Do you ever wonder how other website developers organize and create their websites? I do, and I am always looking for better ways to organize my work. I have developed a website skeleton generator to make it easy to get a website started.

Why use this site skeleton?

It has been developed specifically to separate template files from content which makes it easier to maintain the website. Also, If other developers are working on the project files do not get misplaced as often because of how easy the structure is to understand. The website file structure generator is meant for all types of websites and allows you to easily select options that fit your project’s requirements.

Below is an outline of the file system in which is the basics of many websites.

• domain.com/
  • files/
  • html/
    • images/
    • inc/
      • images/
      • footer.php
      • html.php
      • header.php
      • styles.css
    • .htaccess
    • 404.php
    • index.php
    • sitemap.xml
    • robots.txt

* files and folder names are kept lower case to avoid accidents

Content

The content uses the main domain.com/html/ folder. Images in the HTML content go into domain.com/html/images/ folder.

Template

Template files go in the domain.com/html/inc/ folder. There is an images folder for “template” images (backgrounds, buttons, shadows, etc.) linked from the style sheet.

header.php, footer.php, and html.php are template files and serve the base of the layout. These files are not necessary for this template system, however, many developers often use them for sites bigger than 1 page to make the template easy to edit.

Separating the content and design on the website creates an efficient organizational system for the website, allowing you and other developers to quickly make changes to both the content or the template.

Files, Backups, PSDs, Etc

This is the folder is for pre-edited files from clients website, backups, development notes, and anything else related to that website that is not part of the website. Many of these files are bulky and waste space on servers.

This template system uses HTML, CSS, and PHP. Don’t fret if you do not know PHP. The PHP I use is not complex at all and it speeds up development by hours.

What you need

• A server with PHP
• Knowledge of PHP includes (Very basic PHP Function)
• CSS
• HTML
• Basic knowledge of how templates work

If you don’t know these things I wrote another blog explaining PHP includes and how php templates work so you can get started!

Generate a website file structure today!

I would love to hear ideas on how you arrange your folder skeleton and how you think I can improve this one.

Tags: generator, html, php, skeleton

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