You’ve been working on your new Dreamweaver® 8 website for weeks, and after specifying a remote folder (see “Prepare your web server for file handling using a remote folder in Dreamweaver 8”) and uploading your files, you’re in the home stretch. What’s next? Now it’s time to define a testing server so that you can preview and test dynamic pages. The testing server is the application server for your site, and it can be local or remote.
Define a testing server
To define a testing server:
1. From the Site menu, choose New Site. The Site Definition dialog appears, with the Advanced tab and the Local Info pane selected by default.
2. Select the Testing Server category from the Category list on the left (Figure 1).
3. From the Server Model drop-down menu, select one of the seven server models: ASP JavaScript, ASP VBScript, ASP.NET C#, ASP.NET VB, ColdFusion, JSP, or PHP MySQL. MySQL is the only database that Dreamweaver supports for PHP sites.
4. From the Access drop-down menu, select an access method (FTP, Local/Network, or WebDAV).
* If you choose FTP, Dreamweaver automatically fills in the FTP information that you entered on the Remote Info pane. Accept that information if the locations of your testing server and your remote server are the same. Otherwise, enter the FTP information for your testing server.
* If you choose Local/Network, Dreamweaver automatically specifies the local root folder for the location of the testing server. Accept that information if the location of your testing server and local root folder is the same. Otherwise, browse to the correct local folder.
* If you choose WebDAV, Dreamweaver automatically populates the WebDAV information that you entered on the Remote Info pane. Accept that information if the location of your testing server and your remote server is the same. Otherwise, enter the WebDAV information for your testing server.
Tip: Dreamweaver assumes that the locations of the web server and the application server are the same. If that’s not the case for your site, be sure to carefully check the information on the Testing Server pane and make any necessary corrections.
testing server pane
Figure 1: The Testing Server pane on the Advanced tab lets you define a testing server and URL prefix.
Set the URL prefix
The final step in setting up your dynamic Dreamweaver site is to set the URL prefix on the Testing Server pane. The URL prefix is the address of the root folder on the application server. Dreamweaver uses this address to access dynamic content and displays that data in Design mode so that you can preview the content of your dynamic pages.
To define a URL prefix:
1. From the Site menu, choose New Site. The Site Definition dialog box appears, with the Advanced tab and the Local Info pane selected by default.
2. Select the Testing Server category from the Category list on the left (Figure 1).
3. Verify the information that’s listed in the URL Prefix field.
Dreamweaver makes assumptions about the location of your application server and enters information in this field. It’s very important to check that this information is correct for your site; otherwise, you may not be able to preview dynamic content in Dreamweaver.
If you are using a web server on a remote computer, your home directory is the folder that’s mapped to your domain name. For example, if your domain is www.myCompany.com, and your web server uses a home directory called Public for your web files, then your URL prefix is http://myCompany.com. If you want to use a subfolder of the home directory for processing dynamic pages, add that subfolder name to the URL prefix. For example, if you want to use the subfolder named customers for your dynamic pages, then your URL prefix is http://myCompany.com/customers/. If you are using a local web server and application server, your URL prefix should start with http://localhost. If you use a subfolder of the web server’s root folder for processing dynamic pages, add that folder name to the URL prefix. For example, if you’re using IIS for your web server and a subdirectory named contactInfo for processing dynamic pages, your URL prefix is http://local host/contactInfo/.
Enable site-management features
If you didn’t enable any of Dreamweaver’s other site-management features when you were setting up your Dreamweaver site, you can always select those features later.
To enable site-management features after site setup:
1. On the Files tab, select your site from the drop-down menu (Figure 2).
Files tab
Figure 2: Select your Dreamweaver site on the Files tab.
2. From the Site menu, select the site-management features you want to enable, such as Reports, Synchronize Sitewide, Check Links Sitewide, or Change Link Sitewide (Figure 3).
Site menu
Figure 3: You can access site management features from the Site menu.
* The Reports feature gener