This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Local Site
In Dreamweaver, the term site can refer either to a Web site or to a local storage location for the documents belonging to a Web site. To create pages in a development environment, you are encouraged to create a local site. A local site in Dreamweaver is simply a folder on your hard drive under which your development work for a Web site will take place. This top-level directory is also known as a root directory of your Web site.
Folder Organization
When planning your Web site, take the time to plan your folder hierarchy. Some subfolders you may want to define under your root folder include the following:
A folder, perhaps for each section of your Web site, as defined by your main navigation bar.
An /images folder to contain images for the entire site or one /images folder under each section folder.
Folders for other types of asset files, such as Flash movies, sounds, or videos.
You can create this folder hierarchy outside of Dreamweaver and set it as your local site, or you can define a local site and use Dreamweaver to create the subfolders for you.
Local Site Benefits
Dreamweaver enables you to create individual Web pages; however, many benefits exist to grouping these pages into a local site. Benefits include the following:
The capability to update links to a page automatically when you move it within the site structure.
All folders and files under the local site are displayed using the Site window. The Site window enables you to create, maintain, and deploy your Web site.
When files are ready for testing or deployment into production, you can do so using FTP.
Modifications to files can be uploaded to the production server because it keeps track of which files have changed and need to be redeployed.
Files maintained within a local site can be collaboratively shared among developers.