Dreamweaver 10 Site Management Tools

Hey, you lookin’ ta save some time—save some time in Dreamweaver? Cool, you’re in the right spot! So check this out: Here’s a list of 10 super-slick tricks to save time while managing your websites in the titan of web design, Dreamweaver. Now this list assumes that you’ve got a good foothold in Dreamweaver, and that you’ve gone through the site definition process as well (that’s Site > New Site), cuz many of these features simply won’t work without a defined site. Kay, enough blabbin’! Grab a snack, lean in close, and let’s take a look!

Assets are one of the coolest parts of the Dreamweaver interface. Within a defined site, open up the Assets panel (Window > Assets), and you’ll see a column of icons down the left-hand side of the panel, which categorize all the materials you have at your disposal in your site, including images, video files, flash content, and even things like colors and external links. Pop open a category; then take a look at whatcha have. For example, go into the Images category, and you’ll see a list of file names in the bottom half of the panel, and a thumbnail view of the image in the top half. This means you’ll never lose another image again. Sweet!

Forget about using third-party FTP clients—didja know Dreamweaver’s Files panel has everything you need built right in? Just click the Expand To Show Local And Remote Sites button in the panel’s top-right corner, and the panel maximizes to show your remote site on the left, and your local site on the right. Then what? Drag ‘n drop, baby! Or even better—and this is my favorite part—select a file in one view; then at the top of the panel, click either Put (in the case where you’re uploading a file to the remote site) or Get (to pull a file down to your local site). The reason why this is my favorite part is cuz if the file resides within a sub-folder or two, Dreamweaver will actually build the folder structure for you on the other side, so all your links and paths remain intact. How cool is that?!

Ya goofed on a link throughout your site, huh? No need to throw in the towel just yet. Dreamweaver’s Change Links Sitewide command will getcha outta your jam. To give it a try, just choose Site > Change Link Sitewide. In the dialog box that appears, use the two fields to correct your link—although the language used in the dialog box might twist your brain for a sec. In the Change All Links To field, type in the old link—that is, the link that you want to change; then in the Into Links To field, type in the new link that you’d like to use to replace the old links. Make sense? Kay then, let ‘er rip! Just one word of caution: Before doing any sitewide command, including Change Links Sitewide, it’s a real good idea to take five seconds and back up your site, just in case you royally goof.

Dreamweaver’s nuclear-powered Find And Replace is the freakin’ bomb. You’ve used Find And Replace in other programs, right? But have you ever used one that’s on mega-steroids? Check out this juicer by choosing Edit > Find And Replace (in a rush? Hit Ctrl+F in Windows, or Cmd+F on the Mac). At first glance, it doesn’t look like anything special, right? Well, pop open the Find In menu and have a gander at all the different places you can search. Current Document, Open Documents, Entire Current Local Site, and so on. Next, whadda ya wanna search for? Pop open the Search menu and make a choice. This is where things get real heavy. Source Code, Text, Specific Tag, or my fav, Text (Advanced). Go nuts, have fun, and be careful!

As you’re working on updating your site, you can save a lot of time by enabling cloaking. If a file or folder in your site is cloaked, it will be ignored by certain site functions, such as Put (uploading) and Get (downloading). For example, if you have folders of PDF and MP3 files already uploaded to your live site, there’s no sense in uploading them again when you update other parts of your site. Instead, just cloak ‘em and Dreamweaver will ignore them. Cloaking’s turned on by default for your defined sites, so if you didn’t turn it off, you should be good to go. To cloak a file or folder, select ‘em; then from the Files panel option menu (top-right corner, bub!), choose Site > Cloaking > Cloak. There ya go! There’s just somethin’ cool about the word cloak. "Captain! There’s a folder of PDFs de-cloaking off our port bow!" Anyway, have fun!

So many files, so many folders…how can ya keep track of it all? Easy. Get Dreamweaver to do it for you, so you can watch TV instead! Here’s the goods: Dreamweaver has this awesome command (I use it all the time) called Synchronize. What it’ll do is take a look at the remote version of your site and the local version of your site, compare the two; then tell ya the difference. In other words, it’ll tell ya what’s updated, what needs to be uploaded, and what’s out of date. It’s pretty sweet stuff, and it makes keeping your site up to date a freakin’ breeze. Give it a whirl by choosing Site > Synchronize Sitewide. In the dialog box that appears, choose what you want to synchronize, and the direction you want to synchronize in; then hit Preview. Easy as that!

One of the last things that should be done before a site goes live is checking that all the hyperlinks and paths to other content is all functioning. Of course, back in the day, this used to be done manually. Thank god Dreamweaver has a built in command that’ll do this for us (yay, no more wasting weekends checking links one by one!). So here goes. Choose Site > Check Links Sitewide. Dreamweaver’s Results panel appears, open to the Link Checker tab. Within, Dreamweaver lists (to your horror!) any broken links. Better you find out about ‘em now though, right? Now here’s the cool part: Lets say there’s a busted link on your index page. You could click on index.html in the left-hand column, but why? Just single-click on the link path in the right column, and you can fix it right there—without even opening the file! How awesome is that? So, just make your way down the list, make your fixes, and Bob’s your uncle. Or maybe he’s my uncle. Anyway, you get the idea!

Dreamweaver comes packed with a set of site reports just waitin’ to be run against your site. You can use reports to troubleshoot your site, test content, or make sure certain tasks have been completed. Give ‘er a go by choosing Site > Reports. In the Reports dialog box that appears, choose what you’d like to run your reports against; then from the list at the bottom, choose what reports you’d like to run, like Recently Modified, Accessibility, or for the SEO-conscious designer, Missing Alt Text. Yup, she’s a sweet ride—so whatcha waitin’ for? Get reportin’!

Whether you’re working as a part of a design team or all by your lonesome, Design Notes provide a great way to keep track of those bits of information that usually wind up scribbled on scraps of paper, bits of toilet paper, or scrawled in the palm of your hand. A document’s status, a project’s deadline, edits, communication between team members—Design notes are a great way to keep things straight. Drop a note into a file by choosing File > Design Notes; type a message into the Note field, and hit OK. That’s all there is to it. Set it to open every time the file’s opened, and the Design Notes dialog will appear, letting the user know what’s up. Sweet!

Team members pissin’ ya off? Is it their B.O., or the fact that they keep over-writing your work? Sounds like it’s time ta implement Dreamweaver’s Check In/Check Out feature. This guy’ll ensure that team members don’t overwrite each other’s work as they build and update a web site, and they’ll be able to see who’s working on a particular file, so they know who to strangle while they’re waiting for a it to become available. To use Dreamweaver’s Check In/Check Out feature, all team members must have the Check In and Check Out setting activated for the site they’re working on, and Design Notes turned on. This is all done in the Remote Info tab of the Site Definition dialog box. As for that B.O. issue with your team members, I’d recommend gentle suggestions; and if that doesn’t work, Febreeze. A lot of it.