Local and remote Web sites
Usually professional Web designers don't create or modify the files on the actual server, but keep everything on their computer to work on. When the site is ready to publish, they copy all of the files at once to the server. When they need to make changes to a file, they copy the file from the server to their local computer, make the changes, and copy the new file back to the server.

The copy of the site on the local computer is referred to as a local site and the copy on the server is referred to as a remote site. The local site is a set of files and folders on your local computer that correspond to the Web site that is on a server for people to view.

This approach has several advantages over modifying the server files directly. In particular, you can test your changes in the local site before transferrring them to the server, and you can change the entire remote site once rather than changing one page at a time.

Dreamweaver is designed to be used with this sort of local/remote site setup. It is possible to use Dreamweaver to modify files directly on the server, but it's not recommended.

Dreamweaver helps you organize your site by requiring that everything resides in one folder. That way, the local site structure is an exact copy of the remote site, so there's never any confusion about whether the remote site is set up the same way as the local one. Organizing the local site structure
When creating a site, start by setting up the basic structure of the site on your local disk. (If you already have a local site on your computer, a site that you created outside of Dreamweaver, see the Editing an existing local site article.) If you already have a remote site on a Web server and you want to use Dreamweaver to edit that site, see the Editing an existing remote site article.)

Organizing your site carefully from the start can save you time and prevent frustration later on. To set up a site, create a folder on your local disk to hold all the files and subfolders for your site (including HTML files, image files, Cascading Style Sheets, and so on), then create and edit documents within that main folder. The folder that contains everything in your local site is called the local root folder.

Organizing the local site structure
When creating a site, start by setting up the basic structure of the site on your local disk. (If you already have a local site on your computer, a site that you created outside of Dreamweaver, see the Editing an existing local site article.) If you already have a remote site on a Web server and you want to use Dreamweaver to edit that site, see the Editing an existing remote site article.)

Organizing your site carefully from the start can save you time and prevent frustration later on. To set up a site, create a folder on your local disk to hold all the files and subfolders for your site (including HTML files, image files, Cascading Style Sheets, and so on), then create and edit documents within that main folder. The folder that contains everything in your local site is called the local root folder.

Here are some suggestions for creating an organized site:

Put all your sites in one place. Create a folder named Sites, and then create local root folders inside that folder. Use a separate local root folder for each site you're working on.

Break down your site into categories. Put related pages in the same folder. For example, your company press releases, contact information, and job postings might all go in one folder, and your online catalog pages in another folder. Use subfolders where necessary. This type of organization will make your site easier to maintain and navigate.

Decide where to put dependent files such as images and sound files. It's convenient to place all your images, for example, in one location, so that when you want to insert an image into a page you know where to find it. Designers sometimes place all of the non-HTML items to be used on a site in a folder called assets; you can create subfolders of the assets folder for images, sounds, and so on.

Use the same folder structure for local and remote sites. Your local site and your remote Web site should have exactly the same folder structure. If you create a local site using Dreamweaver and then copy, or upload, everything to the remote site, Dreamweaver ensures that the remote site's structure is a precise duplicate of the local site.