Dreamweaver CS5: The Missing Manual

Synchronizing Site Files

As you may suspect, when you keep two sets of files—local site and remote server—it’s easy to lose track of which files are the most recent. For example, say you finish your website and move all the files to the server. The next day, you notice mistakes on a bunch of pages, so you make corrections on the copies in your local site. But in your rush to fix the pages, you didn’t keep track of which ones you corrected. So although you’re ready to move the corrected pages to the server, you’re not sure which ones you need to transfer.

When you use the Check In/Check Out feature described on Check In and Check Out, you avoid this problem altogether. Using this system, the version on the server is always considered the latest and most definitive copy—unless you or someone else has checked out that file. In that case, whoever checked out the file has the most recent version.

But if you’re operating solo and don’t use the Check In/Check Out feature, you may get good mileage from Dreamweaver’s Synchronize command, which lets you compare the remote and local sites and transfer only the newer files in either direction. (In fact, since the Synchronize command uses the Get and Put methods of transferring files, you may not get the results you expect if you synchronize your site while also using Check In and Check Out [as described in the box on the opposite page].)

To synchronize your sites:

1. Make sure you turn on the “Maintain synchronization information” checkbox when you ...