Publishing: Specific Page/Changes Uploads...

[warren]

It seems like a lot of wasted time and effort to publish your entire site anew each time you make a small addition or adjustment. My website is not very big or complicated, and I've noticed that the process of updating is rather cumbersome...

Wouldn't it be great to be able to specify publishing only the changes..?

Thanks.

[ajreed]

Just getting familiar with WD and "publish" worked just as expected, made some minor changes to my site, then published again.

At this point XWD sent all the files again, most of which I am sure were not modified, so would it be possible/desirable to have an "incremental" box, which when ticked would cause XWD to interrogate the files it finds already on the remote site, and compare their modification dates/times to determine whether they need refreshing? This way minor changes, which may affect many files we do not know about, would be refreshed, but potentially larger files (like photos) which have not changed would not be re-sent.

In fact it would not be a bad thing if the box were ticked all the time, because even at the initial publish, all files would not be found, therefore all would be transmitted.

Thinking on further - a tidy option would be nice where XWD checks a remote destination and compares it with the source, and offers for deletion all those files found on the ftp site that are not part of the current site set.

I am sure this would speed up the publish function no end, especially larger sites where minor updates would only affect a small percentage of the files. It would also ensure your ftp usage was kept at a minimum, and overall speed up and improve the operation of publishing and keeping your site an exact mirror of what you have on your HD.

Comments?

[planetsquid]

Comments?

I agree

I made a tiny textual change to a medium sized site, but had to upload all of the pages and images again using the built-in publish feature.

I've taken to not using the publish feature for this very reason and use third party FTP software instead. The inability to specify different FTP login details for my different sites was also a major factor.

I believe (from reading a previous thread) that the Xara team are working on a way of previewing only one page, so I imagine the ability to upload a single page would be incorporated into the next version. (?)

Rich

[ajreed]

Just a thought Rich - does the ftp package you use have anything like incremental update - ie just uploading those files that have changed? And if so - whats the package?

[planetsquid]

Hi Alan

I use an older version of 'Handy Backup' (v4). The latest version is V6. It allows you to publish to an FTP server incrementally (ie upload only the files that have changed).

There are free FTP clients which do a similar job, but I'm very pleased with this one.

Rich

[himagain]

Hi Alan,
Quote from FFox inbuilt FIREFTP:

FireFTP's search function will allow you to search and filter through your local or remote files to find the files that you need. Select Local or Remote first to pick which side to search through. You can set "Look in subdirectories" to make the search go through the subdirectories. "Match case" will make the search case sensitive. "Regular expression" is an advanced method of searching - you can read the Wikipedia article to find out more. "Specify dates" will let you do just that. You can search for multiple terms by separating them by a space. e.g. jpg png gif You can exclude items by adding the minus sign in front of the term. e.g. jpg -cats You can require items by adding the plus sign in front of the term. e.g. jpg +cats You can put items in quotes so that they aren't treated like separate terms. e.g. "cha! said the kitty" +jpg To exit Search Mode, click the X on the far left of the search bar or either refresh the directory or visit another directory. Note: When "Look in subdirectories" is enabled, some features are disabled (e.g. Cut, Copy, Paste). If a search with "Look in subdirectories" is performed on the local side, Firefox may seem to become unresponsive - this is because you may have a large number of files that FireFTP has to look through. This apparent freezing issue should hopefully be resolved in future versions of FireFTP. Another Note/Nuance: Excluded terms (those with a minus sign ('-') in front) also means FireFTP won't look at the contents of directories that match the excluded term. However, required terms (those with a plus sign ('+') in front) means FireFTP will look at the contents of directories regardless of whether that directory matches the required term. The idea is that if you wanted to require a directory you would just start the search from that directory; on the other hand, there are times that you want to exclude a certain directory (perhaps with a very deep structure) and for that you would use the minus sign. What does "Sync Directories" do under the Tools menu? The "Sync Directories" feature allows a user to compare the current local and current remote directories. It looks at which files are missing on your local machine that the FTP server has, which files are missing on the FTP server that your machine has, and also compares file sizes to see if they're different. Importantly, however, it does not actually compare file content to see if there are differences nor does it currently compare files by the dates they were modified. This feature is useful for web designers, for example, in keeping their local and remote copies of files in sync with each other. The various buttons available in the "Change Selection" section will allow you to move checkboxes for a multiple set of files at once to another column of choice. Finally, once you're ready to begin syncing, just hit the 'Sync' button.
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Beaut for all the quick stuff.
There are numerous ones in the Public Domain.

Cheers!
Himagain

[himagain]

Hi people,
If another FTP program is used to upload minor changes, are there potential problems with XWD's "management" of the Site?

(Am I correct in assuming there is a XWD update coming soon for a few little things like this?)

[Soquili]

If you use another FTP program and upload only the page or pages you edited you run the risk of having the images no longer referencing correctly.

Edits change the numbers used for image filenames. The image formerly referenced as 14.png may now be a different image referenced on a non-edited page.

Best to allow Web Designer to upload the entire site with images.

[himagain]

If you use another FTP program and upload only the page or pages you edited you run the risk of having the images no longer referencing correctly.
..part...

Hi Bill,
An answer from "on high" about a fix for this would seem a big priority to me - esp. if one can't be seen forthcoming!

Meanwhile back in the salt mine:
So how does one operate a "real" Site where e.g. content will be changing daily over many sections as in an ongoing Course, or worse, multiple never-ending novels?

Or worse, when gathering content automatically that will also lengthen pages/boxes?
(Just realised I can't see how to do that, either)

Thanks,
HimAGAIN

[steve.ledger]

HA and everyone else, please post in the Web Designer forum if you wish to open up a debate or ask broad questions.
This forum is for Feature requests, suggestions and bug reports rather than question time, pondering or debates.