for the vnu file issues if you include multiple ones, I believe it's going to always create an index.html file for ever vnu you create. The only issue I would see you would have here is that you will most likely have to alter the actual files after uploading or exporting the site. You would need to rename the files, but you would also have to alter any links within any of the pages (in all the vnu setups I would images) that have links to those pages. This means you'd most likely have cross referencing between each of the vnu's so you'd end up with a lot of link altering. You'd most likely have to do these all by hand rather than a find and replace since you don't want the "real" index.html links altered.

Hope that makes sense, but that's the main issue I would see with the multiple vnu files. Doable, but do keep in mind you'll have to make these changes every time you update your site.

I see what you're saying - but if VSD always creates an index.html file, that is not a problem so long as the content is kept in it's own folder group and actually having an index file within a subfolders is not a bad thing from the little I know.

If the fact that 'pages in website' relative links were troublesome, perhaps i could get around it using some absolute URLs instead.

Thanks for the feedback.

Well hmm if you're planning each of the vnu's other than the main one to be a sub folder then the index file issue would not be an issue at all as you are correct in that an index file is a good thing. Should always include a blank index.html file even for any directories you have images or files in so people can't view the list of the directory contents by just typing the url to the main directory location.

This might not be an issue at all then as the relative links would be all you need. Adding links to your menus for the places in the other sections shouldn't be an issue either, just be sure to include the correct pathways so it gets the right ../.. setup for the paths and you should be fine.

Sorry if I was confused there, I was assuming you were going to through all these pages in one root area rather than separate directories. Good call on your part

The only immediate thing i can think of is that the sub-section .vnus would not be able to use the relative paths on files in upstream folders as those would not be included so maybe the absolute urls would be a wrkaround if I can't just type in the relative url i want.

Mainly hoping the idea of cut down vnu files for individual areas would give individuals freedom to edit a particular section without the risk of bringing down the whole site!

Maybe the vnu can be edited direct/hacked to incorporate the output folder structure or to see a folder structure created through windows explorer in the web source files folder?

This can be done with one VSD site. On this site: http://cynthiadanielle.com/photos.html, the galleries appear to be part of the VSD page, but they're actually included with use of an Iframe. I can edit the galleries without ever touching the VSD site. If I gave you the log-in info, you could edit the galleries as well.
The same can be done with an SDrive Stream. Embed it on the site, give someone the log-in info and they can maintain it without needing access to the VSD site.

Paintbrush, your approach sounds like a good work-around, but at the moment, I'm still struggling with the how to get the folder structure I want.

If I can get the basics sorted, I'd like to come back and check out your suggestion some more. At the moment, it would need to be a solution that is independent of S-Drive as i do not want to get tied into a particular hosting platform.

One issue with iframes (perhaps?) is that they are often used by ad companies and one of the nuclear options for stopping bombardment by ads is to not only disable javascript but also iframe functionality in the browser options.

Many things to consider... thank you for your help.

I'm not sure what you mean by particular hosting platform... but you'll have to go with a particular host at some point unless you have your own servers

Iframes are just one way of adding outside content to your VSD pages. You could also insert a <div> by way of the HTML tool.
AS you say... So many things to consider!

Maybe I am confused, but it looks like when you do a save that in addition to the .vnu file, the program also creates an html file for each page and an index html file as well as a folder that contains all of the images. This is what I am manually FTPing up to my 3Dcart folders. At least I think that is what it is doing (though I could be confused having used 4 different editors in the last two days)

If your manually ftping your VSD files make sure to keep them in the same structure their in on your pc. Otherwise links won't work like you expected.