Many of you might not be to experienced with FTP clients and all those troubles that come with them. So you probably look for an easier way of uploading scripts to your webspace. Good thing is that cPanel offers a fantastic feature that allows for easy uploading and extracting your scripts right on the server. Saves you all the work involved in downloading, configuring and using FTP clients in general.
This time you donīt need to download any fancy software or anything, donīt need to worry about configuration issues that might do your head in. This stuff is really basic and shouldnīt put you in a lot of trouble. The function that we are looking at today is called File Manager and can be found in your cPanel. If you have no idea of what cPanel is: Itīs that fancy user interface that letīs you create email accounts, MySQL databases and all that. Letīs have a quick look at it and see if we can find the File Manager option:
I took the liberty to highlight the File Manager, in case you have a hard time finding it. Basically all you have to do, and all you can do, is left-click it and see what comes up on the next screen then. Surprisingly what you will see looks quite similar to the Windows Explorer:
As overwhelming as it might seem at first itīs rather simple when you have a second look at it. If you look about 4 inches up now, you will see how i told you it looks quite similar to the Windows Explorer. It does not only look a bit like it, usage is quite similar too. The left frame, i call it Navigation Frame, lists all the directories on your webspace. The most important one for your being public_html which contains all the files and directories and things for your webpage.
Usually public_html, respectively itīs contents are displayed by default when you enter the File Manager, though sometimes that doesnīt work and you will have to left-click public_html in the Navigation Frame to display itīs contents on the right side. Ok, so letīs summarize: We have the File Manager open, and directories are displayed on the left, while the right window holds the contents of your public_html directory.
How on godīs green earth do we get the script uploaded and installed now ?
This actually is a very simple thing to do when you think about it. As expected you need to upload the script first. When you take a closer look at the top of the File Manager window you will see an Upload button:
I didnīt highlight it, but am confident that you can figure out which button i am talking about. Before we hit the button there is something i would like you to know about what happens next:
If we take some random script, letīs say vBulletin, it usually consists of a number of files. The normal process of uploading scripts like that would be as follows:
1. Download the Script
2. Unpack the archive (most scripts come as archive)
3. Upload all the files to the server
While this is fine when doing the upload via FTP it can be real pain up the arse when you upload scripts with a huge amount of files and directories via File Manager. Though File Manager allows for uploading several files at once it will be hard to track what files you already uploaded and preserve the directory structure. This screenshot shows how the actual upload interface looks like:
I added a few upload boxes already, default is three. But uploading a script that consists of 823 files in 43 folders, such as vBulletin, this way will surely make you shoot yourself. This is where the cPanel File Manager offers a fantastic feature that will prevent you from shooting yourself
.for now. What i am talking about is the possibility to upload compressed archives and extract them on the server. And exactly this is what i strongly recommend doing when it comes to uploading scripts consisting of more then, letīs say, 3 files
In File Manager just look at the Menu Bar at the top of the screen. There youīll see icons to compress and extract archives.
Those icons, in particular the Extract icon comes in handy. As an example here in this tutorial i will upload a script and decompress it to show you how itīs done right. Uploading via File Manager is quite simple too, not many steps to do for you. The most complicated thing for you to do is to figure out where you want to upload your script. But thatīs up to you and i donīt need to care about it
Once you know where you would like to upload your script navigate to that directory and hit the Upload button which will bring you to the upload screen. This screen gives you, by default, three upload boxes. As i suppose you have your script at hand in a compressed way (ZIP archive would be great). If so, then click on Browse and navigate to your script, then double-click it. If it isnīt compressed by now, compress it
.NOW !!!
Uploading might take a while, depending on the size of the archive.
When itīs uploaded to the server we are almost halfways through with it. Only part left now is extracting the archive to be able to install it. When going back to the File Manager the uploaded archive should show up in the directory of your choice, just like in this screenshot:
Yay, successfully uploaded. Good, now itīs time to unleash the beast
..erm
extract the archive i wanted to say. To do so, just tick the box in front of the archive name and click on the Extract icon in the menu bar. You will be asked to provide a directory to where the files will be extracted, but as we uploaded the archive to the directory where the script should be installed anyway we can leave the path untouched.
After selecting the path to extract to just click Extract Files and all hell will break loose serverside. Archive will be extracted in the directory, you will also get sort of a progress bar displayed
and you will get a window telling you what has been extracted once the extraction process is finished. When you now look again at the directory you uploaded the compressed archive to you will see the archive plus all the extracted files that are now waiting to be abused by you:
And thatīs it. Archive has been uploaded and extracted. Script ready to install and my right hand hurts like hell again. Stupid dog that bit me
i hate you ^^
If you found any typos in this tutorial
..keep them. They are yours. And as english isnīt my native language i am sorry if i screw up grammar and stuff sometimes, but i hope it was easy enough to understand. If you have any questions or comments, suggestions or just wanna mock at me then feel free to post here
Administration
