Different methods of publishing sites using Plesk control panel..

Here’s a brief documentation on creating & publishing sites using different methods. Once you add a Domain in Plesk control panel, you can create your site content (Web pages, scripts & graphic files that compose your site) on your home or office computer & then publish it to the web server in any of the following ways:

* Through FTP connection (most common & easiest way),
* Through Plesk File Manager,
* Through Adobe Dreamweaver or Microsoft FrontPage software.

Let’s go through each of the following processes one-by-one.

1) Publishing Sites Through FTP:

1. Connect to the server with any FTP client program, using FTP account credentials that you specified during setup of hosting account or obtained from us in the welcome email. Ensure that the passive mode is enabled if you are behind a firewall.
2. Upload files & directories that should be accessible through HTTP protocol to the httpdocs directory.
3. Place your CGI scripts into the cgi-bin directory.
4. Close your FTP session as you’re done with publishing the site using the FTP method

2) Uploading Sites Through Plesk File Manager:

1. Log in to Plesk control panel.
2. Click the domain name you need.
3. Click File Manager in the Hosting group.
4. Create & upload files & directories.

Place the files & directories that should be accessible via HTTP protocol to the httpdocs directory. Place your CGI scripts into the cgi-bin directory.

* To create a new directory within your current location, click Add New Directory in the Tools group, specify the directory name & click OK.

* To create new files in the required directory, click Add New File in the Tools group, in the File creation section specify the file name, select the Use html template check box, if you want file manager to insert some basic html tags to the new file, & click OK. A page will open allowing you to enter the content or html-formatted source of a new file. After you are done, click OK.

* To upload a file from the local machine, click Add New File in the Tools group, specify the path to its location in the File source box (or use Browse to locate the file), & click OK. You can upload up to 3 files at once through three separate File Source boxes. If you are uploading an archive file (.zip or .rar), select the corresponding Upload archive & extract it check box to extract the uploaded archive contents in the folder where the file was uploaded.

* To view or edit an existing file, click its name. When editing an HTML file, Plesk opens internal WYSIWYG editor by default. If you want to edit the source code of the HTML file, click Html. To return back to WYSIWYG mode, click Design.

When you upload web content through File Manager or FTP, your control panel automatically sets the appropriate access permissions for files & directories.

* To rename a file or directory, hover on one of the icons which displays the ‘Rename’ text. Type in a new name & click OK.

* To copy or move a file or directory to another location, select the required file or directory using the appropriate check box, & click Copy/Move. Specify the destination for the file or directory to be copied or renamed to, then click Copy to copy, or Move to move it.

* To update the file or directory creation date, click Change Timestamp. The time stamp will be updated with the current local time.

* To remove a file or directory, select the corresponding check box, & click Remove selected icon. Remove Selected. Confirm removal & click OK.

3) a. Publishing Sites from Microsoft FrontPage:

Microsoft FrontPage deals with two kinds of Web sites: disk-based & server-based. In short, a disk-based site is a FrontPage Web site you create on your local hard disk & then later publish to a Web server. A server-based site is one you create & work with directly on a Web server, without the extra step of publishing. Here’re the instructions on publishing only disk-based web sites.

You can publish disk-based web sites either through FTP or HTTP. The server your account is hosted on is running FrontPage Server Extensions, hence you would publish your site to an HTTP location. For example: http://your-domain.com/MyWebSite. If your server supports FTP, you would publish to an FTP location. For example: ftp://ftp.your-domain.com/myFolder.

After publishing, you can manage your site through FrontPage Server Extensions.

To access FrontPage Server Extensions management interface:

1. Log in to Plesk.
2. Click the domain name you need.
3. Click FrontPage Management in the Hosting group.
4. According to the Microsoft FrontPage support settings of the domain, one of the following icons will appear next to Add New FrontPage Subaccount:
   • Click FrontPage WebAdmin to manage a site, which is not protected by SSL.
   • Click FrontPage-SSL WebAdmin to manage an SSL-enabled site.
5. Type your FrontPage administrator’s login name & password, & click OK.

For instructions on using FrontPage server extensions, see online help (FP WebAdmin > Help) or visit Microsoft web site.

3) b. Publishing Sites with Adobe Dreamweaver:

Before publishing a site from Dreamweaver, you need to define the site properties, that is, you need to tell Dreamweaver where your site files are located on your computer, & to specify the server to which you want to publish the site.

1. To define a site in Dreamweaver:
2. From the Site menu, choose New Site. The Site Definition screen opens.
3. Click the Advanced tab.
4. In the Local Info category, specify the following:
   • Site name. This will show in Web browser’s title bar.
   • Local root folder. This is the folder on your computer where all of your site files are stored. For example c:\My Site
   • Default images folder. Specify the folder where your site’s graphic files are stored. For example c:\My Site\images
   • HTTP address. Specify your domain name. For example, http://your-domain.com
5. From the Category menu, select the Remote Info item.
6. From the Access menu, select the FTP option. Most likely, your server supports publishing through FTP (File Transfer Protocol, commonly used for transferring files over the Internet).
   • FTP host. Type your FTP host name without the ftp:// prefix. For example, your-domain.com.
   • Host directory. Specify the directory on the server where your site will reside. In most cases, this is httpdocs.
   • Login & password. Specify the login name & password for access to the FTP account.
   • Use passive FTP. Select this option only if your computer is behind a firewall.

Specify the following settings:

7. To ensure that you specified the correct login & password, & that Dreamweaver can connect to the server, click the Test button.
8. To save the settings, click OK.

Now to publish your site:

9. Open your site in Dreamweaver.
10. From the Site menu, select the Put option (or press Ctrl+Shift+U simultaneously), this will make the files to be published over the server.