Subfolders

What are Subfolders?
When considering the organization structure of your domain it's helpful to understand the underlying file structure that makes up your website. When you create a domain on UMW Domains, the files are put into a folder called httpdocs in the root area of your account. Any files that are added to this folder are accessible at a URL like yourdomain.com/thefile.jpg. A subfolder of your domain is a secondary folder placed inside of the httpdocs folder. So if I have the domain dtltisawesome.com and create a folder inside httpdocs called "blog" that area is now accessible at dtltisawesome.com/blog/ and any files inside that folder would be accessible after the trailing slash of the URL (like dtltisawesome.com/blog/mypicture.jpg).

As you build out your own space on the web it's helpful to understand that using subfolders as well as Subdomains are great ways to segregate entire websites. It makes it possible to have a static page with your resume and contact information at the root domain and then have blogging software installed at yourdomain.com/blog as a publishing platform.

Using the File Manager
To see how this file structure works and create a new subfolder you will navigate to Websites & Domains from the dashboard of your control panel.



The File Manager is a tool in your control panel that works very similar to the file manager on your desktop or laptop computer. Using it you can browse the files and folders that are located in your web space.



Here we can see a list of the files and folders that are located at the root of your web space. As mentioned previously, all files that are a part of your root domain (yourdomain.com) are located in the httpdocs folder so let's take a look at that folder.



As you can see we already have several subfolders in our directory, many of which were installed automatically because this domain is running Wordpress. There is also a folder called Omeka here where an Omeka install was done (which would mean the url would look something like yourdomain.com/omeka). The file manager also allows you to interact with the structure and create new files and folders from the top icons. Let's click Add New Directory to create a new subfolder for our site.



The only thing required to add the subdirectory is to give the folder a name and click OK. Once this is complete we would have a new location on our site yourdomain.com/dtlt where we could upload files or install any software we want.



For an expanded look at what the File Manager is capable of doing take a look at Using the File Manager