Netscape Web Publisher provides many sophisticated file and link management functions. There are two ways to access much of this functionality: through links and buttons on the Web Publisher Services page and through the Web Publisher menu commands. This chapter describes the Web Publisher Services page and then the menus, with each command described in the order in which it appears on the menu.
This chapter discusses these links and buttons on the Web Publisher Services page:
This chapter also provides details for these menus and commands:
The Web Publisher Services page provides many file management functions in a single form plus providing direct access to agent services, access control, search, and help. This section describes the functions and services available from this page.
To display the Web Publisher Services page, do the following:
Note
Users of Netscape Communicator can choose the Page Services command from the Communicator's View menu to display the Web Publisher Services page for the file currently being browsed.
The Web Publisher Services page
Web Publisher files and folders have a set of default properties that describe many of their attributes. For example, when a file was created, who the lock owner is, and what its URL is.
To access the properties for a file or folder from Web Publisher, do the following:
To access the properties for a file or folder through the Web Publisher Services page, do the following:
Files have the set of default properties listed here. Folders have only two modifiable properties, Description and Owner, and four read-only properties: Filename, URL, Size, and Modified.
Note
If a file is in an “edit” state, it is displayed as locked. Do not unlock it from this form because although the file would now appear as no longer locked or in an “edit “ state, it still must be published (with the Publish All Edited Files command) before it is available to other users.
You can perform a search on any property as well as on any searchable file contents. For example, you can search for all files that belong to a certain author, for all the locked files, or for any file with a particular string in the title field. For more information about doing searches, see Chapter 5, "Search."
You can change some properties for a file or folder. You can assign yourself as owner of a file or folder that has no owner or you can reassign ownership for files and folders that you own, you can lock an unlocked file or you can unlock files that you have locked, and you can make the file's contents searchable or unsearchable. You can enter new values for title, author, and description, and Web Publisher will use your new values instead of those defined in the file.
To modify these fields, follow these steps:
This function reindexes the selected file, updating the searchable properties (and file contents if that option is chosen).
Netscape Web Publisher provides a version control system for keeping track of files as they are updated and changed. You can manually place a file under version control by using the Start Version Control menu command or you can set automatic version control for a file when you edit or upload a file by clicking the Start Version Control checkbox. Regardless of how it was placed under version control, the first version is always version 1.1. Each subsequent time you edit and then publish the file, the version number increases by 0.1 increments. See also the section "Starting version control" for more information.
Once a file is under version control, Web Publisher maintains a record of each version of a file and gives you access to its versions in these ways:
This information is only available for files, not for folders. When you view a folder in the Web Publisher Services page, the Version History link is not displayed.
To view a file's version history, do the following:
The version history for a file
The history consists of a series of version information sections, one per version. Each section has this information:
If a file is not under version control, you can start version control for it by clicking the Start Version Control button, as shown in Figure 4.4.
Starting version control for a file
Web Publisher allows you to compare different versions of a file. The output is an HTML file displayed in your web browser window that highlights where the versions differ. If you compare different version of a non-HTML file for which there is an HTML conversion filter, Web Publisher converts the files into HTML and displays their differences as an HTML file in the Browser. See the section "About collection attributes" in Chapter 5, "Search," for a list of filters.
Depending on which version you choose from each drop-down list, you get different results from the comparison. The version you choose from the first list is taken as the basis for the comparison. The version from the second list is examined for differences, either additive or subtractive. Additional text appears in green with a green marker on the left. Deleted text is shown as red strikethrough text with a red marker on the left. Note that if you compare versions of a file that are extremely divergent in size and content, you may not be able to easily determine where the two files differ.
Primarily intended to compare text-based HTML and ASCII files, Web Publisher cannot readily compare text files with binary data or files with graphic images. If you compare files that differ in which graphics they use or where the graphics are positioned in the file, Web Publisher marks the difference with a green or red marker as a placeholder rather than displaying the graphic itself.
Note
You cannot compare two versions of a file that are in different formats. For example, if you have an HTML file under version control and you upload a Word-formatted file as the second version, you cannot compare the two versions.
Web Publisher keeps earlier versions of version controlled files in an archive. You can view an older version of a file by following these steps:
The results are shown in a web browser window.
Netscape Web Publisher maintains links between files when you copy, move, or rename files and directories. You can check links for a file or for a folder. This function displays the link status information as of the last time the links were checked. To be sure you are up to date, click Check Links. For a file, this information provides a list of all outgoing links. For a folder, it provides a summary for all the files in the folder, showing which files have at least one broken outgoing link.
See Chapter 8, "Managing links" for more information about how to check links in a file or folder.
Your server administrator can create additional custom properties for the web publishing collection. Once new custom properties have been created, whenever a file that is part of the web publishing collection is indexed, these properties are included. Such properties are user-modifiable and Web Publisher uses any values you input instead of the original value in the file once you make changes. The indexing process makes these custom properties available to you for viewing and searching.
Note
If a file has not been indexed since the adding of the custom property, the property is not viewable. Custom properties are not available until a file has been reindexed.
To view the custom properties for a file, do the following:
This button is useful for users of Netscape Communicator who have accessed the Web Publisher Services page through the page services item on the Communicator's View menu. When you click this button, a new Web Publisher applet is launched. (For Navigator 3 users, this button is disabled.)
When you click this button, the Netscape Agent Services page is displayed. See Chapter 6, "Agents" for more information about agents.
When you click this button, the access control page is displayed. See Chapter 7, "Access control" for more information about access control.
When you click this button, the Netscape Search page is displayed. See Chapter 5, "Search" for more information about performing searches.
When you click this button, the online help file containing information for this screen is displayed. This help file also contains information about the menu commands in Web Publisher.
The File menu provides menu commands that allow you to manage server folders, edit and publish files, and upload and download files and folders.
The Web Publisher allows you to create new folder on the server. Because this writes a new file to the server, you must have write permission in order to do this. Web Publisher prompts you for your password to authorize the operation.
To create a new folder on the server file system:
You cannot create a new folder with the same name as a folder that already exists in that directory on your server. If you try, you get an error message and the operations fails.
The Web Publisher allows you to open an existing folder on the server, which implicitly reloads the current server data for this folder.
To open a folder on the server file system:
The folder is displayed in the Web Publisher window as open, with its files and subfolders visible.
You can browse many types of server files in your web browser. HTML files are displayed as is. PDF, email, and news files are displayed as plain text in your browser. Files in other format, such Microsoft Word and Excel can be viewed in their original format if you have a helper application defined for your browser. If you don't, the web browser prompts you to identify which application should be used.
To view the contents of a file on the server:
The file is displayed in a web browser window.
You can edit unlocked files, or files that you locked, if you have write access permission for the files. Web Publisher puts the file into an "edit state," locking out other users so that they cannot edit your file until you have published it back to the server.
Depending on what your editor preferences are (Communicator users) or how your editor.txt file is set up (Navigator 3 users), this command launches Netscape Navigator's HTML editor, Netscape Composer, Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Word or Excel, a simple text editor, or some other application that you have associated with this particular file's format. If you do not define an editor program for a given file type, Web Publisher displays an Editor Launching Error when you open the file for editing.
Note
For Navigator 3 users: If you click Cancel in the first dialog box to appear requesting local file access, the edit is canceled and the server file remains unchanged. If you click Cancel in later dialog boxes, Web Publisher marks the file as being "in edit" whether or not the editor program starts up, and you must publish the file before it is available again to other users.
To edit a file in Web Publisher:
Note
For Navigator 3 users: If you are using Netscape Navigator's HTML editor, use the Save command. Do not use its Publish command. If you use the Publish command, when you return to Web Publisher, you must reload the latest server data by using the View | Reload Window menu command.
To edit a file in Netscape Composer:
You can cancel an edit operation before you save your changes in the editor application, while the file is still in an "in edit" state, so that your file is unlocked and remains unchanged on the server.
Note
For Navigator 3 users: If you click Cancel in the first local file access dialog box, you cancel the edit and leave the server file unchanged. Clicking Cancel in later dialog boxes does not cancel the edit, requiring you to publish the file before it is available again to other users.
An edited file is not available for others to modify until it has been published back to the server. Until it is published, it is in an edit state, which locks out other users. The properties and content of new HTML files are automatically indexed during the publishing operation, making them available for searching. This happens also for non-HTML files that have an HTML conversion filter. If you are publishing a new version of an existing file, the publishing operation reindexes the file's properties (and contents, if that option is selected on the Properties page).
Note
If a file was manually locked before you edited it, publishing the file releases the manual lock as well as the implicit editing lock.
When you finish editing a file and save it, the new version is still not available on the server for other users until you publish it. You can only publish your own edited files. When you publish a file that does not have an owner, you are assigned as the file's owner.
To publish an edited file to the server:
Publish an Edited File dialog box
The edited file is again available on the server, with Web Publisher adding a new version for any file under version control.
Note
If you are using Netscape Composer, when you complete your changes, use the Composer's Publish command to restore it to the server. This causes Web Publisher to unlock the implicit edit lock on the file.
When you finish editing a file and save it, the new version is still not available on the server for other users until you publish it. If you have edited more than one file for a given server, you can publish them all simultaneously rather than publish each file separately. If you have only edited one file, this function is disabled.
When you publish a file that does not have an owner, you are assigned as the file's owner.
To publish all edited files to the server:
The edited files are again available on the server, with Web Publisher adding a new version for any file under version control.
You can put a file or folder from your local system onto the server, making it available for other users. Whether a file is an application, a word processing document, a PDF file, a spreadsheet, or HTML file--you can upload it to the server with Web Publisher.
The properties and content of new HTML files are automatically indexed during the upload, making them available for searching. This happens also for non-HTML files that have an HTML conversion filter. If you are uploading a new version of an existing file, uploading reindexes the file's properties (and contents, if that option is selected on the Properties page).
You can add a file or folder to an existing folder, replace an existing file if the server file does not have version control, or add a new version for server files under version control. You can set the new file to be under version control and locked or unlocked. When uploading a folder to the server, you can also upload its subfolders.
Note
For Navigator 3 users: You can only upload individual files, not folders.
You can establish a default upload directory on your local system that becomes the location where Web Publisher expects your local files to be found. To do this, you define a local directory for uploading and downloading as described in "User preferences."
There some special cases to consider when you are uploading a file from your local system to the server:
To upload a folder (for Communicator users only):
You can download a file or a folder from the server to your local system. You can choose to also download the subfolders within the folder you want to download and you can choose to lock the server files that you are downloading.
You can establish a default download directory on your local system that becomes the location where Web Publisher places your downloaded files. To do this, you set a user preference as described in "User preferences."
For folders, the Download Folder dialog box appears with the name of the selected folder in the Download Server Folder field.
Note
You can also "download" a file from the server to your local drive by opening the file in a web browser and using the Save As menu command from the Navigator's File menu. Saving a file in this manner is not recommended because it skips the automatic link management and indexing functions that are provided by Web Publisher. Files saved in this way require manual intervention to update their links and to index their contents and properties.
You can exit from Web Publisher at any time. To relaunch Web Publisher, you must return to the Web Publisher home page. See the section "The Web Publisher home page" in Chapter 2, "Installing and configuring" for information about the home page.
The Edit menu provides menu commands that allow you to lock and unlock files; copy, move, rename, and delete files and folders; and set user preferences.
Once you have locked a file, other users cannot move, rename, delete, or edit it until you unlock it. You can manually lock a file when you do not want other users to have access to it. You can also direct Web Publisher to lock files that you are downloading.
You can unlock any file that you locked or any file that you downloaded with the Lock Server Files option checked. You cannot lock a folder.
Note
You can unlock a file that is being edited by another user, but you are strongly recommended not to do this. If you do, Web Publisher continues to list the file as a file that needs to be published even though the pen icon is removed from the Web Publisher window.
You can lock any file, including those owned by another user. If you lock a file, the file is displayed in the Web Publisher Services page with you as the lock owner and only you can unlock it.
Note
Communicator users with the Composer plug-in can also manually lock a server file from the Composer application on their local system by using the Tools | Web Publisher | Lock menu command.
If you locked a file, you can unlock it. The server administrator is also authorized to unlock a file that you have locked.
Note
Communicator users with the Composer plug-in can also manually unlock a server file from the Composer application on their local system by using the Tools | Web Publisher | Unlock menu command.
You can copy locked and unlocked files and folders. You need read and write permission for all the files and folders within a folder in order to be permitted to copy the folder. When you copy a file that is under version control, or a folder containgin version controlled files, only the most recent version of each file is copied to the new location. The previous versions of the file are not copied. You must select the original file to view previous versions of the file and its version history.
You are assigned as the owner of the new folders and files, and the new files are not placed under version control. If Automatic Link Update is turned on for your server, outgoing links in a newly copied file are mapped to point to the same target folders as the links in the original file.
When you copy a file, you become the owner of the copied version of the file. You can copy locked and unlocked files.
When you copy a folder, all the files and folders within it are copied and you become the owner of the new files and folders.
You can move unlocked server files and folders. Web Publisher automatically updates all the links within and to the moved documents. Moving requests are subject to access control restrictions for the specified folder or file that you wish to move. If you want to prevent other users from moving your folders and files, you can use the access control function to limit the Delete access right to yourself. See Chapter 7, "Access control," for more information about access control.
If Automatic Link Update is turned on for your server, outgoing links in newly moved files, including those in a moved folder, are mapped to point back to their original target folders. Incoming links from other server files are mapped to point to the newly moved files and folders.
You can move an unlocked file if you have delete privileges for the file. You cannot move a locked or unpublished file. When you move a file that has no owner, you are assigned as the owner of the file. If the file already has an owner, the ownership is not changed.
Do not begin a with a "/" if you want to copy the file to the primary Web Publisher document directory. You must use a "/" at the end of a folder's pathname.
You can move a folder if you have read-write privileges for the folder and all the files within it. You cannot move a folder if there is any locked or unpublished file within the folder. When you move a folder and files that are not yet assigned any owner, you are assigned as the owner of the folder and its files. If the folder and files already have an owner, the ownership is not changed.
Do not begin with a "/" if you want to move the folder to
the primary Web Publisher document directory. You must use a "/"
at the end of the folder's pathname.
You can rename unlocked server files and folders. Web Publisher automatically updates all the links within and to the renamed documents. Renaming requests are subject to access control restrictions for the specified folder or file that you wish to rename. If you want to prevent other users from renaming your folders and files, you can use the access control function to limit the Delete access right to yourself. See Chapter 7, "Access control," for more information about access control.
If Automatic Link Update is turned on for your server, outgoing links in newly renamed files, including those in a moved folder, are mapped to point back to their original target folders. Incoming links from other server files are mapped to point to the newly renamed files and folders.
You can rename an unlocked file within a folder if you have read-write privileges for the file. You cannot rename locked or unpublished files. When you move a file that has no owner, you are assigned as the owner of the file. If the file already has an owner, the ownership is not changed.
If you rename a version controlled file, the file's version archive is still accessible through the new name. You can no longer access earlier versions through the previous filename.
You can rename a folder if you have read-write privileges for the folder and all the files within it. You cannot rename a folder if there is any locked or unpublished file within the folder.When you rename a folder and files that are not yet assigned any owner, you are assigned as the owner of the folder and its files. If the folder and files already have an owner, the ownership is not changed.
You can delete unlocked files and folders on the server. Once you delete a file, it is no longer searchable. Delete requests are subject to access control restrictions for the specified folder or file that you wish to delete. If you want to prevent other users from deleting your folders and files, you can use the access control function to limit the Delete access right to yourself. See Chapter 7, "Access control," for more information about access control.
You can set a user preference to request confirmation of delete operations. This is the default and is the recommended method. See "User preferences" for more information.
You can delete an unlocked file if you have delete permission for the file. You cannot delete locked or unpublished files. Once you delete a file, you can no longer search on its properties or contents.
Delete confirmation dialog box
Your server administrator can restore deleted files that are under version control. The most recently published version of the file is the version that is restored.
You can delete a folder if you have delete permission for the folder and for every file within the folder. You cannot delete a folder if there is any locked or unpublished file within the folder.
Note
Your server administrator cannot restore deleted folders. However, when you restore a file that was inside a folder that has also been deleted, Web Publisher recreates the same folder structure for your file as you had before you deleted it. This may mean that one or more folders must be created to replicate the path structure. These folders will have the same names as the deleted folders, but will be empty.
You can set several preferences for Web Publisher: user name, operations to confirm, display font, and which local folders to use for uploading, downloading, and storing "in edit" files. These are stored in the nswppref.txt file in your Navigator's WebPub folder along with some other settings that Web Publisher sets for you internally. Communicator users can also set their editor preferences from this menu. See the section, The Web Publisher preferences file, for more information about this file.
The User Name Preference dialog box lets you enter a new user name for Web Publisher. Many Web Publisher operations depend on the user's name to identify the owner or lock owner for a file.
You can check a checkbox that allows you to set this name as the default name, which means that Web Publisher does not require you to input your user name each time you launch Web Publisher. If you want to be prompted for a user name whenever you start up Web Publisher, do not check the default name checkbox.
If you leave the user name field blank, you are prompted for user name and password rather than just the password when you execute an operation that requires authorization.
You must use a username that is valid for your server. See your server administrator for more information, if necessary. Actions that require a authorization include editing, uploading, copying, moving, and renaming files as well starting version control for a file and creating a new folder on the server.
The user name preference dialog box
The Operations to Confirm dialog box lets you to direct Web Publisher to ask for confirmation whenever you use the drag-and-drop method to copy or move files or folders, or whenever you delete, lock, or unlock files or folders. Without these options checked, Web Publisher immediately performs the action without giving you a second chance to revisit your decision.
The confirm operations dialog box
The Local Folder Preferences dialog box allows you to set two types of folder preferences: for uploading or downloading files and for storing "in edit" files.
You can set a preference for which local folder is to serve as the source folder for upload operations and as the destination location for downloads. You needs to enter the full physical path, For example, C:ProjectsTempDir.
You can also set a preference for which local folder to use for files during editing, that is, as the temporary storage folder for files in an "in edit" state. Unless you are using Netscape Composer to edit your HTML files and you have set your editor preference to edit directly on the server, files being edited are temporarily copied to your local system. Once you publish the file, the temporary "in edit" file is deleted from your local system.
You cannot change your local folder preferences while a file is still in an edit state. You must publish all edited files before you can change a directory preference.
Note
For Windows systems that require 8.3 file notation, you must use pathnames with this notation for your directory preferences. Because it occurs so frequently, Web Publisher handles one case for you automatically: If the folder you want to use for files during editing has Program Files as part of its pathname, Web Publisher translates it to Progra~1 for you.
The local folder preferences dialog box
The Font Chooser dialog box lets you define the font, font size, and font style to display in the window. Fonts in other windows and dialog boxes are not modifiable.
To close this dialog box, you must click the button in the top left corner. Clicking the Set button does not make the dialog box disappear.
This option is available for Netscape Communicator users only.
The Editor Preferences dialog box lists the defined editor applications that have been associated with specific file types. The default is to list the Composer component of Netscape Communicator as the HTML editor of choice.
If you want to associate another editor program with a specific file type, you can use the Set Editor Program dialog box to enter the file extension for the file and indicate the executable program file.
The set editor program preferences dialog box
The View menu provides several commands for viewing or redisplaying Web Publisher data. The first command, Properties, displays the Web Publisher Services page, which is the main page for viewing data about your files and folders. From this page, you can look at the version history for a file, check links, and view any custom properties that have been defined
The other View menu commands let you to change the sort sequence for the contents of the window, to reload and refresh the window data, and to show or hide the Web Publisher toolbar.
To view a file's properties through the Web Publisher Services page, do the following:
You can choose to sort the files and folders in various different sort sequences. There are two ways to do this:
You can choose to redraw the Web Publisher window to resolve display problems you may have with the current image of the window.
To redraw the window, do this:
You can reload the Web Publisher window to ensure that the window displays the latest set of files and their current status from the server. This ensures that you have all the current file management changes. In particular, this is useful to update the displayed owner and lock status of a file.
To reload the window, do this:
You can toggle the toolbar on and off:
This chapter describes the simpler commands on this menu, such as those for link management and for starting or stopping version control. The functional areas of text search, agent services, access permissions, and link management are described in separate chapters.
For text search, see Chapter 5, "Search." For agent services, see Chapter 6, "Agents." For access permissions, see Chapter 7, "Access control." For link management, see Chapter 8, "Managing links."
You can establish version control for any Web Publisher file. Once you do so, Web Publisher tracks any change made to the file's contents or properties. Version control can be started automatically, as when you upload a local file to the server with the Start Version Control option checked, or you can start it manually. When you start version control for a file that does not yet have an owner, you are assigned as its owner. If the file already has an owner, the ownership is not changed.
Regardless of how it was placed under version control, the first version is always version 1.1. Each subsequent time you edit and then publish the file, the version number increases by 0.1 increments.
Note
When you copy a file under version control, the newly copied file is not placed under version control. If you want version control for the file, you need to manually start version control for it.
There are two ways to manually start version control for a file. One method is as follows:
Alternatively, you can use the second method:
Version control not yet started
The file now has a stack icon next to it in the Web Publisher window. When you view the file's version history, you can see that the file now has a 1.1 version number.
You can stop version control for any file under version control. If you stop version control, the version history archive does not delete the previous history for this file, but you can't view it. If you later start version control again, Web Publisher adds the current server file to the version history archive as the latest version, incrementing the version number by 0.1 from the version number you had when you stopped version control.
For example, if you stopped a file at version 1.7 and made three edits without version control, when you started version control again for the file, Web Publisher puts the current server file into the archive as version 1.8. You can only track the last modification made to the server file. Earlier edits are unobtainable as separate versions.
To stop version control for a file, follow these steps:
The Help menu has two items to provide assistance for Web Publisher and to provide some basic product information.
You can access the Web Publisher User's Guide to get additional information about how to install the product, to find out more details about the Web Publisher functions and services, and to learn about using text search, agent services, access control, and link management.
To access the User's Guide, do the following:
You can access some basic information about Web Publisher, including the product's current version number, by viewing the About box for the product.