The File Manager provides full access to the website directories and the files that operate and style the website. Editing is a really straightforward function and uploading and downloading directories is made simple using compressed zip file versions and then opening them on the site's hosting server or on the hard drive of your own computer. In the Home directory there are four directories of interest:
- public_html
- etc
- softaculous_backups
Etc and Mail directories are are for the email accounts that have been setup for you site such as This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. By opening the Mail directory and selecting the URL you are able to access the accounts that have been setup. Of critical importance is that if you want to download the mail accounts, to also download the Etc directory.
The zip file backups of your website are stored in Softaclous_Backups. Replacing all the directories is pretty straightforward, simply by selecting all of the directories that need replacing into a temp directory, extracting the compressed backup version of the same directories and placing them in the same location as the one that they are replacing.
Public_HTML contains all the important website directories:
- Administrator
- Components
- Images
- Languages
- Modules
- Plugins
- Templates
All of these contain the directories directly applicable to their names so all the Templates are located in the Templates directory but images that form part of any specific software are located that particular directory. An easy example is the favicon.ico file located in the public_html>templates>name of the template directory. Converting any square image using an online converter, tittling it favicon.ico and replacing it here in this template directory will replace the favicon in use on the site.
Screengrab: templates directory Navigation: cPanel> File Manager> public_html> templates> Your Template
Using your browser's developer tools (Keyboard shortcut F12) such as Chrome DevTools shows the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) elements of any website. It also displays the file that the instruction appears in as well as the directory that holds the file. Best practice is not to edit these files as any reloading of the original would remove all edits. Instead use the custom.css file, usually found in the template directory's css directory or, depending on the template loaded from the free templates directory, there will be a Custom CSS interface so that it can be edited in the admin interface.
