Your list of pages (on the left of the EverWeb window) decides how your website is organised. The page at the top is your home page, pages inside a directory become sub-pages and drop-down menu items, and Do Not Publish keeps unfinished pages offline.
Put pages inside a directory (sub-pages)
A directory is a page that holds other pages, like a folder. It has a folder icon in the page list, and visitors can still open it like any other page.
- Make a directory: click Add Directory in the toolbar, or right-click a page and choose Convert To Directory.
- Add a new page inside it: select the directory, then click Add Page. (With a page selected, the new page goes directly below it. To add one at the top level, click your website's name at the top of the list first.)
- Move a page into it: drag the page a little under and to the right of the directory, and drop it when the guide line appears there.
- Move a page back out: click the arrow beside the directory to open it, and drag the page out. To drop it at the top level, keep dragging toward the left edge of the page list until the guide line moves left, then let go.
Moving a directory moves every page inside it. You can put a directory inside a directory: the menu shows one drop-down level in EverWeb 4.5 and two in EverWeb 4.6 and later (see Can EverWeb create drop down menus?).
Turning a directory back into a page: there's no command for this. A directory with no pages inside works like any other page, with a slightly different address (see the table below). Or add a new page, copy everything from the directory onto it (select all with Command-A on a Mac or Ctrl-A on Windows, then copy and paste), move the directory's pages out, and delete the directory. Deleting a directory also deletes any pages still inside it.
Change your home page
Your home page is the first page under your website's name. EverWeb always publishes it as index.html, whatever you call it, so it opens at yourdomain.com.
- Drag the page you want to the top of the list, directly under your website's name.
- Choose File > Publish Entire Site.
The menu follows the page list, so the new home page also moves to the start of your menu. In EverWeb 4.6 and later, you can set your own menu order with Extra Menu Links and Hide my site's pages (see How do I add a navigation menu to every page of my website?). The old home page now publishes at its own address, such as yourdomain.com/welcome.html.
Want to keep a home page that's already on your server? Publish your EverWeb website into a folder instead, by typing a name in Subdirectory in File > Edit Publishing Settings (see Try out changes before they go live: publish a test copy of your website).
Page names and web addresses
Each page's address comes from its File Name, in Inspector > Page Settings. Renaming a page in the list (double-click it, or right-click and choose Rename) changes it too. EverWeb makes the name lowercase, turns spaces into hyphens and leaves out anything other than letters, numbers, hyphens and underscores.
| In your page list | Published address |
|---|---|
| Home (the first page) | yourdomain.com (index.html) |
| About Us | yourdomain.com/about-us.html |
| Services (a directory) | yourdomain.com/services/ |
| Web Design (inside Services) | yourdomain.com/services/web-design.html |
For menu wording with spaces and accents, use Navigation Menu Display Name in the same tab. On EverWeb + Hosting, Remove File Extensions From URLs in File > Edit Publishing Settings leaves .html off your addresses.
Renaming a page, or moving it into or out of a directory, changes its address. Publishing doesn't delete old page files, so the old copy of a page usually stays online at its old address, and Google keeps sending people to it. To send them to the new address instead, see Moved or renamed a page? Set up 301 redirects and a custom 404 page.
Keep unfinished pages offline (Do Not Publish)
- EverWeb 4.5: right-click the page in the list and choose Do Not Publish. The page turns grey. Choose it again to publish the page.
- EverWeb 4.6 and later: right-click the page and untick Publish This Page. An icon appears at the end of its row: click the icon to publish the page again. A directory set not to publish keeps every page inside it offline too.
- In any version: tick Do not publish page at the bottom of Inspector > Page Settings > Advanced Options.
Good to know:
- It isn't available for your home page.
- It doesn't remove a page that's already online. See I deleted a page in EverWeb but it's still online.
- Your menu still lists the page, and visitors who click it get an error. Until it's ready, also untick Include page in navigation menu in Inspector > Page Settings, and check that no buttons link to it.
- Moved a Do Not Publish page to the top? EverWeb then publishes no home page, so visitors keep seeing your old one, or an error. Select the page, untick Do not publish page, and publish. If you can't untick it, drag the page down one place, turn publishing back on, then drag it back to the top.