Setting Local Info category options

The purpose of this dialog box is to set up a local folder for a Dreamweaver site (also known as a local site).

To set up a local folder for a Dreamweaver site:

1. In the Site Name text box, enter a name for the Dreamweaver site.

   The site name appears in the Files panel and in the Manage Sites dialog box. Use any name you like; it’s only for your reference and does not appear in the browser.

2. In the Local Root Folder text box, enter the name of the folder on your local disk where you store site files, templates, and library items or click the folder icon to browse to the folder.

   When Dreamweaver resolves root-relative links, it does so relative to this folder (see Site root-relative paths). If the local root folder does not yet exist, create it from within the file-browsing dialog box.

3. Use the Refresh Local File List Automatically option to indicate whether Dreamweaver should automatically refresh the local file list every time you copy files into your local site.

   Deselecting this option improves the speed of Dreamweaver when copying such files, but means that the Local view of the Files panel does not automatically refresh. You can click the Refresh button in the Files panel toolbar to manually refresh the panel.

4. (Optional) In the Default Images Folder text box, enter the path to your default images folder for this site, or click the folder icon to browse to the folder.

   This folder is where Dreamweaver places images that you add to your site. For example, when you drag an image from your desktop into an active document, Dreamweaver adds that image to the current site in the default images folder.

5. (Optional) If you want to change the relative path of the links you create to other pages in the site, select a Links Relative To option.

   By default, Dreamweaver creates links using document-relative paths. Select the Site Root option to change the path setting. For more information on relative paths, see Understanding document locations and paths.

   If you select the Site Root option, make sure you specify the HTTP address in the next step.

   Changing this setting will not convert the path of existing links after you click OK. The setting will only apply to new links you create visually with Dreamweaver.

   NOTE

   Content linked with a site root-relative path does not appear when you preview documents in a local browser unless you specify a testing server, or select the Preview Using Temporary File option in Edit > Preferences > Preview in Browser. This is because browsers don’t recognize site roots--servers do. (See Previewing and testing pages in browsers.)

6. (Optional) In the HTTP Address text box, enter the URL that your completed website will use.

   This enables Dreamweaver to verify links within the site that use absolute URLs or site root-relative paths (see Checking for broken, external, and orphaned links). Dreamweaver also uses this address to make sure site root-relative links work on the remote server, which may have a different site root. For example, if you are linking to an image file located on your hard disk in the C:\Sales\images\ folder (where Sales is your local root folder), and the URL of your completed site is http://www.mysite.com/SalesApp/ (where SalesApp is your remote root folder), you should enter the URL in the HTTP Address text box to ensure that the path to the linked file on the remote server is /SalesApp/images/.

7. Select the Use Case-sensitive Link Checking option if you want to make sure the case of the links match the case of the file names when Dreamweaver checks links.

   This option is useful on UNIX systems where filenames are case-sensitive.

8. For the Enable Cache option, indicate whether to create a local cache to improve the speed of link and site management tasks.

   If you do not select this option, Dreamweaver asks you if you want to create a cache again before it creates the site. It is a good idea to select this option because the Assets panel (in the Files panel group) only works if a cache is created. For more information, see Template expressions.

Related topics

• About Dreamweaver sites
• Setting up a local folder
• Setting the relative path of new links