Document Setup and Site Management
What the site model actually is
Dreamweaver's central idea is that a local site folder mirrors a remote server folder, and a site definition stores the mapping between them plus server credentials, testing-server URLs, and version-control settings. Candidates must know the three pieces of a site definition: local site folder, servers (remote/testing), and version control. The local folder is the working copy; files are transferred with Get/Put, and the Dependent Files prompt controls whether linked assets travel with an HTML file.
Traps to watch
- Site > New Site vs. importing: creating a site does not move existing files; you point the definition at a folder.
- Testing server vs. remote server: previewing dynamic pages uses the testing server; publishing uses the remote server. Questions often swap these.
- Cloaking excludes files from Get/Put and from site-wide operations such as Find and Replace or Check Links - but cloaked files still upload if you explicitly select and Put them.
- Check Links Sitewide reports broken internal links, orphaned files, and external links separately; only internal breakage is fixable in the dialog.
- Case sensitivity: the local file system may be case-insensitive while the remote Linux host is not, so
Images/andimages/can break after upload.
Rule of thumb
Define the site before building pages. A page created outside any site definition has no root-relative link resolution, so links such as /assets/style.css won't preview correctly. If a link works locally but fails after upload, suspect case or a missing dependent file, not the HTML.
Worked example
A candidate is asked why an uploaded page shows a broken image although preview is fine. The image lives in Images/logo.png but the tag reads images/logo.png. On a case-insensitive local disk the preview resolves; on the case-sensitive remote host it 404s. Fix the path, then run Check Links Sitewide to confirm.