Managing Files with Dreamweaver

Dreamweaver tracks the links in your files to make your job easier. It will update links when you move or rename a file. It will update links when you save a copy of a file in a new location. It will alert you if you try to delete a file that is linked from other pages on your site. Because of this, is always best to work within Dreamweaver when you are managing the files on your website.

One of Dreamweaver's most useful components is its Site window. While it performs the same tasks as many stand-alone FTP programs (such as AbsoluteFTP, WS_FTP, or Fetch), it is actually much more useful, since Dreamweaver provides extensive interaction between this window and the HTML code in the files in your site. Let's take a closer look at this window: The view below shows local files - in other words, files saved to the workstation. You can also view the remote file - files saved on the server - by using a pull-down menu.

You can start to create your site by right-clicking your mouse to access the site creation and management menu:

With this menu, you can create new folders and new files, naming each as you go along. Remember to name your home page "index.html" -- Dreamweaver automatically looks for this file as the home page.