Accessing above public_html from Dreamweaver

Question

We're a small family business (father and son). We both have
to do a bit of everything but I am mainly a developer. All our
sites have more-or-less the same structure on the server which is
as follows (where [D] shows it is a directory)-
www.website.com [D]
-incs [D]
--errors [D]
--headers [D]
--footers [D]
-public_html [D]
--css [D]
--scripts [D]
--index.html
We both want to be able to access the files in the
directories incs, footers and headers which are on the same level
as public_html from Dreamweaver. If I set the root as
www.website.com in the Dreamweaver site manager then none of the
images or css files link properly since Dreamweaver is linking
relative to below the public_html directory.
I know one way would be to set the root as public_html and
then just use an ftp programme to access the files under
public_html but this is far from practical. I quite often am
editing files in Dreamweaver above and within the public_html
directory.

Answer 1

Dooza wrote:
> The root folder in Dreamweaver HAS to be /public_html/
otherwise as you
> have seen, the links won't work.
Correct, but this is only the case where you are using links
relative to
the site root. The problem is avoided by using
document-related links.
> The only thing to do is move the inc
> folder into the public_html folder, as Dreamweaver can't
be setup to use
> files outside of the root.
Not true. Dreamweaver will use any folder that you designate
as the root
folder.
The way around BaritoneUK's problem is to create two site
definitions:
one that has public_html as the root folder, the other that
has a higher
level folder as the root. Use the first site definition to
manage the
site with links relative to the site root. Use the second
site
definition to manage the files outside the server root.
Dreamweaver will display a warning when you originally set up
the nested
site definitions, but you can safely ignore it, as long as
you don't
rely on Synchronize Site.
I used this system on a site for many years without problems,
but no
longer do so, as it's much less convenient than keeping
everything
within the public server root.
Dreamweaver would benefit greatly from the ability to manage
files
outside the server root. It's a feature that many people have
asked for.
If it's important to you, I suggest filing a feature request
here:
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform
The more people who ask for a feature, the more likely it is
to be
implemented in a future version of Dreamweaver.
David Powers, Adobe Community Expert
Author, "The Essential Guide to Dreamweaver CS3" (friends of
ED)
Author, "PHP Solutions" (friends of ED)
http://foundationphp.com/