dumb dumb dumb html/relative paths question

[cleo]

Nothing to do with Macs, except that I'm using one to design a website...

I need help with relative paths. OK, so I know that if I have a document http://www.mydomain.com/index.html and I want to call an image http://www.mydomain.com/images/logo.gif I can just do src="images/logo.gif".

But what if I have a document http://www.mydomain.com/news/index.html and I want to use the same image? How do I indicate that "images" is a branch off the base directory, not the current one?

I think it involves periods or homes or roots or something...?

 

[Nipsy]

Some hints:

Relative paths can cause some issues with future restructuring. Absolute paths can cause some issues with portability.

If you can, use root relative paths.

To answer your question

Absolute:
<img src="http://www.mydomain.com/images/logo.gif">
Relative:
<img src="../images/logo.gif">
Root-Relative:
<img src="/images/logo.gif">

The key to root relative is that it always begins at the site root folder, and tracks from there. Since everything is in the root folder, you can always create a root-relative path (some cgi-bins excepted).

The dowside to using plain relative is that if you move /news/index.html later into /news/archives/index.html, the link will break.

The downside to absolut paths is that the full http:// request generates needless overhead.

 

[cleo]

So the first "/" indicates that it should start at the root?

Excellent... I think this is exactly what I needed.

 

[Nipsy]

Originally posted by cleo
So the first "/" indicates that it should start at the root?

Excellent... I think this is exactly what I needed.

Yep,

Leading / indicates site root

name/name2/ indicates start where you are, up to name, up to name 2

../../name indicates go down, go down again, go up to name.

Works just like OSX...

 

[Hemingray]

Originally posted by Nipsy
The dowside to using plain relative is that if you move /news/index.html later into /news/archives/index.html, the link will break.

At times like that it's handy to have a program like Adobe GoLive that will automatically manage your links and update every page that references that link to the new location.

By default GoLive uses all relative links.

 

[Rower_CPU]

I'd advise you to stick with document relative links, rather than root relative.

It's a personal preference of mine, but in your case it would probably help you avoid confusion as to how your site is laid out by your ISP.

 

[cleo]

Rower -

Yeah, I figured that out REAL fast. My "root" appears to be about 17 layers deep... annoying as all get-out. Also, because a lot of these docs use PHP includes, things were just getting too difficult. I decided just to put everything in the main directory. If whoever comes after me in managing the site wants more organization, let them do it