Adobe Dreamweaver * Working with assets

Assets panel overview
Add an asset to a document
Apply a color to text using the Assets panel
Apply a URL to an image or text using the Assets panel
Select and edit assets
Reuse assets in another site

Assets panel overview

Use the Assets panel (Window > Assets) to manage assets in the current site. The Assets panel displays assets for the site associated with the active document in the Document window.

Note: You must define a local site before you can view assets in the Assets panel.

Asset panel with Site list displayed. Category icons are at left, and preview area is above list.

The Assets panel provides two ways to view assets:

Site list: Shows all of the assets in your site, including colors and URLs that are used in any document in your site.
Favorites list: Shows only the assets you’ve explicitly chosen.
To switch between these two views, select either the Site or Favorites radio button above the preview area. (These two views are not available for the Templates and Library categories.)

Note: Most of the Assets panel operations work the same in both lists. There are a few tasks, however, that you can perform only in the Favorites list.

In both lists, assets fall into one of the following categories:

Images: Image files in GIF, JPEG, or PNG formats.
Colors: Colors used in documents and style sheets, including colors of text, backgrounds, and links.
URLs: External links in your current site documents, including FTP, gopher, HTTP, HTTPS, JavaScript, e‑mail (mailto), and local file (file://) links.
Flash: Files in any version of Adobe Flash. The Assets panel displays only SWF files (compressed files created with Flash), but not FLA (Flash source) files.
Shockwave: Files in any version of Adobe Shockwave.
Movies: QuickTime or MPEG files.
Scripts: JavaScript or VBScript files. Scripts in HTML files (rather than in independent JavaScript or VBScript files) do not appear in the Assets panel.
Templates: Master page layouts used on multiple pages. Modifying a template automatically modifies all pages attached to it.
Library items: Design elements that you use in multiple pages; when you modify a library item, all pages containing that item are updated.
Note: To appear in the Assets panel, a file must fall into one of these categories. Some other types of files are sometimes called assets, but they aren’t shown in the panel.

By default, assets in a category are listed alphabetically by name, but you can sort them by type and several other criteria. You can also preview assets and resize the columns and the preview area.

View an asset in the preview area

Select the asset in the Assets panel.

For example, when you select a movie asset, the preview area shows an icon. To view the movie, click the Play button (the green triangle) in the upper-right corner of the preview area.

Display assets in a category

Click a category icon on the left side of the Assets panel.

Sort assets

Click a column heading.

For example, to sort the list of images by type (so that all the GIF images are together, all the JPEG images are together, and so on), click the Type column heading.

Resize a column

Drag the line separating two column headings.

Resize the preview area

Drag the splitter bar (between the preview area and the list of assets) up or down.

Refresh the Assets panel

It can take a few seconds to create the Site list because Dreamweaver must first read the site cache.

Certain changes don’t appear immediately in the Assets panel. For instance, when you add or remove an asset from your site, the changes don’t appear in the Assets panel until you refresh the Site list by clicking the Refresh Site List button. If you add or remove an asset outside Dreamweaver—using Windows Explorer or the Finder, for example—you must rebuild the site cache to update the Assets panel.

When you remove the only instance of a particular color or URL in your site, or when you save a new file that contains a color or URL that isn’t already used in the site, the changes don’t appear in the Assets panel until you refresh the Site list.

To refresh the Site list manually, click the Refresh Site List button . Dreamweaver creates the site cache or updates it as necessary.
To refresh the Site list and manually rebuild the site cache, right-click (Windows) or Command-click (Macintosh) in the Assets list, then select Refresh Site List.

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Add an asset to a document

You can insert most assets into a document by dragging them into the Code view or Design view in the Document window, or by using the Insert button in the panel. You can either insert colors and URLs or apply them to selected text in the Design view. (URLs can also be applied to other elements in the Design view, such as images.)

In Design view, place the insertion point where you want the asset to appear.
In the Assets panel, select from the asset category buttons at the left.
Note: Select any category except Templates. A template is applied to an entire document; it can’t be inserted into a document.
Select either Site or Favorites at the top of the panel, then select the asset.
There are no Site or Favorites lists for library items; skip this step if you’re inserting a library item.
Do one of the following:
- Drag the asset from the panel to the document.
  
  You can drag scripts into the head content area of the Document window; if that area isn’t visible, select View > Head Content.
- Select the asset in the panel and click Insert.
  
  If the inserted asset is a color, it applies to text appearing after the insertion point.

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Apply a color to text using the Assets panel

The Assets panel shows the colors you’ve already applied to various elements, such as text, table borders, backgrounds, and so on.

Select the text in the document.
In the Assets panel, select the Colors category .
Select the desired color and click Apply.

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Apply a URL to an image or text using the Assets panel

Select the text or image.
In the Assets panel, select the URLs category in either the Sites or Favorites view, depending on where the URL is stored.
Note: URLs for your site’s files are stored in the Sites view by default. The Favorites view holds URLs that you have added yourself.
Select the URL.
Do one of the following:
- Drag the URL from the panel to the selection in the Design view.
- Select the URL, then click Insert.

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Select and edit assets

The Assets panel allows you to select multiple assets at once. It also provides a quick way to begin editing assets.

Select multiple assets

In the Assets panel, select an asset.
Select the other assets in one of the following ways:
- Shift-click to select a consecutive series of assets.
- Control-click (Windows) or Command-click (Macintosh) to add an individual asset to the selection (whether or not it’s adjacent to the existing selection). Control-click or Command-click a selected asset to deselect it.

Edit an asset

When you edit an asset in the Assets panel, the behavior varies according to the asset type. For some assets, such as images, you use an external editor, which opens automatically if you have defined an editor for that asset type. You can edit colors and URLs in the Favorites list only. When you edit templates and library items, you make the changes within Dreamweaver.

In the Assets panel, do one of the following:
- Double-click the asset.
- Select the asset, then click the Edit button .
  
  Note: If the asset must be edited in an external editor and one doesn’t open automatically, select Edit > Preferences (Windows) or Dreamweaver > Preferences (Macintosh), select the File Types/Editors category, and make sure you have defined an external editor for that asset type.
Make your changes.
When you finish, do one of the following:
- If the asset is file-based (anything other than a color or URL), save it (in the editor you used), and close it.
- If the asset is a URL, click OK in the Edit URL dialog box.
- Note: If the asset is a color, the color picker closes automatically after you pick a color. To dismiss the color picker without picking a color, press Esc.

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Reuse assets in another site

The Assets panel shows all the assets (of recognized types) in your current site. To use an asset from the current site in another site, you must copy it to the other site. You can copy an individual asset, a set of individual assets, or an entire Favorites folder at once.

You may need to locate the file in the Files panel that corresponds to an asset in the Assets panel before you transfer the asset to or from your remote site.

Note: The Files panel might show a different site from the one that the Assets panel shows. This is because the Assets panel is associated with the active document.

Locate an asset file in the Files panel

In the Assets panel, select the category of the asset you want to find.
Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Macintosh) the asset’s name or icon in the Assets panel, then select Locate In Site from the context menu.
Note: Locate In Site is unavailable for colors and URLs, which do not correspond to files in the site.

The Files panel opens, with the asset file selected. The Locate In Site command locates the file corresponding to the asset itself; it does not locate files that use that asset.

Copy assets from the Asset panel to another site

In the Assets panel, select the category of the asset you want to copy.
Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Macintosh) one or more assets in either the Site list or Favorites list, select Copy To Site, and select the target site name from the submenu listing all the sites you’ve defined.
Note: In the Favorites list, you can copy a Favorites folder as well as individual assets.

The assets are copied to their corresponding locations in the target site. Dreamweaver creates new folders in the target site’s hierarchy as needed. The assets are also added to the target site’s Favorites list.

Note: If the asset you copied is a color or a URL, it appears only in the target site’s Favorites list. Because colors and URLs don’t correspond to files, there’s no file to copy into the other site.