Publishing your Site using Macromedia Dreamweaver

Tool(s) Required:

HTML Editor: Dreamweaver 4 or above
Recommended: Adobe Dreamweaver CS3

1. Define your Dreamweaver site : Local and Remote

To set up your local and remote sites in dreamweaver, create a Dreamweaver site definition to allow you to manage the files within Dreamweaver.

1. Select Site > Manage Sites, the Manage Sites dialog box appears.
2. click New, and select Site from the pop-up menu. The Site Definition dialog box appears. If the dialog box is showing the Advanced tab, click Basic.
3. The first screen of the Site Definition Wizard appears, enter a site name to identify your site within Dreamweaver.
4. The next screen of the wizard appears, asking if you want to work with a server technology. Select the No option to indicate that for now, unless you have dynamic pages and know your technology.
5. The next screen of the wizard appears, asking how you want to work with your files. Select the option labeled "Edit local copies on my machine, then upload to server when ready (recommended)." Click the folder icon next to the text box and locate your site root folder locally.
6. The next screen of the wizard appears, asking how you connect to your remote server. Select FTP/SFTP for a remote server or Local/Network for an intranet site.
7. If you selected FTP, enter the following options:
   • Enter the hostname of the server (such as ftp.smartwebby.com).
   • In the text box that asks what folder contains your files, enter the path on the server from the FTP root folder to the remote site's root folder. If you're not sure, consult your system administrator. In many cases, this text box should be left blank.
   • Enter your user name and password in the appropriate text boxes.
   • If your server supports SFTP, select the Use Secure FTP (SFTP) option.
   • Click Test Connection.
   • If the connection is unsuccessful, consult your system administrator.
8. If you selected Local/Network, click the folder icon next to the text box and browse to the remote site's root folder. You may want to deselect the Refresh Remote File List Automatically option for improved speed.
9. Click Next. Don't enable file check-in and check-out for the site. Click Next.
10. Click Done to finish setting up your local and remote sites.

2. Upload your files to the remote site server

To make your pages publicly accessible, you must upload your pages to your site. After setting up your local and remote sites, you can upload your files from your local folder to the web server.

1. In the Files panel (Window > Files), select the site's local root folder.
2. Click the blue Put Files arrow icon in the Files panel toolbar.
3. Dreamweaver copies all the files to the remote site folder you defined. This operation may take some time, as Dreamweaver must upload all the files in the site.
4. Open your remote site in a browser to make sure everything uploaded correctly.

That's it, you have successfully completed our tutorial on publishing your site!

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