IndexOptions
The IndexOptions
directive provides a list of options to set
various features of the index listing. These options don’t
warrant their own directive, and so are lumped together here.
The syntax of the IndexOptions
directive is:
IndexOptions +option1 -option2 ...
Options marked with + will be included in the set of options, and
those marked with – will be ommitted. Note that if you forget the
+ or – in that list, the last item on the list is all that you
get. That is,
IndexOptions SuppressDescription ScanHTMLTitles
is exactly the same directive as
IndexOptions ScanHTMLTitles
And, furthermore, it overrides all previous IndexOptions
directives
that are already active. Don’t forget the + and –!
I’m not going to go over all of the available options – see the
docs – but here are a few that I like.
List Folders First
Those of you that are used to a graphical representation of your
directories — something like the Windows file explorer, for example —
are used to seeing the directories at the top of the listing,
and the files below that. The default Apache view is to have the
directories listed in the same alphabetic ordering as the files.
To override this behavior, use the FoldersFirst
option:
IndexOptions +FancyIndexing +FoldersFirstNote that the
FancyIndexing
option is necessary for several of the
options to work, including this one.Descriptions from HTML
TitlesUsing the
ScanHTMLTitles
option, you can get a
description of each HTML file in a listing by looking in thetag of each file. If you have written good HTML, this
will give a very good idea of what each file is, before the user downloads.
Note that in order to do this, Apache will need to open each file and
parse it looking for a title tag. This can take a long time, and
use up a lot of system resources.Describe your Files
An exceptionally useful feature of
mod_autoindex
is the ability
to provide descriptions for your files, and have these descriptions
appear in the directory listing. This is accomplished with the
AddDescription
directive. As with several of these directive,
you can specify exact file names, or you can give wild-cards to
indicate a group of files.AddDescription "My dog" /images/fido.jpg AddDescription "PNG images" *.pngIf you are in the habit of using really long file descriptions,
or if you are using theScanHTMLTitles
option above, you
might find that the space allocated to you for displaying a
description is insufficient. You can correct oft this with the
DescriptionWidth
option. This is an option for the
IndexOptions
directive. You can specify a particular
width, or you can specify ''*'', indicating that the field should
be wide enough to accomodate the largest description you
have.IndexOptions +DescriptionWidth=42Readme Files
OK, one more. It may be desirable to display some informative
text at the top of a directory list. This may be information about
the files in the directory, or it might be administrative information
about the server. Or whatever. TheHeaderName
andReadmeName
directives allow you to indicate a file that will be put
at the top or bottom (respectively) of the directory listing.
The argument for this directive is a filename stub. That means
that if you have: