selectively including folders

that are beneath a folder excluded

[stu2]

I have a trial php software in a folder www.mysite.com/php/program/. I want to go live with that php software. I've excluded the /php/ directory in robots.txt what is the best way to selective include the folder www.mysite.com/php/program/? By disallowing all the other /program/ folders under /php/? Or by creating another folder /www.mysite.com/live/ and not including it in robots.txt? Some other way?

Presently I'm linking to the index page in /program/ by using another url which redirects to the index page. Is this adviseable, or should I link directly to the index page from my menus?

Is there any other way to load another page automatically other than a redirect, frame, iframe?

Should i be making any entries in .htaccess? Anything else to consider?

Sorry if some of the questions are not exactly about robots.txt but they're all related to my main question.

[Reid]

robots.txt is based on prefix-matching

If you disallow: /php/
then all sub-folders below it will also be disallowed.
The alternative could be to disallow certain files only

disallow: /php/s
will disallow all files and sub-folders within /php/ that begin with the letter 's'
or
disallow: /php/ind would do the same but only files and sub-folders beginning with 'ind' but will allow anything in /php/ that does not begin with 'ind'
You may be able to work around your problem using this 'prefix' tecnique.