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Creating a root folder for the application

After signing up with a web hosting company or setting up the server software yourself, create a root folder for your web application on the computer running the web server. The root folder can be local or remote, depending on where your web server is running.

The web server can serve any file in this folder or in any of its subfolders in response to an HTTP request from a web browser. For example, on a computer running ColdFusion 8, any file in the \ColdFusion8\wwwroot folder or any of its subfolders can be served to a web browser.

The following are the default root folders of selected web servers:

Web server

Default root folder

ColdFusion 8

\ColdFusion8\wwwroot

IIS

\Inetpub\wwwroot

Apache (Windows)

\apache\htdocs

Apache (Macintosh)

Users:MyUserName:Sites

To test the web server, place a test HTML page in the default root folder and attempt to open it by entering the page’s URL in a browser. The URL comprises the domain name and the filename of the HTML page, as follows: www.example.com/testpage.htm.

If the web server is running on your local computer, you can use localhost instead of a domain name. Enter one of the following localhost URLs to match your web server:

Web server

Localhost URL

ColdFusion 8

http://localhost:8500/testpage.htm

IIS

http://localhost/testpage.htm

Apache (Windows)

http://localhost:80/testpage.htm

Apache (Macintosh)

http://localhost/~MyUserName/testpage.htm (where MyUserName is your Macintosh user name)
Note: By default the ColdFusion web server runs on port 8500 and the Apache web server for Windows runs on port 80.

If the page doesn’t open as expected, check for the following errors:

  • The web server is not started. Consult the web server’s documentation for starting instructions.

  • The file does not have an .htm or .html extension.

  • You entered the page’s file path (for example, c:\ColdFusion8\wwwroot\testpage.htm), not its URL (for example, http://localhost:8500/testpage.htm), in the browser’s address text box.

  • The URL contains a typing mistake. Check for errors and make sure the filename is not followed by a slash, such as http://localhost:8080/testpage.htm/.

    After creating a root folder for your application, define a Dreamweaver site to manage your files.