I run a family website and would like to upload a couple hundred photos but do not want to code it all in HTML. Is there a way to create an FTP directory like this site here?. I’ve searched far and wide and only found this brief tutorial but his method won’t work when I use the command chmod 777 on the directory I’m trying to make available (named “images”), the directory is still not viewable when I type ‘www.mydomain.com/images’ like it should be.
Thanks for any help.
Most web servers allow you to place just images in a directory and without an “index.html” page it will show the list of files.
Sometimes there is an htaccess file that says “do not allow directory listings”.
It doesn’t have to be an ftp server to do this. The web server in http should allow it just fine.
If you can’t find the htaccess file you might want to get with the host of the server and see if they allow directory listing. Some don’t.
The option may be disabled on the server. What does it say when you go to the directory?
In theory, if the web server is Apache (which is relatively likely), you should be able to create a file in the directory called .htaccess, and place this line in it:
Options Indexes
That should do what you want. But I haven’t tested it myself, so it may just not work.
I uploaded a .htaccess file with “Options Indexes” in it but there’s still no effect when I go to www.mydomain.com/images...it just gives me the “you are not authorized to view this page” which might be better than “this page cannot be found”…
The FTP directory you provided is a fake!! You are actually looking at a web page made to look like a directory listing. Try http://www.avm.de/ftp/index.html and you will get the same “FTP directory” list.
Just create a directory on your web site and fill it with your images. When you click on the URL, you will get a directory listing of the images. Click on any image and it will open in the browser. Use a right-click instead and you can download the image.
If you can’t just dump the imgs in and then access by the folder, we are going to need more information about your server. Do you have php, asp, etc on the backend? There are lots of “gallery” codes that will automatically make you a gallery with thumbnails. All you would need to do then is dump the pics in the folder.
You can use IE for FTP transfers.
Here is one way, but depends on your ISP, do they give you an anon FTP directory?
http://www.psiweb-guide.aa.psiweb.com/setup/AnonymousFTP.html
Iteki, I don’t know much about my server (I use OneDollarHost.net and emailed them today about an FTP directory) but am interested in “gallery” code, I’ll do a Google search unless you might know where to find some.
Sailor, I’m looking into what you said about using IE as well, but I’m not sure others without IE would be able to browse the directory.
Handy, I don’t think my FTP is anon, I have a username/password to log in.
One easy way to do it is to put the files in a folder on your computer, open it locally in a browser that generates index pages (try Netscape or Opera - not IE, which just shows you a regular Windows folder), save the page to a file, edit it to remove any local paths, and upload it.
Your hosts webpage says you have access to ASP, CGI and PERL.
Here are a load of ASP galleries, most of them should be able to automatically generate thumbnails and the correct code for you.
Try a few until you find one that works for you.
http://www.hotscripts.com/ASP/Scripts_and_Components/Image_Galleries/index.html
Mr2001 has a good suggestion too. If you do it that way, then you might want to use a text editor that has “replace all” to change the links from local paths. This is a solution that needs to be updated each time you add a new photo however. If you have Photoshop, it will automatically generate a gallery for you as well, but that would also need to be redone as new imgs are added.
I sometimes use Arles, its one program you can find at download.com Just show it where your pics are on your HD & it generates a webpage with an index to each page in under a minute for 50 images.
Also on cgi resources their are free cgi scripts that can generate something like that & all you have to do is put the pics in your web directory on the server & the script updates it automatically.
I am not sure what you want to do. Do you want to use ftp to transfer all your images to the server by batch? Or do you want to let other people to load the images ftp-like? Or both?
By God do not ever chmod your directory to 777! It means World (everybody) can write to your directory also. Who taught you that?
Ack! I was told to do that by the link I posted - I’ll change it back. Basically I want to upload a ton of images and not have to code the HTML, and I want this page to be viewable to family…thumbnails are optional.
Handy and Iteki, thanks for the two great suggestions, I’ll definitely experiment with both, either should save me hours of HTML coding. It looks like my problem might be solved!
You don’t need HTML coding to upload images to your website, that’s why I am confused.
Anyway, suppose you are given the IP or URL for the ftp server of your ISP, and that you already have a folder on your computer that holds all the images that you want to transfer:
- Run the ftp client (I recommend you WS-FTP LE)
- Connect to the ftp server by keying in the required parameters (generally just the IP or URL and port number)
- You are probably to log in, generally, use your useid and password to do so.
- When you are connected, you should be right at the root directory.
- Just select your folder at the local computer and transfer it to the ftp server.
- This nice tutorial shows you how to do chmod with WS-FTP
- Test the website
Good luck.
I guess I wasn’t clear enough the first time: YOU CAN USE INTERNET EXPLORER as an FTP client. Just put in the address bar:
ftp://UserName:Password@YourUploadAddress
It is not the best FTP client but it works.
Why all the responses about how to FTP? He runs a website, he obviously knows how to FTP from his posts. What he wants is for them to be able to see the contents of the folder without him having to code for each image. His hosting providor doesn’t let people view folder contents is all so he needs to have an index-page.
Here is another link for Image Gallery software. These are all freeware/fully-functional shareware. These generate the code on your computer before you put it up to your server, so you don’t need to mess with scripts like ASP or CGI etc if you don’t want to.
http://www.tusafe.com/nonags/htmlgallery.html
This would again mean that when you add new photos you need to repeat the procedure, but if you are adding a large number of new pics each time then you should probably be dealing in “albums” anyhow (in other words dividing them into folders called xmas02, july4th, tomsBirthday, etc). You could easily have an index page in your /images folder offering the different albums with a simple link to the subfolders. Would be a lot less work for you.
I was just able to do it this way too. Just put your photos in a directory that has NO index.html page of any kind. Call up the directory & you should get a FTP list automatically, I did.
No, that’s not the case. The URL provided in Bob55’s post appears to be invalid, that’s why.
I think he was referring to www.onedollarhost.net which I referred to early in the thread. I’ve downloaded a few thumbnail generators which create html pages and also resize the pictures which is a nice feature.
I had trouble with the .asp scripts - do you configure them offline then upload them? I tried to configure them online but I guess this won’t work since the .asp script would need your ftp user/pw.
Thanks for all the help everyone!