham Westwell - Person Centred Counselling

-it's the old pages!

Any ideas?

Thanks

Take the new pages out of the Graham_Westwell sub directory and place them in the main directory (/public_html)

Eric559 said:

Take the new pages out of the Graham_Westwell sub directory and place them in the main directory (/public_html)

Click to expand...

Have tried this but maybe not doing it right...
How come iWeb won't just overwrite everything?

Would it be a good idea to delete everything in the public_html folder and then upload the new web page again from iWeb?

yes you can delete the old pages if you no longer need them anymore. Better yet make a back up of them on your computer and then delete them.

Thanks for the info.

Still haven't sorted it - feel like I'm getting nowhere fast at the mo - will have another go tomorrow...

You have two files in your root directory that the web server looks at when people enter your sight name. They are index.html and default.html. It is your default.html file that is the default for the server to use. So, to start, delete the default.html file and the web server should then start using the index.html file. That is pretty normal.

The other odd thing is that your iWeb content is in the root location and in the subfolder. The really odd thing about that is the index.html file in your root directory is pointing to the Welcome file in your subfolder. I suspect you have to fix the URL in the "Website URL" section of your iWeb site to remove the subfolder name.

So here is are the two lines in your iWeb site page as I think they should be. You'll have to update the site once you have set this up. Ignore the quotes.
Directory/Path: "public_html"
URL: "http://www.grahamwestwell.co.uk/"

I don't know if it matters, but I did NOT place a forward slash in front of the public_html text.

You still may want to clear your hosted files and re-upload from scratch. You'll have to tell iWeb to upload the complete site.

Actually, I've had this same problem for the past couple days as well. My first website and in iweb I publish to a new folder on my desktop named 'home' and when i go to publish it asks for the website name and i type in the full website name. once it's done, i upload the 'home' folder into my public_html folder through cyberduck and whenever i just got to mywebsite.com through my browser it takes me to an index that has one link named 'home/' and then when you click that link it then takes you to my normal welcome screen. can't seem to get past this error...

i tried what you just said, xstep, but i couldn't find where i could edit my url or directory/path except when i go to 'publish ftp folder.' everything there is correct though and it still takes you to this 'index page' instead of the main welcome page. and i have index.html right inside the 'home' folder. i've also tried deleting the 'home' folder altogether and placing all of its contents which has a direct link to index.html into the public_html folder and that doesn't work either.

anymore help would be greatly appreciated!

To add more clarification my folders are setup like this inside public_html on cyberduck:

'' - Denotes a folder

'access-logs' + 'etc' + 'home' + 'mail' + 'public_ftp' + 'public_html' + 'tmp' + 'www' -->

'public_html' -->

'home'-->

index.html + 'Site' -->

'Blog' + feed.xml + index.html + 'Media' + 'Pictures' + 'Scripts' + Welcome.html + 'Welcome_files'

Just figured it out. Now my site looks like this

'public_html'-->

'home' + 'Site' + index.html

Finally..

If it is working, great.

I would have expected 'public_html' --> index.html which really just loads
'public_html' --> home.html, or what ever your site is titled.