Connecting via FTP

Questions

Course info

34 lessons / 3 hours

Overview

Dreamweaver (and web design in general) is such a hard program to teach yourself. We know, because as Dreamweaver trainers we have all taught ourselves. We wish we had a resource like this when we were learning.

Hand coding a website from scratch is now a thing of the past. Web designers use tools like Dreamweaver to a lot of the heavy lifting. We imagine this is your first website build and we're glad we're here to help make this process a little less troublesome. 

Who should use this?

Anyone that is brand new to Dreamweaver and anyone brand new to web design in general. If you're reasonably experienced in web design you might find this course a little slow going.

What do you need?

  • You'll need a laptop (Mac or PC)
  • Dreamweaver CC installed. Dreamweaver can be downloaded from theAdobe website here.

Can I use this tutorial with Adobe Dreamweaver CS4, CS5 or CS6?

No. Unfortunately there were some fundamental changes in the Dreamweaver CC update that makes CC and previous versions very different.

Remember you can download Dreamweaver CC free for 30 days. Don't worry - after your free trial has expired your files will still be updatable using any other web design program.

If you like the tutorials we'd love you to like, share and tweet it. We'd be very grateful.

Daniel Scott

Daniel Scott

Founder of Bring Your Own Laptop & Chief Instructor

instructor

I discovered the world of design as an art student when I stumbled upon a lab full of green & blue iMac G3’s. My initial curiosity around using the computer to create ‘art’ developed into a full-blown passion, eventually leading me to become a digital designer and founder of Bring Your Own Laptop.

Sharing and teaching are a huge part of who I am. As a certified Adobe instructor, I've had the honor of winning multiple Adobe teaching awards at their annual MAX conference. I see Bring Your Own Laptop as the supportive community I wished for when I was first starting out and intimidated by design. Through teaching, I hope to bring others along for the ride and empower my students to bring their stories, labors of love, and art into the world.
True to my Kiwi roots, I've lived in many places, and currently, I reside in Ireland with my wife and kids.

Downloads & Exercise files

Transcript

Hi, and welcome to this Dreamweaver tutorial. My name is Daniel Walter Scott,  and I'm a trainer here at Bring Your Own Laptop. Now, if you wanna follow along in the notes just  below there is a link to all the exercise files, okay? Otherwise, um, check out our website, um,  for the class files you can follow along. All right? Um, so in the previous tutorial,  we just had a quick look at  what is a domain name and what is hosting.

Now that you've signed up, you would've got an email,  and that email will give you details, um, regarding how  to set up what's called your FTP. It's the most common way of connecting your, um,  Dreamweaver files to your host so  that the world can see your website. So, um, we're gonna work through that. Um, so let's, uh, imagine you've got your email. I can't show you mine because you'll have all my details  for my website, and  that's probably not a good posting on YouTube. So, um, have yours in front of you.

Let's have a, and we'll talk through it. So, um, to hook up Dreamweaver to your site, you go to site,  you go to manage sites, okay? We created one in the first video when we  said setting up a website. Now you'll have a list in here. Now we've using this one here, example tutorial. I'm gonna double click that one.

All right, and we've got some options. So the name in the local site folder,  we did an early tutorial,  but this is where it is stored on your computer. Okay? Mine's instead on my desktop, okay? The site name is just purely for us, um, as the designer,  just to give it a title. The important bit is this thing called servers Now.

So where it says servers hit this little plus button, okay? This is where I'm gonna try  and transcribe my details from my email into, um,  this part here now, and let's give it a go. Now they're all the hosts seem  slightly different information. This can be probably the hardest bit to get set up. Okay? So, um, let's, let's go through it.

So server name is totally up to us. So this is my, um, let's use Digital  Pacific hosting. Okay? That name doesn't need to be anything. You can call that whatever you like. So the connection we're using is st uh, FTP  and FTP addressed.

This can be generally one of two things. It can be ftp, do uh,  your domain.com. Okay? And so your domain, replace that  with whatever you've called your website. Sometimes though, it can just be your domain.com. Sometimes it can be dub, dub dub.

Do your domain.com. Sometimes, um, when you just set it up, it'll only work  as an IP address. So, um, it'll be one, do, I can't remember  what an IP address looks like, but it look  like a crazy number like that. So check your email, see if you can find some sort  of address or FTP address. Unfortunately, there's not a really universal naming  convention for this, so sometimes, uh,  some host people will just call it the address  or your website. Okay?

So try a few different options in there. Now we're gonna do this one. Uh, your domain, your domain.com. Now the username. Now, um, for different hosts though,  this will be generally pretty clear on your,  um, email that you get. It'll be your username.

So, um, this one's going to be,  generally it's just a solid username like that. Sometimes it can look like an email. Okay? At, um, your domain. I'm being a little vague, I guess in this one  because there are so many different options of the hosting  that you might have to try them all. So sometimes it's just that, okay, just your username,  and then sometimes it's username plus your domain name.

Looks like an email address password, okay? That'll come through as your, um, in your email. I'm gonna put mine in. Okay? Now, the route directory, um, try it blank first. Okay?

If blank doesn't work, it's generally something like public  Outlook, html, um,  that's generally it. Okay? Hit test on that one. See if it works. Um, um, when I say when it works, if you hit test  and it says successfully connected  to your server, you are done. Okay?

Job done. Um, so try it with nothing. Hit test. If that doesn't work, try it with, um, public html. Sometimes if you are splitting a host into little pieces,  it'll need, um, uh, your domain  in there, okay? The name of the website  or the folder that they've stuck it in for you.

So, um, check the email. It should, um, if it doesn't say anything,  they probably don't need anything. Um, if they, if that doesn't work, try public html. Sometimes it needs the domain name as well. Um, this bit down here gets generated for you. Don't sweat about that one.

Okay? These little details create this one down the bottom,  so don't sweat that option. That should work. Hit test if it doesn't work, okay? Um, one of the main things is, um, lemme show you,  is playing around with these settings under more options. Generally for me, um, if I turn passive FTP off  for a client, it can, um, fix it up.

Um, and sometimes it doesn't. So it's, um, try turning these ticks on and off. Keep hitting tests if you can't get it to work, okay? You've paid for your hosting, um,  and as part of that payment,  you've paid for some sort of support. So don't be afraid to, my, my best option is  to give them a call. So actually sit down.

I know, um, the, the phones can take a long time  before you actually get through to someone,  but it's so much easier when you get through to someone  and just explain you're new to it. You are using  Dreamweaver. Have  this up in front of you  and get them to talk it through with you, okay? And they can help and if there's an error, they can fix it. If it's just you've got something mixed up,  they can quite easily show you through it. I find email support can be too tedious,  especially when you're really new  'cause they say things that you're not  too sure about just yet.

So give 'em a call, um, help them fill out this form here  until, and don't let them go off the phone  until you can connect. Okay? You can hit test and connect to the server  and it connects successfully. Alright? Um, that'll be it for this tutorial. I'll see you in the next one.
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