HTML naming conventions and file management

HTML pages should be saved with the .html extension. While this isn’t vital on every page, 90% of the time the home page of your site will have to be named index.html in order to be picked up as the default home page, so you may as well stick to this naming convention for all pages.

Use alphanumerics only in page names. That is, a-z, 0-9. The only exceptions are: -(dash), _(underscore) and ~ (tilde).

Never use spaces in the file name of anything destined for the web. Replace spaces with hyphens.

Use lowercase exclusively when naming files (some web servers are sensitive to case).

When planning a site, create a naming convention for pages and stick to it without exception.

Always title a page the moment you create it, using a titling convention you have created. Too often this task falls by the wayside and is neglected, resulting in pages that have irrelevant or confusing titles, or no title at all.

Remain aware where you are saving files, and be consistent about doing so. A great deal of frustration and confusion occurs because students are looking at the wrong version of the file they think they are working on. For that reason, I strongly suggest saving only one copy of any file: do not try to retain multiple versions of the same page. If you start a new page, give it a completely different (and appropriate) file name.

Be aware of changes made to files that you bring back and forth to class. To avoid confusion, I recommend creating files on your desktop and then dragging them to your USB memory stick / portable hard drive to take them home, trashing the files that remain on the desktop. If you return to class and want to resume work on the files, reattach the drive and drag the appropriate files back onto the desktop. (Alternatively, you may wish to work directly on the files on the external device, although this is not recommended).