CM dir2HTML Tutorial: Create Custom HTML File Trees from Folders

CM dir2HTML Tutorial: Create Custom HTML File Trees from Folders

What it is

CM dir2HTML is a directory-to-HTML utility (variants exist as Dir2HTML, dir2html, DIR2HTML) that converts a filesystem folder and its subfolders into browsable static HTML index pages — useful for static sites, project archives, intranet file lists, or CD/DVD catalogs.

Key features

• Recursive traversal producing nested lists or per-directory index.html files
• Custom templates and header/footer includes for styling and branding
• Filtering (include/exclude patterns, show/hide hidden files)
• Sorting (by name, size, date) and display options (size, mtime, permissions)
• Link generation with relative paths suitable for static hosting
• Optionally supports MD5 checksums, comment/description files, and archive flags (depends on implementation)

Typical workflow

1. Choose a root folder to publish (e.g., ./public).
2. Configure options (recursive, template, sort order, exclude patterns) via CLI flags or an INI/config file.
3. Run dir2HTML to generate index.html (single file or one per directory).
4. Edit template/CSS to style the output.
5. Deploy generated HTML to your static host or copy to file shares.

Common command options (examples)

• –recursive or -r — traverse subdirectories
• –template PATH — use custom HTML template
• –output FILE or -o — set output filename (default index.html)
• –exclude PATTERN — skip matching files
• –sort [name|size|date] — ordering
• –show-size / –show-mtime — include extra columns

Customization tips

• Use placeholders in templates for filename, relative URL, size, and mtime.
• Generate one index per directory if you need links that work on GitHub Pages or simple web servers.
• Add CSS to improve readability (wrap long names, collapse deep trees).
• Wrap the tool in a small script to pre-format names or compute human-readable sizes.

When to use it

• Publishing a lightweight file index without a CMS
• Sharing project artifacts, builds, or downloads on static hosting
• Creating snapshots of directory structures for documentation or archives