Macromedia dreamweaver 8-using dreamweaver User Manual

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Chapter 2:  Setting Up a Dreamweaver Site

The local folder

 is your working directory. Dreamweaver refers to this folder as your “local 

site.” This folder can be on your local machine or it can be on a network server. It is where you 
store the files you are working on for a Dreamweaver site. 

All you need to do to define a Dreamweaver site is set up a local folder. To transfer files to a 
web server or to develop web applications, you need to also add information for a remote site 
and testing server.

The remote folder

 is where you store your files, depending on your development 

environment, for testing, production, collaboration, and so on. Dreamweaver refers to this 
folder as your “remote site” in the Files panel. Typically, your remote folder is on the machine 
where your web server is running.

Together, the local and remote folders enable you to transfer files between your local disk and 
web server; this makes it easy for you to manage files in your Dreamweaver sites.

The testing server folder 

is the folder where Dreamweaver processes dynamic pages. For 

more information, see 

Related topics

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Understanding local and remote folder structure

When you set up access to the remote folder for your Dreamweaver site (see 

), you must determine the remote folder’s host directory. The host 

directory you specify should correspond to the root folder of the local folder. The following 
diagram shows a sample local folder on the left and a sample remote folder on the right.

If the structure of your remote folder doesn’t match the structure of your local folder, 
Dreamweaver uploads your files to the wrong place and the files might not be visible to site 
visitors. Also, your image and link paths might be broken.

(root folder)

(Shouldn't be Host

Directory in this case)

(Should be

Host Directory)

(Shouldn't be

Host Directory)