Skip to main content

Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin

Trinity Menu Trinity Search

IT Services Knowledge Base

You are here Web Publishing > Working with Dreamweaver > Defining a site

Defining a site in Dreamweaver

This page gives information and instructions on how to configure Dreamweaver (by 'Defining a site') in order to publish to the Trinity Web Server.

To perform the tasks outlined, you will need a PC / Mac with an internet connection, a working Webauthor Account and a copy of Adobe Dreamweaver.

To make changes to a Trinity website, while working remotely, you must be connected to the college VPN.

How to 'Define a site'

'Defining a Site' in Dreamweaver is a process that consists of the following:

  • Setting your 'Site Name'
  • Choosing where on your computer you are going to store your 'local' copy of the website
  • Setting up the connection to the 'Web Server' using your webauthor credentials

'Defining a Site' in Dreamweaver only needs to be done once for each site you work with; however, you will need to edit your web server password settings each time you update this password.

Create a 'New Site'

To begin the process, use the top toolbar menu and choose Site > New Site. This will bring up the 'Site Setup' screen:

Setting your 'Site Name' and 'Local Site Folder'

In the 'Site Setup' screen, add the following values:

  • For 'Site Name', add the name of your site.
  • For the 'Local Site Folder' input, use the folder icon to browse your computer and create a new folder. Select this newly created folder as your 'Local Site Folder'.

Define the web server settings

The next step is to setup the web server connection.

Using the left-hand menu, select the second item called 'Servers'. Then click on the ‘+’ symbol to bring up a second window where you can enter the server information.

Adding a server. View full sized image

When the server information box opens it will look as follows:

Initial web server settings. View full sized image

The Server information screen can be broken down into three parts.

  1. Server Definition
  2. Webauthor Credentials
  3. Server Access Pointers

Server Definition

The top section should contain the following values:

  • Server Name: webpub.tcd.ie
  • Connect using: SFTP
  • SFTP Address: webpub.tcd.ie
Part 1: Server Definition. View full sized image

Webauthor Credentials

The middle section will be where you add your webauthor username and password. Make sure you enter your ‘username’ in all lowercase characters.

To verify that your credentials are working and correct, click on the ‘Test’ button.

Part 2: Webauthor Credentials. View full sized image

If everything is working correctly, you will get a message to say you have connected successfully.

Connected successfully message.

If you don’t get the above message, it is usually an issue with one of the following:

  • You have entered your username incorrectly. Double check your username is all lowercase.
  • The webauthor password you are entering is incorrect.
  • Your webauthor password has expired and needs to be reset. See Webauthor Account - Password reset & Password expiry for more details.
  • You do not have a webauthor account. See Webauthor Account - General information for more details.
  • The Root Directory (see below) has been entered incorrectly.
  • You are working remotely and need to connect to the college VPN.

Server Access Pointers

The bottom section indicates where on the server you want to access. For our example, we will be adding the following:

  • Root Directory: /www.tcd.ie/astronomy/
  • Web URL: https://www.tcd.ie/astronomy/
Part 3: Server Access Pointers. View full sized image

When you are working on your own site, then you would change these references to point to the tcd.ie site that you are the maintainer of.

Once you are happy with your settings, click ‘Save’ twice and then ‘Done’.

You have now 'Defined your site' and can download any files for the web server to your local machine.

Case sensitivity

Please note, the Root Directory and Web URL references are case sensitive.

The values you input must match the casing of the website URL. For example, if your website URL is https://www.tcd.ie/Economics/ where the 'E' in economics is capitalised, then the values you input would be:

  • Root Directory: /www.tcd.ie/Economics/
  • Web URL: https://www.tcd.ie/Economics/

and not:

  • Root Directory: /www.tcd.ie/economics/
  • Web URL: https://www.tcd.ie/economics/
Sub-domains

A site is considered a subdomain, if the website URL is in the format area.tcd.ie as opposed to www.tcd.ie/area.

If your website has a subdomain URL, then the access pointers will be in the format:

  • Root Directory: /www.tcd.ie/area
  • Web URL: https://area.tcd.ie/

and not:

  • Root Directory: /area.tcd.ie/
  • Web URL: https://area.tcd.ie/

Should you still have issues connecting to a subdomain site, please contact the IT Service desk for advice.

Further information

Download the full website

Now that you have 'Defined your site', you can download all or some of the files and folders from the web server.

To download the entire site, highlight your top-level folder in the 'Files' panel on the right of the screen.

Select the 'Down' (⇩) arrow to download all the website files and folders from the web server to your local folder.

Download the full website. View full sized image

When you select the 'Down' (⇩) arrow on the top-level folder, you will be prompted with a message asking if you wish to get the entire site. Say 'Yes'.

Confirmation message.

Please note, this may take some time to complete depending on the size of the website. If you need to make edits to just one page, you can just download that individual page instead. See Editing an existing page for more information.

Previous: Dreamweaver purchase and installation

Next: Creating a new page