Going Public

After you build your site and comb through it using the testing checklist given earlier in this chapter, you're ready to take your show on the road. Here's how to publish your Web site (finally!).

Excluding unfinished pages from publishing

If some of the files on your site (Web pages, graphics, or any other files) aren't yet ready for public viewing, you can tell Expression Web to hold those files back while publishing the rest of the site. To do so, follow these steps:

1. In the Folder List task pane, right-click the file you want to hold back.

   Tip 

   You can select multiple files by pressing the Ctrl key while clicking icons, and then right-clicking the selection.

   A pop-up menu appears.

2. Choose Don't Publish.

   A red X appears next to the file icon, letting you know that the file won't be published the next time you publish the site.

For an overview of your site's publish status, take a look at the Publish Status report by choosing Site Reports Workflow Publish Status.

Warning 

If you exclude a page from being published and it's linked to another page in the site, that link doesn't work properly in the live version of the site. Therefore, before you publish, be sure to dismantle any hyperlinks that lead to unfinished pages. (For instructions on how to do this, see Chapter 4.)

Publishing your Web site

The next step is to find out your publishing address. Most servers use FTP, or File Transfer Protocol, to transfer files between computers on the Internet. Even though the address your visitors eventually type to view your published Web site begins with http://, your publishing address most likely begins with ftp://.

REMEMBER 

You must have the correct publishing address in hand in order to publish your Web site. If you're in doubt, your Web host customer service (or system administrator, if you're publishing on an intranet) can tell you your publishing address.

To publish your Web site for the first time, follow these steps:

1. In Expression Web, open the Web site you want to publish.

   If the site is already open in Expression Web, be sure to save any changes you have made to the site's pages. (To do so, choose File Save All.)

2. Activate your Internet connection.

3. Choose File Publish Site.

   Expression Web switches to Remote Web Site view, and the Remote Web Site Properties dialog box appears. You use this dialog box to tell Expression Web where you want to publish your Web site.

4. In the dialog box's Remote Web Server Type area, select the option that corresponds to the type of host Web server that your ISP uses.

   It's most likely FTP.

5. In the Remote Web Site Location text box, type your publishing address.

6. If the Web site contains subsites and you want to publish the subsites and the parent Web site at the same time, at the top of the dialog box, click the Publishing tab, and then select the Include Subsites check box.

7. If you want Expression Web to clean up your site's HTML code before publishing, click the Optimize HTML tab (at the top of the dialog box), select the When Publishing check box, and then select the check boxes next to items you want Expression Web to remove.

   For example, you can tell Expression Web to strip the published site of all HTML comments (most of which were probably meant for the site's authors, not its visitors). You can also have Expression Web tidy the code by removing unnecessary white space between HTML tags or Expression Web-specific code that's no longer necessary now that the site is heading off to the host server. When you do so, the look of your pages doesn't change-just the look of the HTML code for those visitors who care to check it out. (And they do, believe it or not.)

8. In the Remote Web Site Properties dialog box, click OK.

   The Remote Web Site Properties dialog box closes, and Expression Web contacts the server at the publishing address you specified. If the server contains security features (most do), the Name and Password Required dialog box appears.

   Tip 

   It may not be necessary to enter a name and password each time you publish your site to your Web address. Expression Web is supposed to remember login information for FTP sites between publishing sessions (although it occasionally gets amnesia).

9. If necessary, in the Name and Password text boxes, enter the user-name and password that you chose when you established your account, and then click OK.

   The dialog box closes, and Remote Web Site view becomes visible with the contents of the open (local) Web site displayed on the left side of the view and the contents of the publish destination displayed on the right side, as shown in Figure 12-3.

   
   Figure 12-3: Remote Web Site view.

10. In the lower-right corner of the Expression Web window, click the Publish Web Site button.

    Expression Web copies all your Web site files to the remote server. Depending on the size of your Web site and the speed of your Internet connection, this process may take a few minutes.

    A status indicator appears at the bottom of the Web Site view to tell you what's going on.

    After the work is done, an encouraging note appears at the bottom of the view, saying that your Web site was published successfully.

Congratulations-your site is now visible to the world!