Start here

Your website is a folder of documents: that is the name, a folder of documents. Share a folder in Google Drive or Nextcloud, and every folder in it works the same way:

• A document called intro opens the folder's page. In the shared folder, that is your home page: its headline and introduction. In a folder in it, that section's page.
• Every other document adds a page. Next to your folders, a page in the menu, like About or Contact. In a folder, one of its pages: a post, a project, a note.
• Every folder adds a section, with a page of its own. A folder in a folder is a subsection, and works the same way again.
• A photo next to your folders is your portrait; in a folder, a page of its own.

In short: intro opens a page, documents add pages, folders add sections. One more name: a document called design, next to your folders, sets your colours and fonts. Neither intro nor design is a page itself.

This site is a folder

Everything on foldocs.com is a file in one public Google Drive folder. Foldocs checks it every minute and rebuilds what changed. No database, no admin panel, no one logging in. On the left below is a Google Doc in that folder; on the right, the page Foldocs made of it.

How a change goes live

Google Docs saves as you type, so Foldocs waits until a file has been left alone for five minutes: a half-written sentence never goes online. Then it fetches the file, converts it and rebuilds only the pages it touches.

The basics

• Share a folder: the only setup there is, and what public means
• Folders become sections: structure, order, the home page
• Documents become pages: everything a page can hold
• Photos and images: sized for every screen

Going further

• Make it yours: your colours and fonts, from a table
• Themes: a whole new look for the same folder
• Found and shared: search engines, link previews and a feed
• Behind the scenes: what happens between the folder and the site

Five minutes to your own

Make a folder and share it with a link. Inside, put a document called intro, and a folder with a document in it. That is a website. Your first site walks through it, step by step.