gpEasy Folder Structure Tutorial

These are the files and folders you should see on a new gpEasy installation. That is, if you installed it into a folder/directory that has no other files or folders to begin with.

Not much here. This is the folder that contains your plugins/addons. You will upload plugins to this folder and then install them via the plugin manager menu.

Since this is a new installation there aren't many here.

Now go back to the root folder.

These are the folders you should see inside the data folder.

The data folder is a very important folder. It contains all the pages you create in gpEasy, the files you upload, and all the changes and settings you make to the site.

This is the folder you should always keep a backup of!

NEVER over-write this folder when upgrading! You will destroy all your data.

Notice the index.html file? It's just a place holder in case someone tried to access this folder from the web. You will see that gpEasy puts those in all folders. They aren't anything to concern yourself with.

Open the extra folder.

This folder contains the gpEasy extra areas you created or edited. The ones you see here are the default ones.

Extra areas are the areas you can move, insert, delete, and rearrange in layouts. These are what you use to create headers, footers, and side menu content.

Don't worry, you can access all these files within gpEasy. You don't need to go into this folder in general.

Now go back to the data folder.

This folder contains all files/pages you create in gpEasy. You know, the ones you create in the file manager that are the content of each web site page you create.

Now return to the data folder.

This folder contains very important files. The oddly named file contains the settings for the user. This is a folder you should never need to touch.

Now back to the data folder.

This folder contains many of gpEasy's settings for your site. You shouldn't play in this folder or with these files, it could ruin your site.

Back to the data folder.

As the name suggest, this folder contains files that deal with the updating of gpEasy. Again, this is a folder and files you shouldn't ever need to touch.

Back to the data folder.

This folder contains the folders and files that you have uploaded in gpEasy via the uploaded files manager. The tutorial on creating a gallery will teach you more about uploading files.

You may actually want to get into this folder form time to time; however, it is best to maintain your uploaded files from within gpEasy instead of this folder.

With a new install of gpEasy you won't have anything there other than an index.html file.

This image folder will contain all the images and thumbnails uploaded and created by gpEasy.

Now let's go back to the data folder.

This is THE main folder for the gpEasy CMS application. You do not want to play in this folder unless you know what you are doing. For those that want to hack core files in gpEasy, this is where they are.

This is the folder you will delete and replace when upgrading gpEasy. Yep, just one folder to upgrade gpEasy, and the newer versions of gpEasy will have an auto-update so you don't even have to do that. . . unless you have applied some custom hacks.

Go back to the data folder.

Yep, this is where all your themes are kept in gpEasy. If you want to add more themes to gpEasy you will have to download them, make sure they are unpacked (not zipped), and upload them to this folder.

This is a folder you will use often if you decide to edit themes or create your own themes.

Themes have a very specific file and folder structure.

Let's see what the folder and file structure of a theme looks like.

Now we are looking at the structure of a theme. First, the theme is inside a single folder. In this case the 'Black Header' folder. Inside that main folder you will see the main template file. It is always named 'template.php'

That's the file that gives structure to your site/pages. The addon.ini file isn't needed. It's used by those that upload their themes to gpEasy's main site.

What are those folders inside the main theme folder? Those folders contain the cascading style sheet for the theme. Often theme developers will offer several color schemes of the same theme, thus each folder contains the styling necessary for that color.

So, what we have is a parent folder that contains the main php file and folders that contain the style sheets.

Not very difficult.

Here are the style sheets. They must always be in a folder within the theme's folder just like the Black Header theme has them.

When you choose a theme in gpEasy's layouts you will be choosing a color. That color's name comes form these folders inside of the theme's folder.

The CSS file must always be named style.css

Now go back to the root folder for your gpEasy installation.

Notice the define index.php line? It's currently commented out with two slashes. You may need to remove those slashes if your permalinks have a problem.

Go back to the root folder.

Open the .htaccess file with your text editor.

These are the mod rewrite rules used by gpEasy when you have permalinks set to hide index.php in the URL.

If you set permalinks to hide index.php and it isn't working you will need to check this file, make sure it has something like you see here, has the proper user permissions, and also check the index.php file we just covered.

There will be a more in-depth tutorials on permalinks and mod rewrites.

For now just be familiar with where those files are located.

Now go back to the root folder.

You should have a grasp on what the different files and folders are in a gpEasy installation now. For the most part the data folder is the main folder you utilize.

The addon.ini, gpl.txt. and install.txt files aren't anything to worry about. You won't need them and they aren't important.

That's all there is.