Managing Publish Locations

CityDesk 2.0-Documentation
Managing Publish Locations

A publish location stores the following information which is needed to publish a web site to the web:

The file transfer mechanism (either File Copy or FTP)

All the parameters of the file transfer, for example, the account and password for FTP

Which audience, language, and template family are to be published

Any external programs you want to run before or after copying the site to the server.

Multiple publish locations can be used to:

Publish the same site to different servers, for example, if you have an internal server for testing before the site goes live on the web

Publish the same site to different servers, if you maintain identical "mirrors" of your site on several web servers

Publish different versions of the site to different servers, for example, a French version is published to a server in France while the English version is published to a server in England

Publish different template families to different servers, for example, one server maintains the WAP version of the site in English while another maintains the HTML version in all languages

You can create as many publish locations as you need.

Note: If you have one publish location, the Publish tool on the toolbar will simply start publishing to that location. If you have more than one publish location, you will have to choose which location(s) to publish to.

Preview on This Computer is a special kind of publish location that can never be deleted. It publishes the site to a temporary directory on your hard drive for previewing. This temporary directory is completely deleted when CityDesk exits.

If you set up a publish location that publishes multiple template families, languages, and/or audiences, CityDesk automatically creates appropriate subdirectories and puts a whole copy of the site in each subdirectory.

Example: If you have a site in English and French, and publish both languages, CityDesk creates a subdirectory called English with the English version and a subdirectory called French with the French version. If you also publish two audiences, Staff and EverybodyElse, CityDesk creates four subdirectories: English\Staff, French\Staff, English\EverybodyElse, and French\EverybodyElse. If you need to use a different directory structure than the one CityDesk creates automatically:

  Create multiple publish locations, one for each subdirectory you wish to create.

To manage the list of available publish locations:

  Make sure you are in Designer Mode.

  In the main window, choose View » Publish Locations or click on the Publish Locations tool in the toolbar:

Locations

A list of publish locations will appear.

To create a new publish location:

  Click Add.

A wizard dialog will appear. In this dialog, you can use the Back and the Next buttons to move back and forth through several screens. There is also a Finish button which jumps to the end, accepting the defaults for everything.

  Choose a publish method from the dropdown box. CityDesk supports File Copy or FTP.  Then click Next.

With File Copy, CityDesk simply copies your assembled site into a subdirectory on your computer, or on another computer that is available through Windows file sharing. See Publishing Using File Copy.

With FTP, CityDesk uses FTP to transfer the files to another computer over the Internet. (FTP is a standard Internet protocol.) See Publishing to an FTP location.

If File Copy or FTP are not suitable for your needs, you can launch any external program you want after publishing to copy your site to your server. See Running External Programs After Publishing.

  Provide all the parameters for the publishing method you chose, and click Next.

By default, CityDesk will publish all template families. If you have more than one template family, CityDesk will create a subdirectory for each template family.

If you only want to publish one template family:

   Uncheck the Publish all template families box and choose the template family you wish to publish.

  Click Next.

By default, CityDesk will publish all languages. If you have more than one language, CityDesk will create a subdirectory for each language.

If you only want to publish one language:

   Uncheck the Publish all languages box and choose the language you wish to publish.

  Click Next.

By default, CityDesk will publish site editions for every audience. If you have more than one audience, CityDesk will create a subdirectory for each audience.

If you only want to publish one audience:

   Uncheck the Publish all audiences box and choose the audience you wish to publish.

  Click Next.

  Type a name that will help you remember this publish location and click Finish.

If you wish to run an external command after publishing, before or after copying files, you can specify a command line in the last page of the wizard. See Running External Programs After Publishing.

To delete a publish location:

  Select the publish location and click Delete. Click Yes to confirm.

To rename an existing publish location:

  Select the publish location and click Rename. Type a new name and click OK.

To change any of the settings for a publish location:

  Select the publish location and click Edit. Use the Next and Back buttons to find the screen with the settings you wish to change. Click Finish when you are done.

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