Introduction

Before you can work on a web site in Dreamweaver you need to create a folder structure on your hard drive, then open Dreamweaver, define a new site name and choose the folder structure you have created as the location ("local root folder") for the all your sites files.

Sometimes you might be working on a site at home and at work or college. You will therefore need to be familiar with transferring the site via a USB memory stick (or CD-R) between different computers. Of course the ideal is to use a laptop which travels with you, but for a variety of reasons many web developers don't have one.

Remember that Dreamweaver can organise and oversee multiple sites, so you need to know ...

• how to create sites
• choose where they are stored on your hard drive
• switch between them
• move them between computers

This article should help you.

NOTE: Screenshots shown are Mac, but the same principal applies to the PC version.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Unfortunately Dreamweaver does not appear to correctly preview web pages (in a browser) if the local site is stored on a USB memory stick! Therefore you must transfer your work to the hard drive first.

Creating a local root folder

If you are starting from scratch you will need to create a "local root folder" on your hard drive which will contain all your html and media files etc.

You may also find this article on organising site files helpful.

If you know how you are going to organise your files you may wish to create extra folders inside the local root folder (here we have created a "media" folder"), but this can always be done later within Dreamweavers "Files" window.

Name your root folder something recognisable like "Joe Bloggs website". You'll be glad you did when later on you find yourself building and maintaining dozens of sites within Dreamweaver.

Define a site in Dreamweaver

The next step is to define a new site in Dreamweaver. You will need to do this for every computer you will be using to create your site. Essentially, Dreamweaver oversees and monitors all the files in your site and the links between them. You therefore need to keep them together in a folder (structure).

1. Launch Dreamweaver, and open the Files window ("F8" key).

 

2. From the "Show" menu choose "Manage SItes".

 

3. Click on "New" and choose "Site".

 

4. Name your site so you can recognise it when it appears in the "Show" drop down menu list. It is wise to name it the same as your local root folder.

 

5. Click on the blue folder icon to the right of the "Local root folder:" dialogue box. This will open the "Choose local root folder" window where you can select the local root folder you made previously. Select your local root folder and click "choose".

 

6. You can now click "OK" to close the "Site definition" window and then "Done" to close the "Manage sites" window.

 

7. You should now see something like this in Dreamweavers Files window.

 

Selecting your site for editing in Dreamweaver

Whenever you return to Dreamweaver to edit your site you will need to ...

• Open the "Files" window
• Chose your site from the "Show" drop down menu (you or someone else may have been working on a different site meanwhile).

If you have created your site on a 1st computer, edited it on a 2nd, and are transferring it back to the 1st

• Copy your local root folder to the hard drive (preferrably over-writing the last, and now out of date version of the site)
• Repeat steps 1 to 7 but on step 3 chose your existing site from the list and choose"Edit" instead "New".

IMPORTANT NOTE: Unfortunately Dreamweaver does not always allow the preview of web pages (in a browser) if the local site is stored on a USB memory stick! Therefore you may need to transfer your work to the hard drive first.

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