Keeping Dreamweaver in sync

May 1, 2009 5:22 PM

I use Dreamweaver on my laptop and on my desktop to manage my website. I am a very light user and often find that I get things gummed up between the laptop and desktop, what should I do to maintain sync?

I often go weeks without doing any work on this site and it has minimal needs, but I learned enough Dreamweaver since I have always used it for what little html I do.

The problem is that sometimes I like to work on my laptop and sometimes I like to work from my desktop. I also find that it does not take long before I have made some sort of coding error on one and it has an "oh my god I am about to ruin everything" effect on trying to get back to where I was.

I never learned the proper way to use the synchronization tools or the auto deletions functions in Dreamweaver. So right now I have incomplete versions on both my laptop and my desktop and a lot of files on both the laptop, desktop and the server that are not in use.

What I am looking for is a concise and hopefully easy to understand method to guarantee that everything stays in sync.

Thanks for your input.

Henry

posted by silsurf to computers & internet (8 comments total)

I'm somewhat new to the whole desktop-laptop dualism so I had this problem too when I got my netbook. Currently I'm using dropbox for syncing files between machines. It works really well for that simple purpose and it doesn't get in the way.
posted by Memo at 5:31 PM on May 1

Hmm, pardon my ignorance, but I have a dropbox account, what exactly do you put in it? Your site? And then make that the local version in Dreamweaver??

Thanks.
posted by silsurf at 5:53 PM on May 1

Use something like Tortoise SVN, which is a front-end to Subversion version control, on both the laptop and your desktop. Before working on one of the two, update the files, and when you've made significant changes (and before ending the current coding session), check in the changes.

This way, the files will always be in sync, and if you make any changes that you later decide you'd like to undo, you can roll back to a previous version. This sort of thing is what version control software was made for.

Dreamweaver probably has an interface to some version control system, but Tortoise integrates well into Explorer (I assume you're using Windows).

You'll have to decide on a "server" to host Subversion's repository that's accessible from the laptop, and the desktop. If you tell us more about your setup (Do you use the laptop and desktop always at home, on the same network? What operating systems? ... ), we could walk you through setting up a repository with remote access.
posted by philomathoholic at 5:55 PM on May 1

I use dreamweaver on three machines... I've learned that it is a matter of being careful. Most of the work on my site is done on one machine, minor updates/fixes to the site are done on the other two when needed.

Working with the main machine is fine, do the updates, upload, bob's your uncle. With the other two machines I do the updates, upload, and MAKE sure that, when I'm on the primary machine, i sync from the server to my home folder. Email yourself if you need a reminder to do that.

I don't think there is any other easy way to manage this situation.
posted by HuronBob at 6:07 PM on May 1

I second Memo on this one.

I used to have this same problem. I went amongst three computers. I would accidently overwrite files, delete images, or have the file I wanted 30 miles away.

I set up a folder called "sites," put it in my sidebar, set all versions of DW I run to point at this as the local site, and win win!

The only drawback I have ever seen is that occasionally when I made a lot of changes on computer A, then go to computer B, sometimes Dreamweaver get confused because it think that both files have been modified (local and server). It took me a bit to always trust the dropbox copy.

philomathoholic's answer is the "best practices," geekier, proper answer, but I don't do it that way.
posted by cjorgensen at 6:08 PM on May 1

Easiest is to always bring down the latest version from remote server before making changes (assuming you complete and upload changes before you switch machines.

Dropbox is also a great solution. It's what I do for all the websites I manage
posted by Mick at 6:54 PM on May 1

Thanks, I am going the dropbox route, I already use it to manage my MacJournal entries and have found it to be reliable.

Henry
posted by silsurf at 7:00 PM on May 1

I use Dropbox as well, but in case anyone is looking for other options, Unison is also a good tool for keeping directory trees in sync across machines.
posted by dixie flatline at 8:09 PM on May 1