Viewing Websites on a Local Computer

On common way to manage a website is to:

1. Use a commercial program, such as Dreamweaver, or a simple text editor, such as TextWrangler, to create the HTML pages of the website.
2. View the website locally on the personal computer used in point 1.
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 until satisfied
4. Upload the website, or the modified parts of a website, to the host server

We explore step 2 in this page—viewing a website locally on one's personal computer. This is a fairly straightforward process. We just want to open an HTML page, such as index.html, in a browser directly from the file system of the personal computer rather than sending a request for an HTML page across the Internet for viewing. The question is, how does one open a local file in a web browser? We describe how to do this first for PCs and then for Macs. We can do this in all browsers except for Microsoft's Internet Explorer. As usual, it is suggested that you use an independent browser such as Firefox or Chrome while working with websites anyway. However, Apple's Safari browser works well for this, too.

On a PC

We discuss how to open an HTML file on a PC in Firefox and Chrome. As noted above, opening a local file has issues in Internet Explorer. Although it is possible to open a local HTML file in Internet Explorer, links to stylesheets, videos, and audio in that HTML page may not work.

Firefox

When you open Firefox in Windows you should see a small orange tab labeled Firefox in the upper left corner of the Firefox window.

• Click on that Firefox tab; the first entry that should show up in the dropdown menu should be New Tab.
• Hover the cursor over the he New Tab option (don't click); a popout window should appear with options:
  • New Tab
  • New Window
  • Open File...
• Click on Open File.. A Windows file system window will open.
• Browse as usual in a Windows folder to the HTML file you want to open and double click it; the page will open in Firefox.

Chrome

After you have opened Chrome:

• Move your cursor to anywhere in the main Chrome window.
• Type control-O (hold down the control or ctrl button and press O for "open").
• A Windows file system window will open.
• Browse as usual in a Windows folder to the HTML file you want to open and double click it; the page will open in Chrome.

More Help

If you need more direction than is provided in the descriptions above, viewing the following movie should help.

On a Mac

We discuss here how to open a local HTML file on a Mac using the browsers Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.

Firefox, Chrome, and Safari

Fortunately, the process of opening a local file s is standard in all three of these browsers. Here's what you do:

• Click in the browser somewhere (i.e., make sure that your browser is in focus).
• Click on File in the menu bar at the top of the Mac Desktop; this will open a dropdown menu.
• Select Open File... in the dropdown menu
• In the Mac file system window that opens, browse to the HTML file you want to open and double click on it.

More Help

If you need more direction than is provided in the descriptions above, viewing the following movie should help.