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Replacing individual pages

Publishing your Web site

When you're ready to publish your document to the Web, Freeway will build all the required files into your destination folder. If you need to change your destination folder at any point, you can use the File/Document Setup command to do so.

If you want to view what your site looks like in a Web browser as you're working, Freeway also needs to build the entire site at that point, again building it all into the destination folder. In order that the folder doesn't become clogged up with out of date files, Freeway ensures that any files which are no longer needed for the site are removed each time you build your site.

The two commands which build your site in the above fashion are the Publish Site command and the Preview command.

Previewing the site

Preview Setup

Before you preview your site for the first time, you may set the Preview options. This allows you to select from the available browsers on your system the one Freeway will launch automatically.

1. Choose File/Preview/Preview Setup...

2. Freeway displays a list of browsers on your system and shows a tick next to the default browser.

· Click Add... to locate a browser yourself.

· Click on a browser to select it and then click Delete to remove it.

· Click on a browser to select it and then click Edit... to locate it with the file selector.

· Click on a browser to select it and then click Default to select it as a preferred browsers

· Click the Update button to search your system for other browsers.

4. Click OK to confirm your selections.

Previewing your site

The Preview command builds the site, launches an Internet browser and then displays your pages using this browser. It is a quick way to see what you designs look like on the Web. It is also required to do this if you wish to view multimedia content which has been imported onto your pages.

Select File/Preview.... and select a browser from the list in the submenu.

Note: Alternatively, you can use the short cut Command + Option + P which will launch the default browser.

Freeway exports the necessary HTML files into the selected folder, launches the current browser and displays the first page of your document.

To return to your Freeway document, select Freeway from the application menu in the top right of your Macintosh screen. If you want to see subsequent changes, choose File/Preview again.

After you have previewed you site, the file sizes for your graphics and rich content are shown in the Frame panel of the Inspector palette.

Building the site

The Preview command is useful if you want to view your work in a browser, but if you simply want to create the site, you can use the Publish Site command. You would use this command to export changes in your Freeway document to the site folder:

Choose File/Publish Site.

Freeway exports the necessary files and then redisplays the Freeway document.

Reusing images

Your Web document design may use the same graphic on several pages. For example, you might use the same image of a button on different pages. When Freeway builds a site these reused images are tracked but not duplicated. Freeway does not create duplicate files for the same graphic. This reduces the size of your pages and makes them quicker to download.

Items needing re-export

Whenever you make changes to the original Freeway document, you will need to rebuild the site so these changes are reflected in the site destination folder.

When you change the contents of a page, or create a new one, the Site palette displays a bullet point beside its name in the palette to show that it needs to be rebuilt.

File naming

Freeway provides a file name for each of the items you create on the page, and will never generate a duplicate file name since this would result in one file overwriting another when the site is built. You can influence the file name by naming the item with a new title in the Item panel while the item is selected, but the filename you use isn't guaranteed to be used if the image duplicates another one which has already been built.

Although you are creating Web site in Freeway using a Macintosh operating environment, the files for your Web site can be uploaded to other computer operating environments such as Microsoft Windows or UNIX. These operating environments impose specific file naming requirements and the files created by Freeway must conform to these requirements. The Document setup dialog box provides an option which controls whether Freeway will use DOS (8.3) file names. If you choose this option, Freeway will automatically generate filenames which conform with the restrictions on 8.3 filenames.

Checking file sizes

The Site Palette can be set to display the file sizes after the Web site has been built. Choose Show File Sizes from the Site palette popout menu.

It's a good idea to use this to check how large your pages are getting.

As a rule, if an ordinary page is over 32,000 bytes, this is too large and you should either use the image control options to reduce the file sizes of your images on the page, split the page into two, or perhaps warn visitors before they load the large pages that the site is graphics intensive.

Uploading your files

When the design work in Freeway is completed, you will want to publish the resulting files. This involves placing the files on a Web server from where your readers can download them. If you have direct access you can copy the files to the Web server. If you are connected to the Web server via a modem, you will need software such as Fetch or Anarchie. This software uses the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) to place files on Web servers.

Managing your site

Publishing your site is only the start of the process. One of the most important advantages of Web publishing over conventional paper printing is the ease with which information can be updated. Many large Web sites are updated daily. Regular updates will encourage readers to revisit your site.

Replacing individual pages

It is unlikely that you will want to alter every page in your Web site at one time. At most you will want to update one or two pages. Freeway allows you to do this easily. If you are changing only one or two files, you will want to keep track of the old files so that you will need to transfer only the changed files. One way of distinguishing between old and newly created files is to label the old files using the Macintosh Finder facility which allows you to add a color to the file icon. In the Finder, before you build the updated site, select all the files in the destination folder and label them with a color. After you have altered pages in Freeway and rebuilt the site, Freeway creates new files for the altered pages only. Pages without any changes are not exported. When you look again at the Web site folder, you will easily be able to distinguish the new files which need transferring to the Web server because they will not be labelled.

Another possible way of tracking files is to display the folder by date. The most recent files are those that have been newly created.

Using a combination of these methods helps you to work with only the files which have been created recently by Freeway.

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