Managing Web Sites

Managing the typical Web site has turned out to be complicated for most organizations. Problems range from organizing the various files on the site to repairing page links when they break. Visual InterDev includes extensive site management features to help alleviate these problems.

Site Management Features in the Project System

The Visual InterDev site management features begin with the integrated project system that presents a live view of the site as it exists on the Web server. The project system lets you create new Web sites; view content on an existing site; and create, add, and modify folders and files within a site. Specific site management features within the project system include:

• Creation of new Web sites with Web site wizards The wizards step you through the process of creating a new site on the chosen Web server.
• Direct file manipulation of any item in a Web site You can copy, delete, add, rename, and edit any file in the site from within the IDE by using the File View feature.
• Ability to import content files and directory trees into a Web site You can use the Import File and Import Folder commands to import existing content from any local or network resource into a site.
• Copy Web command You can move an entire site from one server to another by using the Copy Web command. This is useful, for example, for moving a site from a staging server to a production server.
• Object properties You can right-click any object in a site, and Visual InterDev will present a property page that contains useful information related to that object, such as file size, modification date, and all incoming and outgoing links to the file.

Automatic Link Repair

The Visual InterDev project system can track links within a Web site and ensure that they are valid. For example, if you rename a file, the system detects all the pages throughout the site that reference that name as part of a URL reference (hyperlink), and it edits these references to prevent broken links. In addition, if a file is moved or if a site is physically restructured through your use of Visual InterDev, the system automatically repairs links in this manner. Finally, if a page or a file is deleted, Visual InterDev notifies you of all the references to that file within the site.

Link View

Besides providing you with automatic link repair and site management capabilities through File View, Visual InterDev also has a unique Web visualization tool called Link View. Link View presents a graphical view of the Web site, visually showing the logical relationship of pages within the site. For example, you can use Link View to visually depict the links from a particular HTML page to other pages both inside and outside the site. You can expand or collapse the view to any level you want, showing as many pages or sections of the site as you want. Link View depicts all broken links in red.

Besides diagramming links, Link View also depicts specific information about each file, using visual icons to depict its file type, such as HTML pages, Active Server Pages, GIF/JPG images, ActiveX controls, and Java applets. You can launch an editor on any file by simply double-clicking the file name.

You can also filter the view Link View gives you so that only specific information is depicted. For example, you can filter the view to show (in any combination):

• HTML pages
• Multimedia files
• Executables
• Documents
• External files
• Primary links
• Secondary links

Multiuser Development and Integration with Visual SourceSafe

Visual InterDev provides integrated source management for users of Microsoft Visual SourceSafe. Organizations using Visual SourceSafe can place a Web project under source control. Source management is especially helpful when teams of people work on the same Web site, since it provides explicit check-in and check-out capabilities for all files in the site. In addition, the Visual SourceSafe revision tracking and merging features help you protect your work—for example, these features let you roll back to an earlier version of a file or compare two versions of the same file.

Visual InterDev integrates with Visual SourceSafe so that you can put any project under source control without having to install Visual SourceSafe itself on your workstation. All Visual SourceSafe features execute on the server. For Visual InterDev projects under source control, the Visual SourceSafe integration features include the following:

• Automatic creation of Visual SourceSafe projects The New Web Wizards ask you if you want to put a new Web project under source control, and then they let you specify an existing or new Visual SourceSafe project. If you specify a new project, Visual InterDev creates the Visual SourceSafe project on the appropriate network drive.
• Check-in/check-out files When you request to edit a file in the Web site, Visual InterDev explicitly checks the file out of the Visual SourceSafe project before opening the file. If another user has already checked it out (for instance, when another Visual InterDev user or FrontPage user is working on the same project), you are notified and permitted to see only a read-only copy.
• Visual depiction of file locking status Within the project system, icons depict files that a user has checked out as well as read-only files checked out by other users working on the Web site.
• Automatic addition of elements to a Visual SourceSafe project As you create new files for a Web site, Visual InterDev puts these elements under source control, using the Visual SourceSafe project set up for the site. For example, if you import a folder that contains 10 files and 2 subfolders, Visual InterDev adds these elements to the Visual SourceSafe project. If you create a new file, such as a new HTML page, Visual InterDev creates the new entry in the Visual SourceSafe project and checks the element out to you for editing.