Publishing Web Site Content with Windows XP
Published: March 18, 2002
By Barb Bowman, Windows XP Expert Zone Community Columnist
Editor's Note: Past articles by members of the online community are archived for your use. The information may become outdated as technology changes. For the most current information, please search the Web site or post a question in the newsgroups.
Whether you're hanging out a shingle for a small home business, or sharing your poetry, or publishing photos from your latest vacation, there's no better place for sharing information than a Web site on the Internet. The number of tools and applications for content creation abound, resulting in simple text pages to stunning multimedia-enabled Web pages. Chances are your Internet service provider (ISP) offers free personal Web page space as part of your monthly fee. Whether you create content for your Web page in HTML using Notepad, or employ a Web authoring and management application such as Microsoft FrontPage 2002, Internet Explorer 6.0 and Microsoft Windows XP provide a graphical interface that lets you publish to any remote site that offers File Transfer Protocol (FTP) access. If FTP or other uploading protocols are not available, the Files and Folders task pane in Windows Explorer provides another method of publishing content, including HTML and images, to any remote location that supports Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV), such as MSN Communities.
In this column, I'll share how easy it is to publish Web content to the Web space offered by any ISP that supports FTP using the drag-and-drop interface as well as how to use the WebDAV publishing features of Windows XP to upload content to a WebDAV-enabled remote location such as an MSN Community site. Let's get started!
Using FTP
In order to demonstrate the powerful FTP publishing features of Windows XP, I created some simple content for a single Web page that includes one HTML file and two image files and placed them in a folder, so that they're ready to transfer to a remote Web site. To do so using FTP:
1. | Navigate to My Network Places and from the Network Tasks menu, click Add a network place. |
2. | In the Add Network Place Wizard, click Next. |
3. | Click Choose another network location, and then click Next. |
4. | Type the Internet address supplied by your ISP. 
In the example above, I'm using the personal Web space provided by my ISP, AT&T Broadband Internet (ATTBI). Check with your ISP to determine if you need to include the full user directory in the network address entered here. In many cases, ISPs have set up access so that entering a user name and password automatically provides access to the correct user directories while other providers may require that you enter the fully-qualified URL in the format ftp://ftp.someplace.com/username. |
5. | Next, clear the Log on anonymously check box, and enter your user name. |
6. | In the next window, provide a name for this network place and complete the wizard. The Log On As window for this network place will open. |
7. | Enter your password when prompted and optionally click the Save password box. Your remote directory is displayed in Windows Explorer. 
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8. | Next, use Windows Explorer to open a second window and display the local folder which contains the content you wish to upload. Ensure that both the remote and local folders are visible. |
9. | Select all the items you wish to transfer in the local folder. Position the two windows so that they overlap, with the local window on top as shown in the image above. (Tip: Use Shift + Click to select a range of contiguous items and Control + Click to selectively pick items.) |
10. | Drag the files to the remote FTP folder. |
Windows XP displays the progress of the files being transferred and when completed, the list in the remote window should display the files just uploaded. It couldn't be easier, and with just a few mouse clicks, your newly uploaded Web page is ready for visitors!
When you're ready to update or add new content, My Network Places automatically provides a list of handy shortcuts to remote Web locations where you've uploaded files, in addition to providing quick and easy access to computers or shared folders in a workgroup.
Publishing to Remote Locations Using WebDAV
If your ISP doesn't offer personal Web space, don't despair. Both MSN Communities and XDrive offer Web space and/or photo and document sharing and storage that use WebDAV functionality. In this example, I will be using a community site on MSN Communities to demonstrate the powerful WebDAV publishing features of Windows XP.
1. | Using Windows Explorer, display the folder which contains the files you wish to publish and ensure that the Files and Folders task pane is visible (click the Folders icon on the Windows Explorer toolbar if this is not displayed automatically). 
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2. | Click Publish this folder to the Web from the task pane to start the Web Publishing Wizard. |
3. | In the second wizard window, select the files you wish to publish. |
4. | Next, select MSN Communities as the service provider, and in the following window, select either an existing community or the option to create a new community. In this example, the community Autumn Pix has previously been created. (Creating a new MSN Community is easily and seamlessly accomplished as part of the same wizard interface; all you need to get started is an existing Hotmail Passport Account.) |
5. | Whether you choose to use an existing community or create a new one, a window opens, allowing you to select or change the destination folder location for your uploaded files. 
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6. | If you are uploading images only, you can take advantage of the image resize window that opens automatically when the wizard detects you have included images in the list of files to be uploaded. (Note that depending on the original size of these images and any special coding you've previously done in HTML files, you may not wish to take advantage of this feature.) |
While your files are uploading, the wizard displays the file progress graphically. When done, a final screen opens, confirming the location where your files have been published.
Because of all the great publishing connections in Windows XP, all I need is a little imagination and a few minutes of time, and I've got a basic Web site that's ready for visitors. And I admit—I'm having a lot of fun too!
Barb Bowman enjoys sharing her own experiences and insights into today's leading edge technologies. She is a product development manager for AT&T Broadband Internet Services, but her views here are strictly personal.
