RealCart FAQ || How do I determine what my FTP Initial Directory is on my own?

How can I determine what my FTP Initial Directory is on my own?

Answer: The quickest way to determine what this folder name is involves logging on to your ftp server with an FTP program. The easiest one to install and set up is WS_FTP. If you do not already have WS_FTP loaded on your system please download it here.

Install this program on your PC. Since you are not going to continue to use WS_FTP you will want to just say that you are a student when asked. We won’t need to transfer anything with this program. We are just going to use it to see what our Initial Directory is.

After you install it, please follow these steps.

Start the WS_FTP program.
If the “Session Properties” dialog does not appear, click the “Connect” button.
Enter some name for the “Profile Name” so you will know which connection this is. (It does not matter what you put in here.)
Enter your ftp server for the “HostName/ Address” (If you are connecting to an IP address, enter that address here.)
Leave the Host Type set to “Automatic Detect.”
Enter your ftp username (usually the same as your email username but not always) in the “User ID” field.
Enter your ftp password (usually the same as your email password but not always) in the “Password” field.
Check the Save PWD checkbox (optional)
The Account and Comment fields can be left blank.
Click “OK.”

At this point WS_FTP LE should connect to your ftp server. If it does not then you need to check to be sure that the following three things are correct:

HostName/Address
FTP User ID.
FTP Password

One you can connect to your web server take a look at the directory name that appears in the top right corner of the WS_FTP LE screen. This is the topmost field on the right hand side of the WS_FTP LE window right underneath the words Remote Site. Now look at the window below it with the list of files and folders. Do you see your web pages in this folder or do you see the folder name that your web pages are in. For example: web, public_html, www, htdocs or whatever. If you see the folder that your web site html documents are in double-click it.

If you now see your web pages then you are in the correct folder. If you do not see them then you can double-click the double dots (..) to return to the folder you were in. Continue to navigate through your folders until you recognize your site files. Once you find the folder that they are in then you are in the appropriate directory to use as your Initial Directory. Look at the topmost field on the right again (under “Remote Site”) -- The contents of this field *is* your Initial Directory. Copy this entire directory name by selecting it with your cursor and pressing [Ctrl] [C] or by right-clicking the selected directory name and clicking Copy.

Open RealCart™ again and get back into the “Advanced Settings” dialog in the Publishing Wizard. (Click the Advanced... button) Paste the Initial Directory value directly into the Initial Directory field. That’s it! You’re done!

My Initial Directory on my UNIX server, for example, is /usr/local/htdocs and all of my html web pages are located in this folder. In my case I would copy and paste the entire folder name and paste it into the Initial Directory field in the advanced settings dialog in RealCart™s publishing wizard.

If this setting is not correct you may get FTP 550 Errors. For more information on this error please go here. If you still cannot determine what the correct setting for your Initial Directory is then just click the “Ask RealCart” button and provide us with your ftp username and ftp password and we will help you determine this setting at no charge to you even if you’re using the software in Demo mode.

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