[Web4lib] managing files...

[Kevin W Bishop]

-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Mark Gilman
Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2006 5:05 PM
To: Web4Lib (web4lib at webjunction.org)
Subject: [Web4lib] managing files...

Hi,
 
I maintain several different websites of varying size and complexity.  In
the case of the largest one, with thousands of pages and files, I do not
have FTP access and must rely on an intermediary.  I tend to work fast,
squeezing web development in amongst many other duties, and I am forever
being mildly upbraided about setting image paths to the wrong folder,
sending copies of image files that are already on the server and that sort
of thing.  I have 
Frontpage and various free code editors, but not, say, Dreamweaver.  Lately,
I've imported the entire site onto my local drive, so that I'm working on a
clone, but I still worry about getting out of synch with what's online, and
it's a bit of a pain to keep saving the source from the server to the local
verisimilitude of the site.
-------------------------

You have my sympathies: working on sites to which you have no real access
isn't easy.  

I see you may already have a solution, but I'm going to suggest a low-brow
(i.e., FREE and SIMPLE) idea anyway:


1. For downloading: 

a. Use a Firefox extension, like DownThemAll! or ScrapBook 1.0.3 for
downloading entire sites, or portions or pages thereof, with as much ease as
FTP.  (So they say. Note: I haven't used any of these Fx extensions so I
cannot confirm to their effectiveness.)  

b. The Fx extension Server Switcher 0.1b allows you to compare local
versions of a site with a remote version (or other clones).  This will tell
you just how much, if any, of the site you need to download in the first
place.

After editing ... 

2. Using a program like WinZIP, compress just those files you've edited by
sorting the list with "Modified Last", selecting today's work, navigating to
the next folder, etc.  This should keep the paths intact while you're only
picking up the edits.  



-kb



_______________
Kevin W. Bishop > bishopk at rpi.edu
Communications & Middleware Technologies
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute > www.rpi.edu