Dreamweaver

Synchronize the files on your local and remote sites

After you’ve created files in your local and remote sites, you can synchronize the files between the two sites.

Note: If your remote site is an FTP server (rather than a networked server), then synchronizing your files uses FTP.

Before you synchronize your sites, you can verify which files you want to put, get, delete, or ignore. Dreamweaver also confirms which files have been updated after you complete the synchronization.

Check which files are newer on the local or remote site, without synchronizing

  In the Files panel, do one of the following:

  • Click the Options menu in the upper-right corner, and then select Edit > Select Newer Local or Edit > Select Newer Remote.

    In the collapsed Files panel, the Options menu is selected by clicking on the square icon in the upper-right corner.

  • In the Files panel, right-click (Windows) or Control‑click (Macintosh), and then select Select > Newer Local or Select > Newer Remote.

Display detailed synchronization information for a particular file

  In the Files panel, right-click (Windows) or Control‑click (Macintosh) the file you want information about, and then select Display Synchronize information.
Note: You must have the Maintain Synchronization Information option selected in the Remote category of the Site Definition dialog box for this feature to be available.

Synchronize your files

  1. In the Files panel (Window > Files), select a site from the menu where the current site, server, or drive appears.
  2. (Optional) Select specific files or folders or go to the next step to synchronize the entire site.
  3. Click the Options menu in the upper-right corner of the Files panel and select Site > Synchronize.

    You can also click the Synchronize button at the top of the Files panel to synchronize files.

  4. In the Synchronize menu, do one of the following:

    • To synchronize the entire site, select Entire Site Name Site.

    • To synchronize selected files only, select Selected Local Files Only (or Selected Remote Files Only if the Remote view of the Files panel was where you made the most recent selection).

  5. Select the direction in which you want to copy the files:
    Put Newer Files To Remote
    Uploads all the local files that don’t exist on the remote server or have changed since the last upload.

    Get Newer Files From Remote
    Downloads all the remote files that don’t exist locally or have changed since the last download.

    Get And Put Newer Files
    Places the most recent versions of all the files on both the local and the remote sites.

  6. Select whether to delete the files on the destination site that don’t have counterparts on the origin site. (This is not available if you select Get and Put from the Direction menu.)

    If you select Put Newer Files to Remote and you select the Delete option, then any files in your remote site for which there are no corresponding local files are deleted. If you select Get Newer Files from Remote, then any files in your local site for which there are no corresponding remote files are deleted.

  7. Click Preview.
    Note: Before you can synchronize the files, you must preview the actions Dreamweaver performs to accomplish this task.

    If the newest version of each chosen file is already in both locations and nothing needs to be deleted, an alert appears informing you that no synchronization is necessary. Otherwise, the Synchronize dialog box appears to let you change the actions (put, get, delete, and ignore) for those files before executing the synchronization.

  8. Verify the action that will be performed for each file.
  9. To change the action for a particular file, select the file, and then click one of the action icons at the bottom of the preview window.
    Compare
    The Compare action works only if you installed and specified a file comparison tool in Dreamweaver. If the action icon is grayed out, the action cannot be performed.

    Mark Selected Files As Already Synced
    This option lets you specify that the selected file or files are already synchronized.

  10. Click OK to synchronize the files. You can view or save the details of the synchronization to a local file.