Well first, WELCOME to the forum! :welsign:And to the world of web mastering.
1) "steep learning curve"CSB is a lovely program and is
easy to use and learn! Rest easy on that one.
If you have ever used word or wordperfect or even wordpad, the interface in CSB will feel similar to you.
We can coach you on anything you need to do here on the forum. Several experienced users hang out here to give guidance and moral support. We are a friendly bunch so don't be shy asking a question!
And there are support sites (samisite.com and csbsupport.com) to give you good information how to implement things. We try to not overlap so things you do not find on my site you will find on KW's.
CSB is FAR easier to learn than Frontpage, Dreamweaver and other heavy programs.
2) Domain name and hosting. Lots of places to host on the web. Most paid hosting will allow subdirectories with no problem. Free hosts have major limitations so I would not recommend them for long-term solutions.
We will each give you an idea who you should consider. I have used and continue to interface with MANY hosts.
My preferred web host is TOTALCHOICEHOSTING.COM (TCH). Reasons: price, account sizes/bandwidth are competitive, uptime has been outstanding and I have had excellent service. Many hosts have those going for them (like godaddy.com). BUT TCH also offers CPANEL for your hosting management software, running on LINUX servers. I like that setup best. You have far more security options on LINUX than Windows servers. And CPANEL allows you to quickly set up some things that make your life easier (protected folder, blocking IP addresses, etc). Starter accounts are only $44/year (less than $4/mo). One business that I work on has 250+ pages on that little starter account and it works out well for them! Note about LINUX servers: page names are CaSE SenSItIve. So a link to contactme.htm will not get you to a page that is actually named ContactMe.htm. When I moved over to Linux from Windows I had a lot of cleaning to do. But truthfully, if I had been building the site properly up to that point, I would not have had to clean the file names!
3) SLOW FILE.I am amazed that a CSB tlx design file 250MB will open and publish. Yes you DEFINITELY need subdirectories to resolve that issue. Easy to do but will be time consuming.
FIRST and very importantly: choose FILE SAVE AS and RENAME your design file.This is done for two reasons: your original file becomes a backup and the file will be compacted. This procedure should be done often.
[I put the date into the file name (maindirect-01-01-07.tlx) and then next time I edit, I file save as and rename again (maindirect-01-15-07.tlx). I can go back to my old files, burn them on disk for reference, etc.]
MAKE A BACKUP COPY OF THE tlx design file before you begin and store it somewhere in case you need to come back to it.
Read this page about subdirectories.
Click the link on that page that sends you to KW's instructions for cutting a LARGE file down to smaller files.
(I am moving this post to the CSB General area for easier tracking)
