What You’ll Do
In Chapter 2, you learned how to defined a site using the Basic Site Definition Wizard. With the basic settings in place, you can use the Advanced settings to fine-tune and customize the site to meet your specific needs. In this chapter, you learn how to modify advanced site definition settings to better manage and control your site.
The Advanced Site Definition dialog box allows you to define how you want your local site, remote site, and testing server to work, and set related options for updating and managing different types of files on your site.
The local site contains all the Web page files for the site as well as all images, cascading style sheet (CSS) files, templates, and other dependent files. In order to publish your site on the Web, you need to define the remote site on a Web server, and then upload the files from the local site to the remote site. If you created dynamic pages in Dreamweaver, you need to define a testing server to try them out. Dreamweaver needs a testing server to generate and display dynamic pages during development.
In addition to the main site settings for the local, remote and testing sites, you can also set related options in the following areas: cloaking, design notes, file view columns display, Adobe Contribute compatibility, templates, and spry assets.
DW 2.1
Dreamweaver provides a choice of two methods to define a site: the Basic Site Definition Wizard and the Advanced dialog boxes. In Chapter 2, you defined a site using the Basic Site Definition Wizard. With the basic settings in place, you can use the Advanced settings to fine-tune and customize the site to meet your specific needs. The Advanced settings are organized into categories.
Click the Site menu, point to Manage Sites, click New, and then click Site, or select a site, and then click Edit.
Click the Advanced tab.
Select a category, and then specify the site options you want:
• Local Info. Specifies the site files location and enables site management options.
• Remote Info. Specifies the Web site server location to upload the site files to the Web server.
• Testing Server. Creates a place to act like a public server to test the applications and connections to the database.
• Version Control. Adds the version control system provided by Subversion (New!) to manage file and folder changes.
• Cloaking. Cloaking allows you to specify file types or specific files that you do not want uploaded to the server.
• Design Notes. Adds notes to files in the working site. Notes are stored in a separate file.
• File View Columns. Customizes the appearance of the expanded Files panel.
• Contribute. Adobe Contribute allows you to maintain and update content on existing Web sites, requiring no training or knowledge of HTML.
• Compatibility. Select to enable the Contribute feature (requires the installation of the Contribute program).
• Templates. This option controls how templates are used within a site.
• Template Updating. Select to prevent the rewriting of a document’s relative path (recommended).
• Spry. Spry is a JavaScript library for Web designers that provides functionality that allows designers to build pages that provide a richer experience for their users.
• Spry Assets Folder. Enter the path to the Spry folder, or click the folder icon to browse and select the Spry folder.
Click OK.
Click Done to close the Manage Sites dialog box.
See Also
See “Creating a Web Site” on page 18 for information on using the Basic tab in the Site Definition dialog box.
DW 3.1, 3.4
In order for Dreamweaver to keep track of links between Web pages and dependent files, it is necessary to define a folder on the hard disk, or mapped drive, as the local root folder and to save all the files for the site in that folder. The local root folder contains the Web page files for the site as well as all images, cascading style sheet (CSS) files, templates, and other dependent files. After the site is defined, Dreamweaver creates and saves pages for the site inside the local root folder. Then the contents of that local root folder are uploaded to the Web server. The local root folder and the folder on the server should have exactly the same folder structure. Dreamweaver automatically replicates the folder structure of the local root folder on the server when it uploads your files, and that make future maintenance of the site efficient and easy. When you define the site, the local folder should be easy to access.
Click the Site menu, point to Manage Sites, click New, and then click Site, or select a site, and then click Edit.
Click the Advanced tab.
Click the Local Info category.
Specify the following information for the Local Info category:
• Site Name. Enter a name for your site in the Site Name box; avoid any special characters, but it may contain capitals and spaces.
• Local Root Folder. Enter the path to the Local root folder, or click the folder icon to browse and select the folder that you want to contain the site files.
• Default Images Folder. Enter the path to the Default Images folder, or click the folder icon to browse and select the folder you want to contain the site image files. Select a folder in the local root folder.
• Links Relative To. Select to set your links relative to the documents or the site’s root folder.
• HTTP Address. Enter an HTTP address for your site.
Note
The HTTP Address field is useful if you are using absolute paths to refer to local files within your site, and for the link checker to determine if your links refer to your own site.
• Case-sensitive Links. Select to check your links to make sure the case of the links matches the case of the filenames. This option is useful on UNIX systems where file names are case-sensitive.
Note
This option is only for checking in Dreamweaver, and does not impact how the links are used on the server.
• Cache. Select to maintain file and asset information in a separate cache file (recommended), which speeds up most Dreamweaver operations.
Click OK.
Click Done to close the Manage Sites dialog box.
DW 3.1, 3.4
In order to publish your site, you will first have to define the remote site, and then upload the files to a remote folder on that site. A remote folder is where you store your files for testing and publication. Dreamweaver defines this folder as the remote site. You can define the remote server at any time during the development process. However, before you can define the remote site, you must have access to a remote Web server, such as your ISP’s server, and you will need information such as: path, password, and login ID. You’ll also need to find out the best access method, either FTP (File Transfer Protocol), Local/Network, WebDAV (Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning), RDS (Remote Data Services), or Microsoft Visual SourceSafe (a file version management system). Once you have this information, you simply add it to the setup for the working site.
Click the Site menu, point to Manage Sites, click New, and then click Site, or select a site, and then click Edit.
Click the Advanced tab.
Click the Remote Info category.
Specify the following information for the Remote Info category:
• Access None. Select if you are not planning on moving site data to a remote server.
• Access FTP. Select if you connect to your remote server using File Transfer Protocol (FTP), which is useful for fast file transfer and working remotely.
• FTP Host. Enter the FTP address or IP address that calls the server.
• Host Directory. Enter the host directory name. The Host Directory specifies the exact folder on the server where the files will go (optional).
• Login. Enter your login name to access the server.
• Password. Enter your password to access the server.
• Use Passive FTP. Select if the server security requires the files to be transferred in passive mode.
• Use IPv6 Transfer Mode. Select if you are using an IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) enabled FTP server.
• Use Firewall. Select if your computer is behind a Firewall.
• Use Secure FTP (SFTP).
• Maintain Synchronization Information. Select to automatically synchronize your local and remote files.
• Automatically Upload Files To Server On Save. Select to transfer files to server each time the page is saved (not recommended).
• Enable File Check In And Check Out. Select to use the Check In/Out system to manage file development by a team.
• Access Local/Network. Select if the server lives on a local area network.
• Remote Folder. Enter the path to the Local/Network folder, or click the folder icon to browse and select the folder on the server that you want to contain the site files.
• Maintain Synchronization Information. Select to automatically synchronize your local and remote files.
• Automatically Upload Files To Server On Save. Select to transfer files to server each time the page is saved (not recommended).
• Enable File Check In And Check Out. Select to use the Check In/Out system to manage file development by a team.
• WebDAV. WebDAV (Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning) allows you to manage pages to and from a WebDAV server.
• URL. Enter the address for the WebDAV server.
• Login. Enter your login name to access the server.
• Password. Enter your password to access the server.
• Maintain Synchronization Information. Select to automatically synchronize your local and remote files.
• Automatically Upload Files To Server On Save. Select to transfer files to server each time the page is saved (not recommended).
• Enable File Check In And Check Out. Select to use the Check In/Out system to manage file development by a team.
• RDS. RDS (Remote Data Services) allows you to work with live Web pages on the server.
• Settings. Click Settings, enter in the Host Name, Port, Full Host Directory, User Name, Password for the RDS site, and then click OK.
• Maintain Synchronization Information. Select to automatically synchronize your local and remote files.
• Automatically Upload Files To Server On Save. Select to automatically upload files to the Web server each time the page is saved (not recommended).
• Enable File Check In And Check Out. Select to use the Check In/Out system to manage file development by a team.
Click OK.
Click Done to close the Manage Sites dialog box.
DW 3.4
If you created dynamic pages in Dreamweaver, you need to define a testing server to try them out. Dreamweaver needs a testing server to generate and display dynamic pages during development. You can define a testing server on your local computer, a network development server, or a remote production server. For example, you can create a place to act like a public server to test the applications and connections to the database. Before you can define a testing server, you need to define a local site folder and remote site server.
Click the Site menu, point to Manage Sites, click New, and then click Site, or select a site, and then click Edit.
Click the Advanced tab.
Click the Testing Server category.
Click the Server Model popup, and then select a server from the available options.
• Options. ASP JavaScript, ASP VBScript, ASP.NET C#, ASP.NET VB, ColdFusion, JSP, or PHP MySQL.
Click the Access popup, and then select an access method from the available options.
• Options. FTP, Local/Network, or WebDAV.
Enter the URL Prefix for the location of the site’s root folder on the testing server.
Click OK.
Click Done to close the Manage Sites dialog box.
When you work in a team environment where many contributors make changes to site files, you’ll want to use a version control system to keep track of them. Subversion (New!) is a version control system that works along with Dreamweaver to help you maintain version histories of your site files. Subversion maintains a repository of the file and folder structure of your site on the Subversion server, which is the normal installation (available at http://subversion.tiggris.org), however, you can set it up on your own computer. The files and folders are not actually stored on the server. Subversion maintains a database of changes, which allows you to view a file history and compare it with previous versions. Before you can use Subversion, you need to define server settings in the Site Definition dialog box.
Click the Site menu, point to Manage Sites, click New, and then click Site, or select a site, and then click Edit.
Click the Advanced tab.
Click the Version Control category.
Click the Access popup, and then click Subversion.
Click the Protocol popup, and then select a server protocol used by the Subversion server: HTTP, HTTPS, SVN, or SVN+SSH.
Enter the URL address to the Subversion server.
Enter the folder location for your web site files. This can be the root or a subfolder.
Select a Server Port option: Default or Non default, and then enter a port number.
Enter a username and password.
Click Test to make sure your connection to the server is valid.
Click OK.
Click Done to close the Manage Sites dialog box.
Site cloaking allows you to exclude folders and files from certain operations, such as using Put, Get, Check In, and Check Out commands, generating reports, finding newer local and newer remote files, checking and changing sitewide links, synchronizing, using the Assets panel, and updating templates and libraries. You can cloak individual folders and specific file types; however, you cannot cloak a specific individual file. Before you can use site cloaking, you need to enable it and specify the file types you want to cloak.
Click the Site menu, point to Manage Sites, click New, and then click Site, or select a site, and then click Edit.
Click the Advanced tab.
Click the Cloaking category.
Select the Enable Cloaking check box to turn on cloaking.
Select the Cloak Files Ending With check box to turn on cloaking for specific file types, and then add the file extensions to the list of cloaked items. Separate multiple file types with one space (do not use a comma or semicolon). You can also enter or delete file suffixes you want to cloak or uncloak.
Click OK.
Click Done to close the Manage Sites dialog box.
When you view a Web site in the expanded Files panel, information about the files appears in columns in a similar fashion as files in Windows Explorer (Win) or the Finder (Mac). You can use the File View Columns options to customize the appearance of the expanded Files panel. For example, you can hide, add, delete, rename, and reorder columns. In addition, you can share columns with connected users, and associate columns with a Design Note.
Click the Site menu, point to Manage Sites, click New, and then click Site, or select a site, and then click Edit.
Click the Advanced tab.
Click the File View Columns category.
Specify the following information for the File View Columns category:
• Enable Column Sharing. Select to modify anything but the order of preexisting columns.
• Column Field. Click the Plus (+) or Minus (-) button to add/ remove columns, or select a specific column name, and then use the Up and Down arrows to change the items’ order.
• Column Name. Enter a name for the selected column item.
• Associate With Design Note. Select a design note setting.
• Align. Click and choose how column data are aligned.
• Show. Select to show the specific column.
• Share With All Users Of This Site. Select to share with all users of the site.
Click OK.
Click Done to close the Manage Sites dialog box.
Design Notes are notes that you create for the files in the working site. Although Design Notes are connected with the file they describe, they are stored separately in a file. Design Notes help you to keep track of file data related with your individual site documents. For example, if you copy a document from one site to another, you can add Design Notes for that document, with the comment that the original document is in the other site folder. In another way, Design Notes can keep track of sensitive information that you can’t put inside a document for security reasons. When importing graphics into Dreamweaver, the Design Notes file is automatically copied into your site along with the graphic. Design Notes also can keep track of integration with Fireworks and Flash and allow communication on subjects ranging from the status of the page to marketing tactics. Before you can attach Design Notes to files, you need to enable it.
Click the Site menu, point to Manage Sites, click New, and then click Site, or select a site, and then click Edit.
Click the Advanced tab.
Click the Design Notes category.
Select the Maintain Design Notes check box to enable Design Notes.
Select the Upload Design Notes For Sharing check box to share your notes with others working on the site.
Click OK.
Click Done to close the Manage Sites dialog box.
Did You Know?
You can erase all Design Notes not associated with a file. In the Site Definition dialog box, click the Design Notes category, click the Clean Up button to permanently erase all Design Notes not directly associated with a file, and then click OK.
Click the Window menu, and then click Files to display the Files panel.
Right-click (Win) or Control-click (Mac) the file you want to add notes, and then click Design Notes.
The Design Notes dialog box opens.
Click the Basic Info tab, and then add notes using the following options:
• Status. Click the popup, and then select the current status from the available options.
• Notes. Enter in notes on this file.
• Insert Date. Click the button to add the current date to the notes.
• Show When File Is Opened. Select to display these notes whenever the file is first opened.
Click the All Info tab, and then view and modify notes using the following options:
• Add/Subtract. Click the Plus (+) or Minus (-) buttons to add or remove specific notes.
• Info. Displays a list of all Design Notes for the selected file.
• Name. Displays the name of the note, or allows you to type in a name, if this is a new note.
• Value. Displays the content of the note, or allows you to enter content, if this is a new note.
Click OK.
After you create notes for files in your working site, you can display the files that contain notes in the expanded Files panel. A Design Notes icon appears in the Notes column. The Design Notes icons only appear in the expanded Files panel when the Notes option is set to show in the File View Columns category of the Site Definition dialog box. In the Files panel, you can double-click the Design Notes icon to open the Design Notes dialog box, where you can view the Design Notes for the selected file on the Basic Info tab.
Click the Window menu, and then click Files to display the Files panel.
Use one of the following methods:
• Right-click (Win) or Control-click (Mac) the file with notes you want to view, and then click Design Notes.
• Double-click the yellow Design Notes icon in the Notes column of the Files panel.
Important
To show the yellow Design Notes, click the Site menu, click Manage Sites, select your working site, click Edit, click the File View Columns category, select Notes in the list panel, and then select the Show check box on the Advanced tab.
The Design Notes dialog box opens, displaying the Basic Info tab with any notes for the page. You can click the All Info tab to display HTML note information about the page.
Click OK.
