ROR files?

[aquilotta]

And yet another question after all... this time about ROR files...(what/how to do 'em)... I understand that I need them for spiders to pick up the website that I've been painstakingly building from scratch by hand this past three weeks, learning html along the way (*sigh* a friend tells me that there are LOADS of programmes available to do the same in a fraction of the time - ah well!) .... At any rate, my web host apparently doesn't accept .php files (whatever those actually are) and the code which another site generated for this ROR file appears to contain one of them. Added to the fact that I have no real idea (well, ok, rephrase that: I have ABSOLUTELY no idea!) of what to DO with this ROR code, and the result is... complete non-working ...


Having built it up by hand, all the code is visible - if some kind soul would be able/willing to have a peek at the source code here www.lakemaggiore.50g.com and tell me a) what I'm doing wrong and b) how I can do it right in html, I'd be very very grateful!! Really baby foolproof steps please...? Thanks guys!


Oh, and what's a spider.txt file, and how do I make one, and what do I do with it once I HAVE made one? Likewise in html...

Oh, and finally... if anyone can tell me how to protect my photographs from being used without acknowledgment...that too would be wonderful.


And then I think that I really WILL have exhausted the number of goober questions I've been needing to ask. Fingers crossed..

(Should I have put those as three separate threads? I have a nasty feeling that the answer is yes, but didn't want to swamp the site with so many new threads... But, er, sorry if that's what I should have done..).

Thanks folks for your patience, and your help!

[Buenchico]

(2-part post):

If you need loads of information about ror.xml files, see here:
http://www.rorweb.com/

However, for a fairly basic site, you just need a single ror.xml file, which can easily be generated by a site such as this one:
http://www.uniwebserve.com/rorgenerator.php

(Actually, I feel compelled to challenge myself here on the use of 'need' in that previous paragraph. You don't actually need an ror.xml file. There are millions of websites which function perfectly well without such files. These files provide you with the opportunity to provide information about your site but your site will still function perfectly well, and be found by search engines, without one).

Once you've got an ror.xml file (which must have that name - don't rename it!), it should be uploaded to the root directory of your website. An ror.xml file simply consists of code which contains information about your website (or a specific part of the website). While it can refer to other files (such as php files) it can't 'contain' one. So there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to upload it to your host server.

Both spiders.txt and robots.txt files are used to stop spiders accessing and indexing certain files on a website. (Many simple sites need neither of these). If you're interested in the differences,see the post from Stevel, on 14/02/05, on this forum:
http://forums.oscommerce.com/lofiversion/index .php/t112609.html

If you do require one of these files, it's most likely to be robots.txt (which, like ror.xml, should be uploaded to the top level of your website). You can read about how to create one here:
04:50 Mon 26th Feb 2007

[Buenchico]

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum93/155.htm

Totally protecting your pictures just isn't possible. You can code your site so that right-clicking on images is disabled (with or without a message appearing when the viewer tries to right-click). However, simply switching from Internet Explorer to Firefox usually gets round this. There are more advanced ways of trying to protect images but the images can always be saved to the viewer's PC, simply by selecting 'Save web page' and then finding the image file in the folder of files which make up the page content.

The best approach to protecting your files is to watermark them. While it's possible to use invisible digital watermarks, these aren't really much use unless you're contemplating producing evidence before a court of law. (That's OK for major international corporations but pointless for most other users). A visible watermark is much more of a deterrent to anyone who is thinking of breaching your copyright. This will do the job for you:
http://www.download.com/uMark-Lite/3000-2189_4 -10451368.html?tag=lst-0-9

Chris

[Buenchico]

Oops!

I forgot that uMark Lite only works if you've got the .NET framework installed on your PC (which involves a 23Mb download fromMicrosoft). Picture Shark 1.0 might be better for watermarking your images:
http://www.tucows.com/preview/231506

Chris

[aquilotta]

Chris, you're a star. Thank you. I've done the ROR file bit now (I hope I've done it correctly - I presume that I WAS supposed to personalise the various sections in it?

I also tried to download Pictureshark, but the download kept on crawling along at a record 10 b/s or somesuch! and when eventually it announced that I could run it, told me that the files were corrupted and that it therefore couldn't run. Since it's meanwhile almost 2:30 (in the morning) I think I'm about to admit defeat...

Haven't done either the robots.txt or the spiders.txt bits yet, but shall attempt to do so tomorrow [today?] when I've had a bit of rest. Today I've been trying to ensure that all the links work in both languages, (now that Peanut so wonderfully told me how to link across pages to different sections) and trying to see whether I've remembered to translate all the various pages ...

But at LAST it's almost finished! Hurray! :-)

Feeling happily chuffed...

[Buenchico]

Thanks for the reply.

You can get Picture Shark directly from the designers' website. (NB: While you're there, ensure that you print out the 'step-by-step guide'. It's a fairly simple program but it doesn't have any built-in help files).
http://www.picture-shark.com/

Chris