Creating a Site Diagram

You can use a site diagram to easily design and build the structure of a Web application. In addition, site diagrams help you to define and modify the navigation links between pages. For more information navigation links, see Designing Site Navigation.

Site diagrams can be used to create new Web applications or to redesign the structure of existing Web applications. A Web application can have multiple site diagrams. For example, you can create different site diagrams to define the navigation structure between separate areas of your Web application.

To create a site diagram

1. Open or create a Web project.
   
   
2. From the Project menu, choose Add Item.

   The Add Item dialog box appears.

3. On the New tab, select the Web Project Files folder and then choose Site Diagram from the pane on the right.
   
   
4. In the Name text box, type a name for the site diagram. Note that site diagrams files have a .wdm extension.
   
   
5. Click Open.

   A new site diagram appears.

Note   When you create the first site diagram for a Web application, Site Designer automatically adds a home page for the site to the diagram. If no home page exists, Site Designer creates one and adds it to the project when you save the site diagram.

Site Designer determines existing home pages based on information on the Web server. In general, Site Designer considers files such as default.htm, default.asp, or index.htm to be home pages. Microsoft® Internet Information Server specifies default.asp for a home page and Microsoft® Personal Web Server specifies default.htm for a home page.

You can add pages to a site diagram from the current project or from other applications. You can also use Site Designer to add new pages to the site diagram and the Web project. For more information, see Adding Pages to a Site Diagram.