Setting up WordPress with Dreamweaver CS5 via a local connection

[tobeeornot]

Hi,

I am building my first wordpress themed site and am trying (unsuccessfully) to establish a local connection via testing server using Dreamweaver CS5 and WAMP. I am using Chris’ Lynda.com title, WordPress 3.0: Creating and Editing Custom Themes, where he uses a Blank theme and builds upon that to create a custom site using WP as a CMS. My problem is that Chris doesn’t set up a local network using Dreamweaver and it is a little confusing what steps I need to take in order to make that local connection align with DW.

So far I have dropped the relevant WordPress files into the WAMP www folder, and tried to point the files to the Blank theme when creating new dreamweaver site and establishing the local connection but that seems to miss the other WP files. Alternatively, I have tried selecting the www folder as the new Dreamweaver site but to no avail.

Be great if someone could guide me through the process.

[TheDoc]

It’s better if you think of DW as having nothing to do with the site itself – it’s just a text editor. All of your files for WordPress should be in the same folder, including your theme.

Then you just select that folder as your site’s root in Dreamweaver so you can see/edit the files.

[tobeeornot]

Thanks Doc. That is probably the way I should do it.

[standuncan]

And make sure your local folder and the testing folder are the same. I have done it before where the site is not in the xampp html folder (same as your wamp www folder) as long as the local root folder and testing root folder are the same one it should work to my knowledge, worked for me that way. And IIRC, I think when you go to setup your testing server, I think DW (depending on suite?) auto recognizes your local folder and places that as your testing folder too…

[tobeeornot]

Thanks Stan – good advice.

[tobeeornot]

I am still a bit stuck. After installing my site on DW and asking DW to Discover the dynamic files, I get an error message in DW: “Dynamic-related files could not be resolved because the site definition is not correct for this server”.

I am also finding I am unable to navigate between pages from the WP dashboard. Does this mean the links are broken?

[standuncan]

What version of DW are you using? (Right now) at work, I can only test using CS3, and in CS3 I just tested using WAMP. I set it as:

LOCAL root folder in: C:wampwwwtest
TESTING server folder: C:wampwwwtest (it auto-filled this field)

What do you have as the URL prefix?

Don’t know what else I can tell ya…

[tobeeornot]

Thanks – I appreciate your help.

Am using CS5. Maybe it is the way I configured the wordpress files in WAMP.

LOCAL root folder is: C:wampwwwmedia_five(name of company site)blog(renamed from wordress folder

The blank template theme is then contained within the themes folder.

I then set up wordpress using the following url:

http://localhost/media_five/

I set up the local server in DW as: C:wampwwwmedia_five

I then set it up as a local testing server using Mysql.

Any ideas?

[tobeeornot]

I have done some reading and it appears that the problem lies with DW having trouble keeping the connection when permalinks settings are changed in WP.

[reseller7]

>>I am building my first wordpress themed site and am trying (unsuccessfully) to establish a local connection via testing server using Dreamweaver CS5 and WAMP.<< I'm curious, why??? Why just get a hosting provider and install WP and themes with a few clicks?

[chrisburton]

@tobeeornot can you post the video I sent you for others to see

[tobeeornot]

No problem, Chris.

These vids are really quite helpful and cover the areas I addressed at the start of this topic:

Setting up Dreamweaver, WP and MAMP:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxxy3NsDspo

Setting up MAMP:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10fbwScPMtQ

Same principles to setting up WAMP.

[tobeeornot]

It is worth mentioning that my problems are still not quite over as I am unable to get the blank template working as a live connection in DW through a local connection in WAMP, despite getting the connection to work with the existing WP files.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[Author]

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