MetaChat - Dreamweaver Idiot Needs Slow, Patient Help, Please.

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13 February 2008

Dreamweaver Idiot Needs Slow, Patient Help, Please. HALP! I cannot figure out how to transfer my remote site into a local site - in other words, I can only connect to this site via ftp; it doesn't exist on my computer. Please can you slowly gently walk me through this no doubt basic process?→[More:]See, I didn't make this site; I inherited it and it lives only on the web. I can open up Dreamweaver 8 (the CS version) and connect to the remote site and change things but for the life of me I can't figure out how to download the whole site into my computer so that I have a local copy to edit and play with. This also makes it impossible to upload new files (I can NOT figure out how to get a .pdf in there either, help again plz) not to mention the horrible risks if I save things by mistake since changes immediately go live. Help help help. This is driving me nuts.

post by: mygothlaundry at: 11:53 | 10 comments

Can you log into the the ftp client without using Dreamweaver? I know nothing about DW but with any ftp you can highlight the folder that the website files are in and download it.

posted by iconomy 13 February | 11:57

When you're connected to the remote site, in the Files panel you can click the down arrow to get files from the remote site to a local site (which you can set up in DW's site settings).

posted by matthewr 13 February | 12:11

matthewr, I can't, because there is no down arrow in the files panel. I don't know why but there isn't. I can open the site, get to the files in there, change them, save as, etc., but there is no down or up arrow and nothing I do will make them appear. They show up fine on sites I create and upload/download but not on this one. It's driving me insane.

iconomy, I've only ever logged in via dreamweaver but I think I might try going in another way and snagging all the files. That might just do the trick, if I can figure out how to get there.

posted by mygothlaundry 13 February | 12:22

You can download lots of free ftp clients, use them, and then uninstall them. I love filezilla.

posted by iconomy 13 February | 12:42

there is no down arrow in the files panel. I don't know why but there isn't.

Have you set up the site in the 'Manage Sites' dialog, including specifying a local directory to store the site files?

posted by chrismear 13 February | 12:50

I've used Dreamweaver for one thing or another since version 2, and I hate, hate hate, hate hate hate, its FTP features. DO NOT WANT. They make it very easy to screw something up. Many of my coworkers use DW occasionally - not often enough to get used to it - and about once a month I get a call to undo something horrible that DW wrought on the site.

Also some of the site management features can screw things up as well. Be very, very careful when you rename something and it asks if you want to update links to the item. Unintended consequences may occur.

But for now... is this site defined in the Sites menu? If so, make sure that the info in the Local tab is correct. If not, define a new site.

posted by expialidocious 13 February | 13:16

So my actual recommendation is Homesite (or Mac equivalent, if that's your flavor) + FileZilla for day to day work, DW only for the things that only DW can do. Templates, for example.

posted by expialidocious 13 February | 13:18

I've tried to set up the site in the manage sites dialog three times so far with no joy. It refuses to become a local version of the site online - I just get a fully separate site that then cannot connect via ftp at all. It's starting to seem to me like the only way to do this is to create an entire new site from scratch and then put it up, but I really don't want to do that. So no, there's no local tab. There's no local copy. There's no local root folder.

posted by mygothlaundry 13 February | 13:21

Here's what I would do. Create an empty folder on your hard drive and call it whatever you want. Go to site manager in Dreamweaver and create a brand new site. For the local settings, point it to the empty folder you just created. For the remote settings, put in the FTP address and FTP login info. Say "OK" to create the new site and then go to the File Manager to copy it down from the server into the new folder you created on your hard drive.

posted by Otis 13 February | 14:33

iconomy, you're a genius! I finally got it working with filezilla and lo and behold, even the damn .pdf is up! Dreamweaver is still giving me some fits and I'm not entirely sure exactly what I just did and what I'm doing but, for the moment at least, it's working! Woot!

posted by mygothlaundry 13 February | 16:42

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