Publishing Profiles

SiteSpinner’s Publishing Profiles can save you these steps each time you publish. You need only enter the publishing information once, and then save the information to a specific publishing profile. Then, the next time you publish, simply open the Publisher dialog box, select the right profile, and click the Publish button. SiteSpinner™ does the rest.

Publishing profiles are maintained in the ftppro.ini file in the SiteSpinner™ application directory.

When using SiteSpinner™ on computers set up to allow individual user accounts, each user’s publishing profile is maintained separately.

For more information, see Publisher Dialog Box.

Creating a Publishing Profile

1. Select Publish>Publish Project OR press the CTRL+P keyboard shortcut.

   The Publisher dialog box will open.

2. On the Profile Tab, click the New button.

   A new, system-assigned profile name will appear in the Profile Name combo box. (e.g., Profile2, Profile3, etc.)

3. Click to highlight the system-assigned profile name and overwrite it with a unique, descriptive name for this publishing profile.
4. Click a radio button corresponding to your desired Export Destination for the new publishing profile. Choose either My Web Host (FTP) if you are publishing to the Internet, Files on Disk if you are publishing to a local computer, or iHostVM Host if you have a web hosting account with iHost Networks.

If you have not already done so, you may choose the Free iHostVM Trial option to publish to iHost Networks on a free, 12-hour trial basis. For more information, see Publishing to iHost VM.

5. Click a radio button corresponding to your desired Publish Format for the project being published with the new publishing profile. Choose either HTML or SVG.

The default Publish Format selection is HTML, but SVG will appear selected if you have chosen the SVG format in either the Project Target Options dialog box or the Coding Language Selection drop-down menu in the Preview Bar.

6. Click the Pages Tab.
7. If desired, change page names in the project by clicking to highlight a page name in the Page Names and Extensions combo box and overwriting it with a different name.

Project page names as displayed in the Page Names and Extensions combo box will become the names of the associated web pages after publishing. The first page of your web site should be called “default.html” or “index.html.”

8. If desired, change page file extensions for a page selected in the Page Names and Extensions combo box by either selecting a different extension from the drop-down menu (.html, .htm, .asp, .shtml, .cgi, .php, .asp, .pl) or by clicking to highlight the file extension and overwriting it with a different extension.
9. Click the radio button in the Page Range section corresponding to the range of pages you wish to publish under this publish profile. Choose either Export All Pages, Export Current Page, or set a custom page range.
10. If desired, in the Local Publish Directory field, edit the location path of the directory on your system or network to which your project will be published, OR click to display the Open dialog box, allowing you to map a different path.

SiteSpinner™ always publishes the files to the target directory specified in the Local Publish Directory field. Then if you are publishing to the Internet, SiteSpinner™ connects via FTP to your web host and transfers the web files from the local directory to the target directories on the remote web server. Thus, if you are publishing using the Relative Link to Files path option, you must make sure that the path relationship in the local directory between the page files and the resource files match the same relative paths on the remote server. For more information, see Relative Paths to Resources.

11. Click a radio button corresponding to your desired Path Option for the publishing profile. Choose from either Gather all files (recommended), Relative link to files, or Absolute link to files.

The Absolute Link to files option is not available when you are uploading your web site to a web host via FTP.

12. Click the Apply button.

    If you are creating a publishing profile with an Export Destination of Files to Disk, you are finished inputting information, and your publishing profile is complete. Click the Cancel button to close the dialog box. You may now open a project to publish. For more information, see “Publishing a Project to Local Directory” and “Publishing a Project to the Internet.”

    If you are creating a publishing profile with an Export Destination of My Web Host (FTP), proceed to step 13.

13. Click the FTP Tab.
14. Enter the domain name or IP address of your remote web host in the Host Name (or IP Address) field.
15. Enter your web server login name in the User Name field, overwriting the example user name.
16. Enter your web server password in the Password field.

If you are logging on to the web server using an anonymous login, click to checkmark the Anonymous Login option box. Do not enter information in the User Name field. Anonymous Logins usually require that you enter your e-mail address in the Password field.

17. Click the Browse button OR enter the host-supplied starting directory.

    If your FTP login data is correct, you will be connected to your remote web server and an FTP dialog box will open displaying your remote publish directory and any files currently in it.

On some hosts the directory that you initially connect to may not be the correct directory you need to publish your web site to. You can explore the remote host by selecting folders or by clicking the red Up arrow in the FTP dialog box.

If the dialog box does not display any of the directory information provided to you by your web host, your connection probably failed. Check your settings and try again. If repeated attempts fail, contact your web host‘s technical support.

18. Once you have found the correct publish directory on the remote server, close the FTP dialog box.
19. The valid directory path will automatically be transferred to the Remote Publish Directory field at the top of the FTP Tab.

If you know the path to the remote publish directory, you can enter it directly into the Remote Publish Directory field before connecting. Remember, however, that on some hosts this information is case- sensitive.

20. Click the Apply button.

    Your publishing profile is now complete and will retain all the information you have entered in the Publisher dialog box. You may repeat these steps to create additional publishing profiles. Or, you may select a project to publish.

21. Click the Cancel button to close the Publisher dialog box.

    Your publishing profile is now ready for use. For more information on publishing, see Uploading.