Hello. Let me first start off by saying that I know virtually nothing about web design, domain hosting, ftp sites, and so on and so forth. I've just been trying to figure this stuff out as I go along. I've finally completed my first VSD website and tried to publish it to my domain that's hosted by DreamHost. I had no issues making a connection between VSD and my server, and everything seems to be working fine when VSD published the site. But when you go to it, all that's there is a white page that says "Index of /" at the top. Here's the site:

makeme8bit.com

Now, I kind of feel like maybe I screwed something up within my DreamHost "Web Panel", but I don't know. When I first decided to create this site, I was initially planning on using WordPress to create it, and I chose DreamHost because it supported WordPress. I did the "one click install" of WordPress inside my DreamHost web panel, and messed with WordPress for a while before deciding it wasn't what I wanted. I then tried out VSD and liked that much more, so I bought it. So before I attempted to publish my site today, I looked for instructions on how to uninstall WordPress. The instructions said to delete the WordPress folders out of my database. When I looked at my database (an SQL database if that means anything) it seemed to be a database that WordPress created, so I deleted the whole thing, thinking that VSD would create a new one for me. Then I noticed that DreamHost had a simple un-install of WordPress, so I did that too. Then I attempted to publish my VSD site, and there's nothing there. The files all appear in my FTP site, so it worked to some degree. I noticed that I still didn't have a database after publishing my site so I created a new one, but I don't even know if VSD needs a database available to publish a site. I don't even know what a database is for. I've tried re-publishing and re-syncing my site a few times with no change. So I guess I'm just looking for suggestions as to where to start looking for my problem. I appreciate any help anyone can give me.

I am not the ultimate in web building but first. I have a word press blog. It was set up for me within my C Panel I guess simular to your web panel. It does use one of my SQL databases but this is seperate from any other use

If you have a website built with VSD then it is a matter of setting up the ftp settings. You said your files are present in your ftp site. If you have a ftp program FTP free for instance it is good to look at your hosting file structure. The uploaded website should be in the root of your domain.So to view the web site you should be able to call http://yourdomain. VSD does not create a sql database. A database is only used to collect data. Another aspect.
As an idea if you haven't already, sign up for a free S_Drive account all you have to do is use your Coffee Cup login and upload to S-Drive. You can check the site out there.
You can progress from there

This is good advice for beginners, wish it had existed when i started 3 years ago

S drive is free hosting (permanent) if you just want one site, one form, one stream its all you will ever need

See wedding car site in my signature, it is 100% CC including s drive hosting !

Good luck

That was the problem. I suspected it was how I had my FTP set up, but I wasn't sure. When I first published my site, I didn't know what remote folder to enter under the FTP Account Settings, so I left that blank. It looked like a mess when I got into my FTP site. After reading your message, I really dug in and found DreamHost's instructions on which folder to put my site into. After that, I cleared out my FTP, and published again. Works perfectly now. Thank you very much!