Hand Coded Websites on Reclaim

General Hosting / cPanel
#1

Do many folks use Reclaim to host hand-coded websites? My daughter is looking for hosting for a portfolio that she has created, but doesn’t want to use WordPress or any other CMS or web application. Just wondering if this would be a good solution for her.

#2

I’ve uploaded flat HTML files to Reclaim; it handles them fine.

I did find the cPanel file explorer interface easier to deal with than re-learning how to make an FTP client work, but your daughter’s mileage may vary.

1 Like
#3

Yes, in fact in HTML for Educators on lynda.com I use the stateu.org site to host all of the flat HTML files and sites we build in the course. StateU.org is running on Reclaim Hosting. So if your daughter wants to try it out, she could set up a site on stateU like I show in the course and then if it works for her, transition to a full reclaim account. I also host lots of my own sites on reclaim and use is as my primary live development and testing environment for HTML, CSS, PHP and few other letters.

Cheers,
c

#4

Thanks Joe and Chris, that’s helpful. Confirms what I thought to be the case. Was curious, since so much emphasis is placed upon easily installing web applications with Installatron. So, is there any advantage to using an FTP client vs. cPanel for file upload?

#5

So, is there any advantage to using an FTP client vs. cPanel for file upload?

It wouldn’t surprise me if people who know their FTP clients better than I do could articulate some power-user functions. (I suspect the relevance of those features depends on whether your daughter’s site is built and ready or still in development.) But it’s been long enough since I used one regularly that I found it easier to learn a few features in cPanel than a whole new piece of software.

#6

FTP Clients are great for working with bulk files. If you need to upload a bunch of files, overwrite only if newer, or regularly make updates it can be easier to have all the settings saved in a client like Cyberduck and go to work. For quickly dropping a handful of files on the server I do agree File Manager has become a nice option.

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#7

FTP clients are fast and easy once they’re set up. Many code editors and full development tools have built in FTP clients or you can add them as a plugin. This makes local development, local test, push to server to publish workflows super easy. There are lots of options for clients. My personal preference is Transmit on the Mac. It looks and feels a lot like a finder window so there’s not really much to learn after you get it set up. But they all work fairly similar, so it really comes down to what you like.

The cPanel file manager is also really nice b/c its a single interface that you can access, see things like file permissions, make quick edits, etc all from a common web interface. You can do all of these things with a local FTP client as well, but if you’re away from your main machine the file manager gets the job done and the price is certainly right.

As for installatron taking all the glory, I think that has a lot to do with the massive reduction in pain that it has alleviated. Click an app, fill out a simple web form and click install beats the download source code, modify it, FTP, create a database, link it up, fix the file permission, check dependencies, test, pull out hair, . . . That it otherwise takes to get many of these projects going.

#8

I do tons of hand rolled sites, both HTML and PHP I have become very fond of building stuff using HTML5up themes.

My approach is to do my testing and developing on my laptop using localhost (running a directory on your machine as a web server).

I never use the cpanel uploaded, that’s clunky. I’ve been a long time friend, like since 1992, of Fetch for s/ftp (they have a free option for edu). I also do a bunch of stuff in github published via GitHub Pages.

These are some handrolled sites running on my reclaim boat. I find them the most fun things to do.

#9