Setting Up Your Site and Project Files

In Dreamweaver, a site generally consists of two parts: a collection of files on a local computer (the local site), and a location on a remote web server that you upload the files to when you’re ready to make them publicly available (the remote site). You use the Dreamweaver Files panel to manage the files for your site.

The most common approach to creating a website with Dreamweaver is to create and edit pages on your local disk, and then upload copies of those pages to a remote web server for viewing on the web. In this tutorial you’ll only learn how to set up the local site so that you can begin building web pages right away. Later, after you’ve completed the website, you’ll learn how to create a remote site so that you can upload your files to a web server.

About Dreamweaver Sites

In Dreamweaver, the term "site" can refer either to a website or to a local storage location for the documents that belong to a website. The latter is what you need to establish before you begin building your website. A Dreamweaver site organizes all of the documents associated with your website and lets you track and maintain links, manage files, share files, and transfer your site files to a web server.

A Dreamweaver site consists of as many as three parts, depending on your computing environment and the type of website you are developing:

Local folder is your working directory. Dreamweaver refers to this folder as your local site. The local folder is usually a folder on your hard disk.

Remote folder is where you store your files, depending on your environment, for testing, production, collaboration, and publication. Dreamweaver refers to this folder as your remote site. The remote folder is a folder on the computer that’s running your web server. The computer running the web server is often (but not always) the computer that makes your site publicly available on the web.

Folder for dynamic pages (Testing Server folder) is the folder where Dreamweaver processes dynamic pages. This folder is often the same folder as the remote folder. You do not need to worry about this folder unless you are developing a web application.

You can set up a Dreamweaver site by using the Site Definition Wizard, which guides you through the setup process, or by using the Site Definition Advanced settings, which let you set up local, remote, and testing folders individually, as necessary. In this tutorial you’ll use the Site Definition Advanced settings to set up a local folder for your project files. Later in this book, you’ll learn how to set up a remote folder so that you can publish your pages to a web server and make them publicly available.

Set Up Your Project Files

When you create a local site, you can place any existing assets (images or other pieces of content) in the local site’s root folder (the main folder for the site). Then when you’re ready to add content to your pages, the assets are there and ready for you to use.

The first step in creating the site is to copy your files to an appropriate folder on your hard disk.

1. Create a new folder called local_sites on your hard disk.

   For example, create a folder called local_sites in either of the following two locations:

   • In Windows: C:\Documents and Settings\your_user_name\My Documents\local_sites
   • On the Macintosh: Macintosh HD/Users/your_user_name/Documents/local_sites
2. Copy your files to the folder on your hard disk.

   ABOUT...

   About local and remote "root" folders The local "root" folder of your Dreamweaver site is often the main or top-level folder for your website. It usually corresponds to an identical folder on the remote site (web server). The root folder also usually defines the first part of your website’s URL, following the domain name. For example, if your local root folder is called mywebsite, and you have an identical root folder defined on the remote site, the URL for your website would be something like http://www.yahoo.com/mywebsite. In some cases, the local root folder may not have an exact name equivalent on the remote site. For example, if you own the domain name www.mywebsite.com, with a remote root directory of public_html, your local root folder could still be called mywebsite. The files in both the local and remote root directories would be identical; only the folder names (public_html on the remote site, and mywebsite on the local computer) would be different.