How to Define a Website in Dreamweaver 8

So you’re designing your first website. Congratulations.. The first thing that you should do is define your site. So how do you define your site? Dreamweaver 8 makes it pretty simple for you to define your site. Before we begin you will need to create a new folder somewhere on your hard drive. This will be your root folder and where you will store all your pages in your website. C:/ is a good place to create the folder. Name it something like mysite. In this guide I will show you how to define your site in Dreamweaver.

Defining Your Site in Dreamweaver 8

Step 1 – Open your Dreamweaver program.

Step 2 – In the top of your Dreamweaver window click Site > New Site.

Step 3 – The Site Definition Dialog box will pop up. This is where you will need to enter your information. I will walk you through each field.

Step 4 – Click on the Advanced Tab.

Category – Local Info

Site Name: Type in the name of your site.
Local Root Folder: Click the little folder to locate the folder that all your files will be saved in.
Default Images Folder: You can leave this blank.
Links Relative to: Check Document
HTTP Address: Enter the URL of your Website. (Ex. http://www.yourdomain.com)

Click on the Remote Info Category on the Left.

Category – Remote Info

If you have ftp access to the site click
Access: Click the drop down box and choose FTP and then enter your host, login name and password and click OK.
If you don’t have ftp access choose None and click OK. Once you click OK, it will take you back to your document.

Step 5 – In the top of your Dreamweaver window click Window > Files or press F8. This will open your Files Panel. In your Files Panel you will see the name of your site.

Every time you create new pages they will appear in the Files Panel. To access your pages quickly, you can simply double click on the name of the file in the files panel. When you create new pages make sure you save them in the root folder.