Site Management

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by Aaron West

Dreamweaver works best with entire sites rather than independent web pages. For this reason, it's always a good idea to start a project in the Site Files window. Dreamweaver has many built-in tools to make a project easier and less time consuming, such as checking links, which can only be utilized if a Site is defined.

To begin managing your site, simply select 'Site Files' from the Window Menu (or hit F5).

See a screenshot of Site Files

This is where you add and modify files and directories on your site. You can also upload your files via FTP, generate a site map, and change links sitewide.

Before you begin, you must first define the site. You do this in the Pop-up window in the toolbar (in the screen shot it says 'tutorial'). Select define sites, which will bring up the following dialog box:

You may define as many sites as you like and they can be accessed via the popup menu. Since you most likely don't have any sites already, press the 'New' button. Now you'll see the following dialog box:

Here you give the site a name, define the local path, the remote path and choose whether you want to use Cache to speed link updates (recommended).

You can also specify your FTP server, Web Server, configure your site map, and specify whether you would like to Check Files In and Out. The latter is usually only relevant when other people (a team) are working within the same site.

So now that you have defined your site, you will notice that all the of the files and folders within the directory you chose are in the site window.

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