Setting up your site hierarchy is simple. Create a new folder that you would like your site to reside in. Then inside that folder create another folder where your images will be housed. A suggestion is to not move any of your folders instead create more folders as your site grows. For example if you have a site that is image intensive then create sub folders in your images folder.

I.E. if you're creating a web site selling calendars. You will have 12 months of images and more then likely different styles of calendars you're selling. I would set up my file hierarchy like this.

First I would have a "main" folder where all of my pages are going to be. Then I would create a sub folder inside the main folder where I would hold all of my images. I would name that folder "images." Inside that folder I would create other folders to separate my calendars. If I have a calendar of Britney Spears then I would create a folder in my images folder called "Britney_Spears." If I had another calendar for Marilyn Manson I would create a folder in the images folder called "Marilyn_Manson." So on and so forth. Inside these folders I would have all the images that pertain to the calendar.

I.E. In the Marilyn_Manson folder I would have all of the thumbnails for each of the months and all of the larger images that you could click to. The total number of images in the Marilyn_Manson folder would be 24. One Thumbnail for each month and one for when you click that image it brings a larger version of that image up.

You can also break down your site into folders that separate sections. For example on a site where I'm selling calendars I might have different types of calendars like wall hanging, magnet, or desk calendars. If I have different calendars I might want to break my HTML pages down to smaller groups to make them more manageable. So My site hierarchy would look something like this. Create a "main" folder Inside that "Main" folder there would be the following folders: "images," "wall_hanging," "magnets," and "desk." Inside the Images folder I would have folders called: "wall_hanging," "magnets," and "desk." Inside each of those folders I would create folders that had the images broken down even more. For example in the images/wall_hanging folder I would have a folder called Marilyn_Manson, inside that folder is where I would keep all of the images pertaining to Marilyn Manson.

The reason that I would create such a complex file hierarchy is so later when I am updating or maintaining this site I know where my pages and images reside.

For Example. If I'm looking to edit the Marilyn_Manson_Wall_hanging.htm I will know that it's in the Wall hanging/Marilyn_Manson directory in my "Main" site folder. Also I will know where my images are. They will be in the images/wall_hanging/Marilyn_Manson directory.

Setting up this file hierarchy is very important for bigger sites. If you are creating a smaller site you will do just fine with a "Main" folder with an "images" folder inside.

Another reason setting up a file hierarchy is important is because DreamWeaver relies on this directory structure for the web site. When you are creating a site in DreamWeaver you will be setting up the FTP access to the web site you are building. When you do this DreamWeaver recognizes your file hierarchy and uses that to make your links on the site. If you do not do this then you risk the chance of broken links on your site.