Link Management with Adobe GoLive
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Media File Use

The In & Out Links palette isn't only for viewing pages. If you select an image (or sound) file, you can see all pages on which that file is used. (They appear on the left/right.)

External Link Use

The In & Out Links palette also shows you link usage. Select any Reference in the External tab and it shows you all pages on which that Reference is used. (Which is helpful when an external link is no longer valid.)

Here (below), you see a Reference that is not used. It's either been unlinked and is left over, or it was placed there for future use but was never needed.

Here (below), you see a bad link that is used once. In order to determine the significance of it, which can then help determine a replacement destination, the Reference is viewed and the using-page is discovered. The user can now open that page from the Files tab.

Link Changes

Related Reading Dreamweaver in a Nutshell A Desktop Quick Reference By Heather Williamson, Bruce A. Epstein

The In & Out Links palette goes beyond reporting links. It enables you to alter the link destinations.

For example:

• When a page is selected, change it's background image by Pointing and Shooting from the image reported to the replacement image in the Files tab.
• When an image is selected, replace all uses of that image (or just a few) with another image by Pointing and Shooting from the selected image to the replacement image in the Files tab. Before updating every page, GoLive asks you if you want to do so, and presents a list of pages that are affected. You can uncheck any page on which you want to change the image.
• When an external Reference is selected, change that link destination to any other by Pointing and Shooting from the selected Reference to a replacement Reference in the External tab.

Another Way to Do Link Changes

When you're out to swap any one particular file with another, another way you can do this is to change all links to references. To do this, choose Site>Change References or the Change All References button on the toolbar. (Both are available whenever the Site Window is active.) Then Point and Shoot to the old file and the new one, as shown here.

Or, if you begin with the file to be changed selected, you only need to Point and Shoot to the new file.

Navigation View

Another way to see which pages link in and out of a page is within Navigation view. To get there, choose Diagram>Navigation, then the Links tab. Here, there are several ways to view your site's hierarchy. Again, you can filter out various files. You can also choose whether you see file names or page names, generic icons, thumbnails, etc. In this view, double-clicking a page opens that page. You can also see unlinked pages and much more, within the various panes that are not shown here.

Also in the Navigation view is the Navigation tab, which shows the overall hierarchy of the site, rather than actual links.

Missing & Orphaned Files

Yet one more way to see what's what in your site is to check for missing or Orphaned files.

An Orphan is a file that's elsewhere on your hard drive or mounted disk, but not in the GoLive Site Window. Since an Orphan file is still on your hard drive, it's accessible and therefore still shows up on your page as you work. But since it's not in the Files tab, it won't make it to the server and your users won't see it. To see Orphans, click the double-headed arrow at the lower right of the Site Window when in the Files tab. Then click the Errors tab in that now-unhidden side of the Site Window. If you have any orphans, they'll appear within a folder called Orphans. If you don't, you won't see this folder.

It's easy to fix the problem. Just drag the Orphaned file over to the Files tab, dropping it anywhere you'd like, as is shown here. GoLive asks you to allow the update, and copies the file into the site. That Orphan then goes away.

A Missing file is more of a problem, as GoLive cannot find this file anywhere on your hard drive (or other mounted volumes) and therefore cannot work with it at all. It's more evident, as it doesn't appear on that page (presenting a generic icon instead), but it also appears in the Errors tab in a Missing Files folder. The only way to fix this issue is to find the file yourself and add it to the Files tab. (GoLive's great at tracking things but its powers don't include the psychic yet.)

Components

GoLive also has another feature, called Components, that can can also help you greatly by enabling you to create one set of links, and then use them on multiple pages. But that's another story.

And thus ends our link management tour...

Deborah Shadovitz is a Mac user-turned-specialist, who also designs Web sites. Among other things she teaches and writes about GoLive.

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