Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 Unleashed- P13 ppt

3. Within the Local Info category, we'll want to make one change. We'll change the Local root folder to point to C:\VectaCorp\Chapter11\Local\. After you've made that change, the screen will resemble Figure 11.3. Figure 11.3. Define the Local root folder within the Local Info category to point to the location where you want local files to be stored while in development. [View full size image] Tip If you're implementing the first model, where your local and remote files are located on two separate machines, your Local root folder would point to C:\VectaCorp\Chapter11\. 4. With the Local root folder set, you can switch over to the Remote Info category. Select the Local/Network option from the Access list. More options will become available. Within the Remote folder text box, enter or browse to the path of the fictitious company's remote server. In our case, the remote files are located in C:\VectaCorp\Chapter11\Remote\. Tip If you're implementing the first model, where your local and remote files are located on two separate machines, your Remote folder might point to the organization's web folder on the network using the following model: \\<servername>\<webfolder>. This path will work, assuming that your site is shared on the network. If it's not, you'll need to contact your system administrator for further details. 5. Your next step will be to click the Enable File Check In and Check Out check box. 6. With the check box enabled, we can now set other options for identifying the person checking files in and out. Specifically, we can enter the name and email address of the user (you). We can also click the Check Out Files When Opening check box. Doing this guarantees that whenever we open a file that has already been checked in on the local side, the file will automatically be checked out on the remote side. After you've finished setting the final three options, your Remote Info screen should resemble mine, shown in Figure 11.4. Figure 11.4. Set the properties to identify the person checking files in and out. [View full size image] 7. Click OK to close the Site Definition for Vecta Corp window. 8. Click Done to close the Manage Sites dialog. You're now ready to start checking out files. Before we do, however, we'll want to synchronize the local folder with the files contained in the remote folder. This will ensure that the files in the local folder are exact copies of those within the remote. You can synchronize the files by following these steps: 1. Select Site, Synchronize Sitewide. 2. When the Synchronize Files dialog appears, select the Entire Vecta Corp Site option from the Synchronize menu. Also, choose the Get Newer Files from Remote option from the Direction menu. 3. Click Preview. 4. When the Synchronize preview window appears, click OK to proceed with the synchronization. Now you can click the Expand/Collapse icon in the Files panel to expand it, if necessary. As you can see from Figure 11.5, the remote files (located in the C:\VectaCorp\Chapter11\Remote\ folder) appear in the left pane, and the local files (located in the C:\VectaCorp\Chapter11\Local\ folder) appear on the right. Figure 11.5. Expanding the Files panel reveals the remote files on the left and the local files on the right. [View full size image] You'll also notice that the local files appear with small lock icons next to them. Because we've enabled Check In and Check Out functionality in the Site Definition process, these files will be locked by default. And because we haven't checked these files out, opening them in their current state would result in Dreamweaver opening these files for viewing purposes in read-only mode. To edit these files, we'll have to check them out. Let's do that now. Checking Files In and Out Now that you've enabled the Check In and Check Out feature, you can begin using it for the defined Vecta Corp site. To do so, right-click (Control+click) a file within the Local Files list and choose the Check Out option from the context menu (see Figure 11.6). Figure 11.6. Select the Check Out option from the context menu of the file you want to check out. [View full size image] Next, Dreamweaver asks if you want to include dependent files when checking out the HTML file. Because we have read-only copies in our local folder, we'll select No. As you can see from Figure 11.7, the file is checked out to you. Figure 11.7. The file is checked out to you. You can tell by the icon change and the user's name in the Checked Out By file view column. [View full size image] Tip When we defined our site in Chapter 3, "Dreamweaver Site Management," we enabled the Check Out Files When Opening check box. Because this is the case, we need only to open the local file (by double-clicking to open it) in Dreamweaver. As soon as we do this, the file is automatically checked out. You can tell the file is checked out to you because the file's icon changes from a lock icon to a green check mark icon. This means the file is checked out. Furthermore, your name appears in the Checked Out By file view column. As you can see, these properties are set in both the Remote and Local panes. This means that when a member of your collaborative team defines a site to the same remote folder, your name will appear as the user who has checked out the file. If the other user tries to check out the same file, that user won't be able to. The other user will be able only to view the file, not write to it. Now that the file has been checked out to you, you can open it and make any necessary changes. When you've finished, you can check it back in by right-clicking (Control+clicking) the file within the Local Files list and choosing the Check In option. Furthermore, if you check out a file and aren't happy with the changes that you've made, you can also select the Undo Check Out option from the context menu. Doing this replaces the local file with the last version that was checked in from the remote. Maintaining Design Notes One of the most underused features available in Dreamweaver is that of associating Design Notes with web pages. As an individual web developer, you can create Design Notes in an effort to keep tabs on progress and to write general notes to yourself, or others, about a particular file. When you go to open the file, you can have the Design Note automatically open and remind you of what needs to get done. From a team collaborative standpoint, you can associate Design Notes with your web pages as a way to alert other developers in your team about changes made, changes to be made, or specific items within the file that require attention. Enabling Design Notes Enabling Design Notes for your web pages is as simple as opening the site definition for the particular site you're working with and clicking a check box. In our scenario, we'll want to enable Design Notes for the defined Vecta Corp site. To do this, follow these steps: 1. Open the Manage Sites dialog by choosing Site, Manage Sites. The Manage Sites dialog appears. 2. Now select the Vecta Corp site and click the Edit button. The Site Definition for Vecta Corp dialog appears. 3. Select the Design Notes category. The Design Notes screen appears. 4. Within the Design Notes screen you can do three things. The first check box enables Design Notes. Make sure to check this box to enable Design Notes for the Vecta Corp site. The Clean Up button next to this option deletes all existing Design Notes within the site. The third and final option at the bottom of the screen ensures that Design Notes, located within a _notes folder in the defined site, are automatically uploaded to the remote server when you check in a file or upload it manually to the remote server. Make sure this option is enabled so that others in your collaborative team can see the Design Notes you create and vice versa. After you've finished making the changes, click OK to close the Site Definition dialog. Tip It's important to note that Dreamweaver uses Design Notes for launching and editing features when integrating with Flash and Fireworks. Design Notes are also used to store settings when you're working with Design-Time style sheets and the Live Data view. For this reason, it's generally a good idea to leave these options enabled even if you don't plan to work with Design Notes. 5. Click Done to close the Manage Sites dialog. Design Notes have now been enabled for your site. Setting the Status of Files with Design Notes After you've enabled Design Notes, you're ready to start working with them. One ideal usage for Design Notes would be for writing notes to yourself about a particular file. It's important to realize that Design Notes are associated with particular files within a site, not with the site as a whole. To associate a Design Note with a file, you can do one of two things. First, you can choose the Design Notes option by right- clicking (Control+clicking) on the checked out file in the Local Files list that you want to create a Design Note for. I'll choose index.html. Second, you can open the checked out file (index.html) by double-clicking it in the Local Files list. With the file open, you can choose the Design Notes option from the File menu. Either method opens the Design Notes dialog shown in Figure 11.8. Figure 11.8. The Design Notes dialog allows you to associate Design Notes with a particular file. [View full size image] As you can see from Figure 11.8, the dialog is separated into two parts: the Basic Info and All Info tabs. We'll discuss the All Info tab in the next section; for now let's discuss how you can set the status of and write notes about a particular file using the Basic Info tab. As you can see from Figure 11.8, the screen is divided into the following segments: File— This read-only text label displays the name of the file that the Design Note will be associated with. Location— This read-only text label displays the path to the file location on the local computer. Status— Choose an option from this menu to set the status of the file. Options include Draft, Revision1, Revision2, Revision3, Alpha, Beta, Final, and Needs Attention. For our example, choose the Needs Attention option. Insert date— Clicking this icon inserts a date stamp into the Notes text box. Click this button now to insert a date stamp. Notes— Use this multiline text box to enter any notes to yourself or members of your team about the file. The text you enter here is completely up to you, but you'll generally want to associate the note with the status option you select. For our example, add the text: We still need to update our solution offerings for this month, preferably just to the right of the date stamp. Show when file is opened— Enabling this check box assures that the Design Note appears automatically when the file is opened each time. For our example, check this box. Click OK to create the Design Note. Initially, you won't notice any additions to the folder or file structure of the site. However, opening the Local folder (C:\VectaCorp\Chapter11\Local) reveals the new _notes folder that Dreamweaver adds for you. Within the _notes folder, you'll see the index.html.mno file. This XML-based file represents the Design Note for index.html. Note By default, Dreamweaver creates one MNO file per web page document. That's not to say that multiple users can't create multiple notes for a single MNO file. When new notes are created, they are appended to the MNO file. Furthermore, the MNO file keeps track of which users open the file. Creating Customized Design Notes In the previous section, we examined the Basic Info tab of the Design Notes dialog. For the most part, a large majority of the functionality that you'll need to interact with as it relates to Design Notes can be found within that tab. Other times, however, you'll want to create custom Design Notes that relate to specific aspects of your project. For instance, you may want to define various resources (such as graphic designer, project manager, lead developer) related to a project so that when users open the Design Note, they know who to contact if they have a question. Or you may want to create a custom note that defines how many man hours have been dedicated to a specific file. As you'll see in the next section, you can then associate specific file view columns with a particular Design Note. Even better, you can enable file view column sharing so that everyone in the team can see the custom Design Notes directly from within the Site Management window. All this begins with the All Info tab of the Design Notes dialog. To demonstrate the functionality within this screen, reopen the Design Notes dialog by either choosing the Design Notes option from the File menu (assuming the index.html file is already open) or choose the Design Notes option from the context menu when you right-click (Control+click) the index.html file in the Files panel. When the Design Notes dialog opens, click the All Info tab. As you can see from Figure 11.9, the All Info tab displays all the information you entered within the Basic Info tab line by line. Figure 11.9. Initially, the All Info tab displays notes created within the Basic Info tab. [View full size image] The All Info tab is divided into the following features: File— This read-only text label displays the name of the file that the Design Note will be associated with. Location— This read-only text label displays the path to the file location on the local computer. Info— This list box displays notes defined in the Basic Info tab as well as custom notes you specify in this screen. You can add a new note by clicking the Add (+) icon located just above the Info list box. Do that now. Name— Use this text box to enter the custom name of the new note. Enter the text ManHours here. Value— Use this text box to enter the value associated with the name of the new note. Let's assume that we have eight billable hours accrued for index.html so far. Because that's the case, enter 8 in this text box. When you've finished making the necessary additions within the All Info pane (also shown in Figure 11.9), click OK. Again, you won't notice too much of a difference. To see the notes, you either have to reopen this screen (which isn't very intuitive), or you can create custom view columns within the Site Management window. This process is discussed in the next section. Viewing Design Notes The easiest way to view Design Notes is to right-click (Control+click) the file within the Files panel and choose the Design Notes option from the contextual menu. Doing this opens the Design Notes dialog and displays notes for the specific file. This process is great if you're an individual developer and you remember which files have Design Notes and which don't. If you're working in a team, however, this process isn't very intuitive. A better method of viewing Design Notes is by enabling the Notes file view column within the Site Management window. Remember that in Chapter 3 we turned the Notes column off. To view Design Notes for particular files within the Site Management window, we'll need to turn that column back on. To do that, follow these steps: 1. Select Site, Manage Sites. 2. When the Manage Sites dialog appears, select the Vecta Corp site and click Edit. 3. Select the File View Columns category. 4. Within the File View Columns screen, select the Notes column from the list and click the Show check box. 5. Click OK to close the Site Definition dialog. 6. Click Done in the Manage Sites dialog. To view the Design Notes now, click the Expand/Collapse icon within the Files panel to expand it, if necessary. As you can see from Figure 11.10, files that have note associations display a small note icon. Figure 11.10. Files that have Design Notes associated with them display a small note icon. [View full size image] When you check the file back in, the Design Note will go with it. From a collaborative standpoint, this allows other members of your team to see which files do and don't have notes associated with them. Now, to view the note, double-click the icon. The Design Notes dialog appears. Beyond the simplicities of viewing Design Notes within file view columns lies the ability to view custom Design Notes within a custom file view column. For instance, we may want to share with the team how many billable hours have been accrued by people working on the particular file, in which case we'd want to create a custom file view column to display that Design Note (created in the previous section). To do this, follow these steps: [...]... start configuring Dreamweaver to use SourceSafe Before we do, however, make note of the SourceSafe database path Mine is as follows (but yours will differ): C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual SourceSafe\Databases\srcsafe.ini This is the path that you will need when defining the site within Dreamweaver Now let's configure Dreamweaver You can do this by following these steps: 1 With Dreamweaver open,... $50-$100, SourceSafe is an excellent third-party source control and versioning package that you can easily tie right into Dreamweaver At its heart, SourceSafe functions much like Dreamweaver in that you can check out, make changes to, and then check in files Beyond the simplicities of Dreamweaver, however, SourceSafe also integrates versioning, so that at any time during development, you can revert back... site, the LCK file is read into Dreamweaver and the user is alerted to the file's checked-out status in the expanded Files panel Although this process works well if your organization exclusively uses Dreamweaver, it wouldn't be the ideal solution if you work in large, enterpriselevel environments where different departments could potentially be using programs other than Dreamweaver For instance, whereas... remotely modify content using WebDAV within Dreamweaver Before we begin configuring Dreamweaver to use WebDAV, we'll want to do two things on the server (If you do not have access to the server and your system administrator has already given you the path to the folder that you'll use to publish using WebDAV, skip down to the next section discussing WebDAV and Dreamweaver integration) First, we'll want... created in IIS This is the directory (WebDAV enabled) to which we will be publishing With the server configured to use WebDAV, you're now ready to configure Dreamweaver You can configure Dreamweaver to use WebDAV by following these steps: 1 With Dreamweaver open, select the Manage Sites option from the Site menu The Manage Sites dialog appears 2 Select the VectaCorp site and click Edit The Site Definition... collaborative efforts one step further and discuss Adobe' s solution for content management in Contribute Chapter 12 Managing Website Content Using Contribute IN THIS CHAPTER Content Management Using Contribute Administrating Contribute-Enabled Sites in Dreamweaver Sending Connection Keys to Contribute Users Using Contribute to Make Basic Edits Rolling Back Pages in Dreamweaver Publishing content for the Web... installing Dreamweaver The tougher task initially is deciding who within the organization needs it As a general rule, consider the circumstances outlined in Table 12.1 Table 12.1 Keep This Table in Mind When Deciding Who Needs Dreamweaver, Contribute, or Both User Purpose Application(s) Wally Site administrator Will make changes to all pages within the website and also delegate Contribute roles Dreamweaver. .. computers You may be wondering why Wally needs Contribute installed if he'll be using Dreamweaver for making changes on the website Dreamweaver allows you to administer and delegate users and roles directly from within the Site Definition dialog, but for this functionality to work, Contribute has to be installed along with Dreamweaver Next, let's walk through the process of installing Contribute on Tina's,... installing Dreamweaver The tougher task initially is deciding who within the organization needs it As a general rule, consider the circumstances outlined in Table 12.1 Table 12.1 Keep This Table in Mind When Deciding Who Needs Dreamweaver, Contribute, or Both User Purpose Application(s) Wally Site administrator Will make changes to all pages within the website and also delegate Contribute roles Dreamweaver. .. computers You may be wondering why Wally needs Contribute installed if he'll be using Dreamweaver for making changes on the website Dreamweaver allows you to administer and delegate users and roles directly from within the Site Definition dialog, but for this functionality to work, Contribute has to be installed along with Dreamweaver Next, let's walk through the process of installing Contribute on Tina's, . " ;Dreamweaver Site Management," we enabled the Check Out Files When Opening check box. Because this is the case, we need only to open the local file (by double-clicking to open it) in Dreamweaver. . _notes folder that Dreamweaver adds for you. Within the _notes folder, you'll see the index.html.mno file. This XML-based file represents the Design Note for index.html. Note By default, Dreamweaver. And because we haven't checked these files out, opening them in their current state would result in Dreamweaver opening these files for viewing purposes in read-only mode. To edit these files, we'll