Lesson 2 - FTP in Dreamweaver Part 2
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- FTP Part 2
The Files Panel Revisited
Now that you've established your remote info and set some preferences for your site, your Files Panel will become your primary Site Management Tool.
Let's take a look at the Files Panel.
We have already used three of the icons (the expand/collapse site button, the site map button and the site files button). Now we will introduce three more, all of which are used for transferring files between your local computer and your server:
- the Connection button (connects to remote host)
- the Get button
- the Put button
The Connection button acts like a toggle to allow you to connect/disconnect from your server. The Get button downloads files from the remote server to your local folder, while the Put button sends local files to the remote server. If you've enabled "File Check In and Check Out" you'll have other buttons available as well.
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Connects to remote host |
Get (green arrow down) |
Put (blue arrow up) |
Click the Connect button.
Once connected, your Files Panel will display the folders and files on the remote server on the left pane of the window. If you don't have any folders and files on the remote server, your left pane will be blank. But, you are connected so you can simply drag and drop files from one pane of the Files Panel to the other. In the illustration below you can see that I have several folders filled with data on my server already. Within my COIN74C folder I have folders for CSS, Forms, images, and so on, as well as html files for each of the tutorials. My local site contains a subset of these folders and files.
There are several ways to upload or Put files into the Remote site from your Local folder. In this illustration, I selected the class03a_wkspace.htm file in the Local folder and am dragging it into the update folder on the Remote Site.
When I release the mouse, the class03a_wkspace file will be copied into the update folder.
To view the contents of any folder, click on the plus sign to the left of the folder icon.
Here's another great feature of DW site management. If you are transferring files from one pane to the other in either direction (get or put) and the files are in folders that don't exist on the other side, DW will create the new folders for you.
Upload and Download Files between Local and Remote Sites
There are several ways besides "drag and drop" to upload and download files and folders:
- Select a file in the Files Panel and click either the Put or Get icon depending on whether you want to Upload or Download.
- Right click a file, and then select Put or Get from the context menu.
- Select a file and use the keyboard shortcuts of Control + Shift + U to upload or Control + Shift + D to download.
- Use the Site Menu - Site>Get or Site>Put from a file's Document Window Menu bar.
Dependent Files
Dependent files are files that are included in a particular html document. These may include multimedia such as flash .swf files, images such as .gif and .jpg, external style sheets, files in a frameset, a java applet, etc. These files are dependent on the html file. If you select the option to include dependent files, DW will transfer all dependent files attached to the current html file that you've selected to transfer.
FTP Status
Check the status of your transfer. Dreamweaver will display the file name in the Status window. You can cancel a transfer at any time by clicking the Cancel button.
Deleting Files from the Server
DW's robust file management enables you to delete files and folders from the server several ways. You can right-click or control-click the file or folder and select Delete from the context-sensitive menu.
Or you can simply select the file or folder on the server and press the delete key.
Site Logs
File Management is very easy using DW's FTP client. Dreamweaver creates a Site Log of your transfers. View the log by going to the View FTP Site Log button on the Files Panel toolbar. You might be able to troubleshoot any transfer errors through the log. I've never had any errors transferring files through DW but errors can occur.
Synchronizing Your Local and Remote
You can ensure that the most recent files get transferred by synchronizing your files. Select the files and folders in your Local Folder pane or sync the entire site by selecting the top root folder. Go to the Site Menu - Site>Synchronize. Enter the appropriate information in the drop down menus depending on if you are synchronizing selected files or the entire site. Use caution if you select the 'Delete remote files not on local drive' box. This can not be undone.
We aren't going to get into the details of the synchronizing feature in this course. It's very useful if you are working on large sites with frequent editing.
Collaboration Tools
I just want to mention the strength of DW's collaboration tools for site management; however, we won't be using them in this course. The collaboration tools must be used by all members of a team in order to work properly. That means all members need to use DW as the FTP client.
Collaboration tools include File Check In/ Check Out, Design Notes, Integrated Email, VSS, and WebDAV source control integration.
Other Files Panel Icons
To refresh your Files Panel display, go to the View Menu - View>Refresh or F5. The icon of a blue circular arrow between the connect and get buttons is the Refresh button.
To disconnect from the remote host, click the Connect button. The Connect button toggles the connection on and off. When connected to the remote server, the Connect button becomes the 'Disconnects from remote host' button.
The status bar will say 'Disconnected'.
