03/24/2008 Web Developer

WebSnake can build a map of the HTML files referenced in a website. If you need to know the structure of a remote website? This is your tool.

1. Open WebSnake through the Start Menu. By default, the program opens with the Project Wizard (a Windows feature that leads you step-by-step through the process). If you're already in the program, click on the Add button on the main screen or select the Add Project Wizard command in the File menu.



2. Select the fourth radio button "Create a site map of a website," then click on the Next button.

3. Type in www.websnake.com in the Starting Address/URL field. Also, give the project a name. Call our project "Websnake Site Map." So, type the words "Websnake Site Map" in the Project Name field, then click on the Next button.

4. The next wizard screen asks if you need a password to access the website. For our example, just click on the Next button to go to the following screen.

5. You must tell WebSnake how deep you want it to snake as well as give tell it when to stop in the event that you're snaking a large website. For expediency, use the arrow buttons to reduce the number of levels from "3" (which is the default) to "1" in the "How many levels do you wish to snake?" field, then click on the Next button. You're not going to be snaking that much so the "Stop project if number of HTML files search exceed" field doesn't come into play.

6. On the next wizard screen, click on the Finish button to conclude the project setup.

7. Name your session. Think of a session as a category of projects, like Entertainment-related or Sports-related. For our example, type in "browsers" in the file name field, the click on the Save button to initiate the snaking process. Note that this step is skipped if you've already created a session and are saving the project into that session.

8. WebSnake will snake a site map of the www.websnake.com website.

9. That's it, you're done. You've just performed your first site map snake!