Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 Unleashed- P14

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Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 Unleashed- P14: The good news is Dreamweaver provides numerous windows, panels, inspectors, and toolbars for streamlining the way you build websites. The bad news, unfortunately, is that Dreamweaver provides numerous windows, panels, inspectors, and toolbars for streamlining the way you build websites. Why so many windows, panels, and so on, Dreamweaver is unprecedented in the feature set it provides, allowing developers complete control when building websites and applications....

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Nội dung Text: Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 Unleashed- P14

interface (LDAP or Active Directory). Publishing Services provides a centralized interface, accessible from the screen shown in Figure 12.15, where you can add users to a role and then assign permissions to them for the site folder. Figure 12.15. You can use Publishing Services as a centralized mechanism for setting folder permissions. [View full size image] It's important to note that Publishing Services is a separate product from Contribute. If you'd like more information on Publishing Services, visit www.adobe.com/products/contribute/server/. In our examples, we'll keep it simple and just rely on the folder permissions that are already in place. Note You probably noticed the text label that appeared in the Contribute category in the Site Definition dialog for the Contribute Publishing Service. This text label displays the status of Contribute Publishing Service if it is on. Web Server You can use the options in the web server screen (Figure 12.16) to configure Contribute and Contribute users to work with your web server. Figure 12.16. Use options in this screen as a way to configure Contribute and Contribute users to work with your web server.
[View full size image] For instance, options exist for setting alternative URLs that Contribute users could potentially access. Generally, you will see URLs listed in two ways: by domain name and by IP address. Although both addresses work for connecting to the web server, Contribute uses this list to allow or deny access to the web server if a user typed in what appears to be a valid address that is not listed. The second tab on this screen allows you to work with options for setting default pages within the web server. For the most part, the web server uses a traditional list of index files. If your default file is not listed (maybe it's called mypage.html) you must manually add it here. The final tab in this screen allows you to specify a guard page. Use the guard page as a way to prevent users from accessing the _mm folder (automatically added to the site when working with Contribute) directly from Dreamweaver or Contribute. By default, Contribute sets the guard page to the main page (the same file defined as the home page when you're working with site maps) in the directory. For our purposes, there shouldn't be anything we need to modify here. Note The _mm folder is where Contribute keeps files that are being reviewed or worked on. When a user edits a page in Contribute, a working copy is placed into this folder. Technically, the user is making changes to the file that resides in the _mm folder, not the file that's live on the site. After a file gets approved/published, Contribute then copies the files from the _mm folder and overwrites the previous copy on the live server. Rollbacks Rolling back web pages is the process of going back to a previous version of a web page after it has been published. For instance, assume Cammy the Content Manager makes a few changes to a page in the website and then, using Contribute, publishes her finished work. By default, Contribute stores a copy of the previous
version in a _baks folder within the _mm folder root. As an administrator, you decide to review Cammy's work and happen to find glaring errors. Rather than bringing the site down to fix the mistakes, you can right-click (Control+click) the file in the Files panel and choose the Roll Back Page option. Dreamweaver, interfacing with Contribute, digs the old version out of the _baks folder and replaces the live version with the older, accurate version. You can enable rollbacks and the specify the number of rollback steps in the screen shown in Figure 12.17. Figure 12.17. You can enable rollbacks by simply clicking the check box. You can also set a numeric value indicating the number of times to roll back. [View full size image] This is a feature I always implement in my sites. It's a handy mechanism to have—especially if you accidentally delete a file or simply want to revert to an older version. To enable this feature, click the check box. Keep the rollback steps at 3. Caution Be mindful of the number you set for rollbacks. Each rollback version consumes storage space on the server. The more rollbacks you enable, the greater the number. If you're limited on server storage space, you might think about keeping this number as low as possible or even disabling the feature altogether. Note You probably noticed the text label that appeared within the Contribute category in the Site
Definition window for Rollbacks. This text label will display the status of rollbacks when it's enabled or disabled for the Contribute-enabled site, as was shown in Figure 12.17. New Pages Similar to the document encoding screen within the Page Properties dialog in Dreamweaver, you can use the New Pages screen, shown in Figure 12.18, as a way to set the document encoding that should be used for your web pages in Contribute. Figure 12.18. Set the document encoding type and the default extension of the page when a new page or template is created within Contribute. [View full size image] You can also set the default file extension to use when creating new pages from a blank page or template in a site. Again, we'll keep this screen as it is. Compatibility The Compatibility screen, shown in Figure 12.19, lets you provide editing and publishing access to older versions of Contribute. Figure 12.19. Set a method of Contribute interoperability here. You can decide whether to have newer versions and older versions of Contribute work together. [View full size image]
Selecting the Transition Mode option allows you to share features between previous and current releases of Contribute. Be aware, however, that only shared features are interoperable. Choose the Compatibility Mode option when you want to isolate all features exposed by newer versions of Contribute from older versions. Users who use an older version of Contribute will be required to install the most current version. Because in our example we know everyone will be using the same version of Contribute, keep the Compatibility Mode option button selected. Enable PDF Embedding The final set of options within the Administration screen is the Enable PDF Embedding option button group. You can use the options within this screen as an Administrator to restrict users from embedding PDF documents as objects in a web page. If users are allowed to insert embedded PDF objects, they can choose to insert the document either as a link or as an embedded PDF. However, if users are not allowed to embed PDF objects, they only have the option to insert the PDF document as a link.
Sending Connection Keys to Contribute Users Now that you've successfully configured properties for the Publisher role, it's time to delegate access to the three Contribute users (Ada, Cammy, and Tina) within our company. This can be accomplished easily by sending connection keys. Taking the form of an STC file and accessible from the Users and Roles category, the connection key can either be opened or imported into Contribute by the end user and contains all the necessary configuration information our three users will need to successfully connect to the Vecta Corp website as Publishers. To send a connection key, follow these instructions: 1. Within the Administer website dialog, switch to the Users and Roles category and click the Send Connection Key button. The Send Connection Key dialog will appear similar to Figure 12.20. Figure 12.20. The Send Connection Key dialog allows you to create and send connection keys. 2. As you can see from Figure 12.20, the first screen within the wizard allows you to set how you will send the connection settings to the individual Contribute users. Options include the ability to send the same connection settings that you use (excluding role information) or to configure the connection settings differently for Contribute users. For our purposes, choose Yes, enable the Include my FTP username and password check box, and click Next. 3. The next screen in the wizard (shown in Figure 12.21) allows you to set the type of role that the invited users will have. Because we want to create three Publishers, select the Publisher option and click Next. Figure 12.21. Set the type of role that invited users will have.
4. The third screen within the wizard (shown in Figure 12.22) allows you to set the method for sending the connection key file (STC file). Figure 12.22. Choose an option from this screen to either send the connection key in an email or to save it to your computer.
Options include sending the STC file as an attachment via email or saving the STC file to your computer. If you select the email option, Contribute creates a nice email template and automatically attaches the encrypted STC file to the body of the email. This is the option we'll select. Second, you'll want to enter a password that Contribute users will use to decrypt the emailed STC file. After it is decrypted, the STC file becomes usable within Contribute. For security reasons, you'll want to verbally communicate the decryption password to Contribute users. Enter a password now (I'll enter vectacorp) and click Next. 5. The final confirmation screen allows you to perform a final check on the settings to be emailed to the Contribute users. Double-check your settings and click Done. 6. As you can see from Figure 12.23, the connection key is attached as an STC file to the Contribute- generated email template. In the To field, enter all the email addresses that this email will be sent to and click Send. Figure 12.23. Enter the email addresses of the users that will receive the connection key and click Send. [View full size image]
That's it! You've effectively sent the connection key to users within your organization. The next step is for the receiving users (Ada, Cammy, and Tina) to check their email and open the connection key within Contribute. After they've done this, they'll be able to make edits to the Vecta Corp site within Contribute.
Using Contribute to Make Basic Edits Assuming the role of Ada, Cammy, or Tina, we'll now walk through the process of opening the connection key within Contribute. After the key has been imported into Contribute, we'll use the program to make basic edits to the Vecta Corp site and then publish our changes to the web server. To import the connection key into Dreamweaver, you can do one of two things: You can double-click the STC file from the email, or you can open Contribute and click the Import button from the My Connection dialog (available from the Edit menu in Contribute). To make things easy, we'll use the first option. To open the key in Contribute, follow these steps: 1. To get the full effect of how connection keys work, try using a completely different computer and logging in with the account that has access to the email account that contains the Contribute connection key. If you don't have access to a second computer, that's fine—simply double-click the STC connection key file. Contribute will open and the Import Connection Key dialog will appear similar to Figure 12.24. Figure 12.24. Double-click the connection key file. Contribute will open and the Import Connection Key dialog will appear. 2. Assume that I'm logged into Ada's, Cammy's, or Tina's computer. Notice the dialog shown in Figure 12.24; it allows me to enter my name, my email, and the secret decryption key (that I specified as vectacorp). Add the unique information for the first user, entering Ada for name, ada@vectacorp.com for email, and vectacorp for the password and click OK. As you can see from Figure 12.25, the dialog disappears and the Vecta Corp site opens within Contribute.
Figure 12.25. The Import Connection Key dialog disappears and the Vecta Corp page appears within Contribute. [View full size image] 3. To see the defined connection for the Vecta Corp site, choose the My Connections option from the Edit menu. The My Connections dialog will appear similar to Figure 12.26. You'll see that the website Name, Address, Role, and Administrator values appear, as they've been defined, in the row. Figure 12.26. The defined Contribute site appears within the My Connections dialog. [View full size image] As a content contributor, you're now ready to make changes to the Vecta Corp site using Contribute. To do this, click the Edit Page button at the top-left corner. Immediately, the page opens in Edit Mode, shown in Figure 12.27, with the same structure it had when it was defined in Dreamweaver.
4. To close the My Connections dialog, click Close. As a content contributor, you're now ready to make changes to the Vecta Corp site using Contribute. To do this, click the Edit Page button at the top-left corner. Immediately, the page opens in Edit Mode, shown in Figure 12.27, with the same structure it had when it was defined in Dreamweaver. Figure 12.27. Clicking the Edit Page button launches the Vecta Corp website in Edit Mode. [View full size image] Try making changes to the page (remove rows from tables, remove images, and so on). You'll quickly realize that all you're allowed to do as a Publisher is edit text. Of course, this is by design. As an Administrator, you edited the Publisher role to allow only text edits. To demonstrate how easily text edits can be made, I'll highlight the last sentence of text within the opening paragraph, and press the Delete key on the keyboard. With the text now gone, you have two options for saving: You can publish the page to the live server by clicking the Publish button. Alternatively, you can send the page for review by clicking the Send for Review button located just to the right of the Publish button. Doing this allows Content Managers or Site Administrators to review your changes and then approve or reject them before they go live. Note Had we created users under the Writer role, the Publish button wouldn't be available. Instead, the Writer would have to send the content for review and allow either a Publisher or Site Administrator to approve or reject changes.
For our purposes, click the Publish button. Dreamweaver displays a Contribute dialog congratulating you that the changes have been published to the live server. Click OK to see the final results within the browser view.
Rolling Back Pages in Dreamweaver Assuming the role of the Site Administrator once again, assume for a moment that the change Ada just made is unacceptable. Under these circumstances, you might want to roll back the change to its original version. Because we've enabled the Roll Back Page option in the Rollbacks category in the Administer Website dialog, this will be possible. Before we walk through the process of rolling back a design, let's reopen the Administer Website dialog (assuming it's not already open) so that you can see the addition of the new user within the Publishing role. When you open the Administer Website dialog, shown in Figure 12.28, you'll see the new user (Ada) in the Publisher role. Figure 12.28. The new content publisher (Ada) appears within the Publisher role. [View full size image] To remove this user, you would select the user's name and click the Remove button. Although we're certainly angry with Ada for making unacceptable changes to the site, we don't want to remove her from the Publisher list. Instead, we'll roll back her changes. To do this, follow these steps:
1. If you haven't done so already, close the Administer Website dialog by choosing the Close button. Close the Site Definition dialog by choosing the OK button. 2. To see the changes Ada has made to the pages on the live server, we must synchronize the files on the remote server with those on our local computer. To do this from within Dreamweaver, select the Synchronize Sitewide option from the Site menu. The Synchronize Files dialog appear. 3. Select the Entire Vecta Corp Site option from the Synchronize menu. Choose the Get Newer Files from Remote option from the Direction menu and click Preview. 4. When the Preview dialog appears, make sure the index.html file is listed and click OK. The files should now be synchronized. 5. Now open the local copy of index.html. You'll notice that the changes Ada sent to the site have indeed been made. 6. To roll back the page, close it from the document window, check it in (right-click/Control+click on the file within the Files panel and choose the Check In option), and then click the Expand/Collapse icon from the Files panel, if necessary, to expand it. 7. Now right-click (Control+click) the index.html file in the Remote Site pane to access the context menu and click the Roll Back Page option. The Roll Back Page dialog will appear similar to Figure 12.29. Figure 12.29. The Roll Back Page dialog displays older versions of the design. [View full size image] 8. Select the version you want the page to be rolled back to (by date or name) and click the Roll Back button. Now view the site in the browser. You'll notice that the original page replaces the one Ada created.
Summary As you have seen, Contribute is a powerful program that allows organizations to share web-based publishing rights with users who wouldn't ordinarily be given access to the site using Dreamweaver. Contribute allows site administrators to feel comfortable with nontechnical users making changes to the company's online presence because they can ratchet down the number of options available to the user within the Administer Website dialog. Even better, through Contribute's draft review process and Dreamweaver's rollback feature, changes can easily be reverted back to their original state with little or no harm to the company's overall identity. In the next chapter, we'll begin to move away from the team collaborative aspects of Dreamweaver and begin to review some of the task automation features built in to Dreamweaver's framework.
Chapter 13. Enhancing Workflow IN THIS CHAPTER Working with the Assets Panel Using Favorites to Increase Productivity Using Find and Replace Using the History Panel Working with Commands As you've seen, Dreamweaver outlines numerous features for simplifying the development and management of your websites. Features such as the Site Files panel, File Check In and Check Out, CSS integration, the Insert bar, Layout Tables, Contribute integration, and so on all make Dreamweaver's support unmatched for designing web pages unassisted or within teams. In this chapter, we'll discuss some of the simple, yet sometimes overlooked, nuances that further improve how you work with your websites in Dreamweaver. As we progress through the chapter, we'll discuss asset management using the Assets panel, simple find and replace using the Find and Replace dialog, pinpoint reversal of changes using the History panel, and task automation using various commands. The features that we discuss in this chapter should further support the notion that Dreamweaver is unprecedented in its support for creating spectacular websites effortlessly. Like the rest of the chapters within this book, you can work with the examples in this chapter by downloading the files from www.dreamweaverunleashed.com. You'll want to save the files for Chapter 13 in an easy-to-find location. I'll place mine in C:\VectaCorp\Chapter13. Also, make sure to update your site reference in Dreamweaver so that it points to this newly created folder. Working with the Assets Panel Similar in concept to the Assets folder, we defined within the root of our Vecta Corp site, the Assets panel is a central repository for website elements. However, unlike the Assets folder contained within our Vecta Corp project, the Assets panel contains items that our website can and will use. Items such as images, Shockwave files, QuickTime files, Flash files, JavaScript files, and even colors and links are all considered assets and are all managed in the Assets panel by Dreamweaver. By having access to these items in one central location, you're offered the benefit of quick access to any one of these items in Dreamweaver. No more shuffling around, searching for the same content in the local root folder. Furthermore, the Assets panel offers a Favorites feature that allows you to filter out more commonly used assets. Often, websites have thousands of assets—and for the most part you're not going to need immediate access to all of them at the same time. In this situation, the Favorites feature allows you to store more commonly used items such as a company logo, colors that you've been using throughout the site regularly, or even commonly used hyperlinks that you use most often into a small subsection of items. Note Because the Assets panel more or less indexes all your site's content, you must have a local root folder already defined. Dreamweaver then scans the files within your defined site and makes them visible within the appropriate categories in the Assets panel.
To open the Assets panel, choose the Assets option from the Window menu or press (Option+F11 on a Mac) or, if you have the Files panel already open, simply choose the Assets tab located just to the right of the Files tab. As you can see from Figure 13.1, the Assets panel comes into view. Figure 13.1. The Assets panel is a central repository for usable items within your defined site. [View full size image] As you can see from the callouts in Figure 13.1, the Assets panel is divided into separate sections: Asset Category Selector— The Assets panel is a repository for different types of usable items within your site, including images, links, colors, media files, library items, and so on. All these items are divided into categories represented by the vertically listed icons in this menu. Assets List— The lower-middle portion of the panel is a list of all the assets within the site for the particular category. Asset Preview— The top portion offers a preview of the selected asset in the list. Site/Favorite View— Choose an option from this group to either display every asset within your defined site or only those assets that you've manually added to your Favorites list. This option is discussed in more detail later in the chapter. Assets Panel Options menu— Like every other panel in Dreamweaver, the Assets panel Options
menu gives you quick access to alternative options. Options listed within this menu include the ability to copy an asset to another defined site, locate an asset within the site, refresh and re-create the site list, and more. Insert, Refresh, Edit, Add to Favorites icon group— Use the icons listed in here to insert a new asset into your document, refresh your site list, edit an asset within the appropriate internal or external editor, and add an asset to the Favorites list. As you've probably noticed, the Asset Category Selector within the Assets panel lists several types of icons, each representing the different types of assets that are managed within the panel. These options include the following: Images— Any image that is stored within your defined site, such as JPEG, GIF, or PNG, will automatically be added to the images assets list. In our scenario, the Assets panel will read all the images located within our Images folder because that's where all our images happen to be contained. Colors— This category contains all the colors used throughout your site, including background colors, link colors, text colors, and so on. URLs— This category lists all the external links used throughout the site, which include absolute paths such as http, https, ftp, and even other URLs used by JavaScript, email (mailto), and local file links. Flash— This section stores all your SWF files. Any SWF file found within your defined site will appear here. Shockwave Movies— Any Shockwave movie (SWD), typically generated by Director, that is found within your local root folder or defined site will be available in this section. Movies— This section stores QuickTime and MPEG movies found within your local root folder. Scripts— This category will contain external scripts found within your defined site. It's important to note that only external script documents appear in the Assets panel. Scripts written within the tag of your HTML pages are not listed here. Templates— Templates can add a great deal of consistency and organization within a site design. You can access all your site templates here. Templates are covered in great detail in the next chapter. Library— In the Library section of the Assets panel, you can create, access, and manage a site's Library items. Library items are similar to templates in terms of their functionality; however Library items are single components that are meant to be used throughout the entire site (such as navigation bars). Library items are covered with more detail in Chapter 15, "Working with Library Items." Note For the most part, Dreamweaver automatically scans your defined site and picks out the assets it can work with. You can always use the Cloak feature to prevent Dreamweaver from scanning files located within a particular folder. The Assets folder (remember, separate from the Assets panel), for instance, is an excellent candidate for cloaking. For the most part, the Assets folder in our site
contains PSD, FLA, TXT, and DOC files we can't use within our site anyway. Cloaking this folder would prevent Dreamweaver from scanning that folder and importing any unneeded files into the Assets panel. How the Assets Panel Works Now that you have a simple understanding of what the Assets panel provides, it's important to understand how the Assets panel works. The Assets panel doesn't scan the structure of your site every time Dreamweaver is opened, nor does it scan the structure of your site when you open the Assets panel. Instead, the Assets panel, like many of the other features within Dreamweaver, works off of the site's cache. In Chapter 3, "Dreamweaver Site Management," we discussed that the site cache was Dreamweaver's way of taking a digital "snapshot" of the folder and file structure of your site. Many features in Dreamweaver—namely the Check Links feature, the Site Map feature, and more importantly the Assets panel—rely on this snapshot for quick and efficient management of files. Therefore, it's important that this feature is enabled when you're defining or editing a site within Dreamweaver. If your Assets panel isn't listing items, chances are you've disabled the Site Cache check box. To reenable it, follow these steps: 1. Select the Manage Sites option from the Site menu. This launches the Manage Sites dialog. 2. Select the Vecta Corp site and click the Edit button. The Site Definition dialog appears. 3. Be sure the Advanced tab is selected and you're in the Local Info category. Click the Enable Cache check box located toward the bottom of the Local Info screen, as shown in Figure 13.2. Figure 13.2. Enable the site cache in the Site Definition dialog box to ensure that your assets will appear in the Assets panel. [View full size image]