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Tutorial 4 - Using FTP: Remote Site and Local Site 

OK, you’ve already registered your domain, it’s hosted, and you’ve created a local site with a clearly defined site root and index.html page. Now, it’s time to set up your remote server information so FTP (file transfer protocol) will enable you to upload and download files, and to create and maintain parallel structures between your local and remote web files.

Open Dreamweaver, and under the “Site” menu, select ‘Manage Sites . . . ’. Highlight your sites’s name from the list on the left of the window. Click the ‘Edit’ button. You’ll get the Site Definition screen. Click on the ‘Advanced’ tab, and select the category ‘Remote Info’. Under the ‘Access’ drop-down menu, select ‘FTP’.:

If you’re using Nearly Free Speech as your ISP, enter ‘ftp.phx.nearlyfreespeech.net’ in the ‘FTP host’ box. Leave ‘Host directory’ blank for now.

Under ‘Login’, enter ‘NFSLogin_’ followed by your domain name (not your shortname). Enter your password, click on the ‘Save’ checkbox if you want to save your info. It’s crucial you also click on the ‘Use passive FTP’ checkbox. It’s also recommended you click on the ‘Maintain synchronization information’. Click ‘OK’.

If you’ve already set up your site root for your local site, check out the ‘Files’ window (on the right side of the screen if you use the default Workspace Layout. If you’ve clicked on the ‘Files’ tab, you should find your site under the drop-down menu, and select ‘Local view’ on the adjacent drop-down menu. You should see a file view of your site.

Move your cursor on the icon on the far right of this window. The pop-up hint ‘Expand to show local and remote sites’ will appear. Click on it.

You should see this expanded ‘Files’ window. On the right is your currently defined local site. Click on the ‘plug’ icon (‘Connects to remote host’) to make all the files you’ve uploaded to your server appear on the left.

Here’s a very common error you might get when you try to connect to the remote server:

If you haven’t checked ‘Use passive FTP’ in the site definition window, you’ll probably get that error. But, you could also have some problem with your remote server or your domain/login/password info. If you’re trying to connect through a network that has a firewall, you might get the error, too.

Once you are successfully connected to your remote server, you can select all the files in your site (but not the site root), and drag them to the remote side of the window. From this point, you should be able to make changes to your local site, then click on first the ‘Refresh (F5)’ button (which refreshes and updates all the files), and then the ‘synchronize’ button. This will upload any changed files to the remote server, replacing them with the most current version.