Dreamweaver CS5: The Missing Manual

Dynamic Web Sites: The Setup

Now that your head is spinning, and you’re considering some noble career alternative like farmer, firefighter, or carpenter, it’s time to set up Dreamweaver to work with an application server and database.

You can configure your setup several ways. One involves using what Dreamweaver calls a testing server. Remember how you can create a website on your own computer (the local site) before posting it online for all to see (the remote site)? Here, the concept is similar. When you build web applications, it’s a good idea to keep all your “work in progress” pages on your own computer, just as you did when you created static pages. After all, you don’t want to fill up an online database with test data, or put half-finished product pages on the Internet. But because dynamic websites require an application server and a database, you need to set up a testing server to store and preview your dynamic pages-in-progress: a real web server, application server, and database—all running on your own computer.

Then, when you finished building your site, you transfer the pages to the remote site using Dreamweaver’s built-in FTP feature (see Chapter 18). If you are working in a group setting, with other web developers, you can set up the testing server on a machine that’s part of your group’s local network. Each developer can then connect to the testing server and retrieve files to work on. (Using Dreamweaver’s Check In/Check Out feature is a good idea when a group of people ...