Storing Documents Remotely

One of Contribute's best features is hardly ever noticed by the average user. In a standard editing session, a user links to any external document or image that is currently on the system or network. When the modified page is published, Contribute transparently copies the linked file to a location on the Web server and writes the appropriate link into the page. As a designer responsible for overall site structure and integrity, the key question that you should ask now is this: "Which location?"

In the earliest versions of Contribute, the answer was very specific and (unfortunately) somewhat limited. Any transferred graphic files were stored in the same folder as the Web page in a subfolder named images; likewise, other external documentsincluding Microsoft Office files and PDFswere saved to a subfolder named documents. Although this is an appropriate option under some circumstances, it won't do for every situation. Administrators using the current version of Contribute enjoy much more sophisticated control over external file storage. In general, there are three different options for file placement; files can be stored in any of the following locations:

• In the same folder as the current document

• Within an administrator-designated subfolder in the current document's folder

• In a single folder specified by the administrator located anywhere within the site

Files can be sorted according to their file extension. For example, you can put all the Microsoft Office documents (.doc, .xls, .ppt, and so on) in one type of folder location, all PDFs (.pdf) in another folder location, and all Visio flowchart documents (.vsd) in yet another. Furthermore, all these file destinations are defined according to the Contribute user's role; for example, you could put all Microsoft Word files from administrators in one folder and all such files from writers in another. Obviously, with so many options to choose from, you should spend some time considering which ones work best for your site structure.

In this session, you'll take advantage of the site structure put into place in Lesson 2.

1.	In Contribute, choose Edit > Administer Websites > Bounty General. When the Administer Website dialog box opens, make sure that the Administrator role is chosen and select Edit Role Settings. To demonstrate the use of the external file options, you'll change your own role settings. The first modification made causes all inserted images to be saved in a central folder off the site root.
2.	Click the File Placement category, in which you'll see three preset entries. Highlight the All Images entry and click Edit. In the File Placement dialog box, select the Specific Folder on Your Website option and then click Choose. When the Choose Folder dialog box opens, double-click first the site root and then the images folder; click Select "images" to close the Choose Folder dialog box. Click OK to confirm your choice and close the File Placement dialog box. With this setting established, any image files (GIF, JPEG, or PNG) inserted locally will be stored in a central location. This setting is especially helpful for designers who want to monitor the quality and file size of transferred images. A single location for images makes it easy for designers to sort the folder by date modified, see the most recently added images at a glance, and optimize the new images if necessary.
3.	Select the All Microsoft and PDF files item and click Edit. In the File Placement dialog box, leave the Folder Next to Each Web Page option selected, but change the folder name to docs. Click OK when you're done. Of course, whether the folder is called documents or docs doesn't really matter. However, what does matter is that there already is a subfolder named docs in each of the department folders (maternity, nutrition, and pediatrics). Without this modification, duplicate directoriesdocuments and docswould be created. To complete the structural specifications, you'll now set up a folder specifically to hold PDFs.
4.	Click Add to open the enhanced File Placement dialog box. Enter .pdf in the File Type Extensions box. Select the Specific Folder on Your Website option and click Choose. Navigate to the media folder in the site root and select the folder named pdfs. Open that folder and click Select "pdfs". When you're done, click OK once to close the File Placement dialog box, click OK again to close the Edit "Administrator" Settings dialog box, and then click Close to end the Administer Website session.

Although one of the preset entries indicates that it's for all Microsoft and PDF files, specifying an entry for the .pdf file extension overrides that setting.