Web Design in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

Uploading Documents (FTP)

The most common transaction that a web designer will have with a web server is the uploading of HTML documents, graphics, and other media files. Files are transferred between computers over a network via a method called FTP (File Transfer Protocol) .

If you are working in a Telnet session on Unix, you can run the FTP program and transfer files with a hefty collection of command-line arguments (not covered in this book).

Fortunately, if you work on a Mac or PC, there are a number of FTP programs with graphical interfaces that spare you the experience of transferring files using the Unix command line. In fact, FTP functions are now built right into full-featured web authoring tools, such as GoLive, Dreamweaver, and FrontPage, among others. On the Mac, dedicated programs that allow drag-and-drop file transfer, such as Fetch and Interarchy (previously Anarchie) are quite popular. On the PC, there are numerous simple FTP programs, such as CuteFTP, WS_FTP, AceFTP, and Transmit. These (and many others) are available for download at http://www.shareware.com; search for “ftp.”