Expression Web 3 FTP Publishing

Author: Chris Leeds, Microsoft MVP
Web Site: http://ExpressionWebStepByStep.com

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With the release of Expression Studio 3 at hand, it is a great time to start getting into some of the changes you’ll find in Expression Web. Some of the most significant changes are in the FTP publishing features. Not only has it been changed from a standpoint of how a user accesses it, but its default behavior and underpinnings have been changed radically, for the better.

For more than a decade, web designers and developers using Microsoft products have had a consistent experience in publishing. It’s always been: File, Publish, and so on.

In Expression Web 3 you’ll find it in Site, Publishing or Site, Publishing Settings.

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For this example exercise I have set up a site using one of the built in Expression Web Site Templates and I’ll publish it to an FTP site that I use for demos of my ContentSeed application. Your settings will be different.  Contact your host if you need clarification on such items as Default folder, Username, Password, etc.

Let’s walk through an example of FTP publishing in Expression Web 3, taking time to look at the major features and improvements.

Publishing Connection Settings: Connection Type

1. With a Site open in Expression Web 3 click Site, then Publishing Settings to open the Site Settings dialog and the Publishing tab.
2. In the Site Settings dialog click Add. The Connection Settings dialog opens.

   

3. In the Name field I’ll type FTPexample. I’ll leave the Connection Type at its default FTP setting.

Connection Types

Let’s take a moment to look at the Connection Types available in Expression Web 3.

You’ll find six different types:

• FTP, File Transfer Protocol, the most common and oldest of all the available publishing methods and the one we’re working with in this example.
• FrontPage Server Extensions, often referred to as HTTP publishing. This method requires that FrontPage Server Extensions are installed on the server and relies on your site’s Metadata to keep tabs on which files have been published and when. FrontPage Server Extensions are no longer supported and will be phased out by hosts eventually.
• WebDAV, a set of extensions to the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) that allows users to edit and manage files collaboratively. For more information see http://webdav.org.
• File System, which is used to publish a site from one disk location to another and is very useful for moving sites around in your local computer or shared disk locations for purposes of backup and so on.
• SFTP, SSH File Transfer Protocol
• FTPS, FTP over SSL

Most importantly, you will see two new arrivals: SFTP and FTPS. Since these are completely new in Expression Web, they deserve a little extra attention and explanation.

Secure FTP Connection Options

The FTP protocol does not provide any data encryption during file transfer. That means that all data is sent in the clear, including usernames, passwords, and file contents. Someone on the same network could use a packet sniffer to access the data. You can secure your data during transmission by using either SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol) or FTPS (FTP over SSL).

FTPS and SFTP are not “default” set-ups with most hosts. If you’re interested in, or required to use the enhanced security afforded by these methods, you should contact your host and see what they have available. In most cases you will use FTPS since it’s much more common to install an SSL certificate for a site than to provide Secure Shell access.

For former FrontPage users, these new options—FTPS and SFTP—are very important, because FrontPage Server Extensions are beginning to vanish as an option, along with their inherent encryption of the Username and Password, plus the ease of publishing via HTTPS.These new options provide the user community with a viable replacement for that enhanced level of transfer security.

Publishing Connection Settings: Location, Credentials, Settings

1. In the Location group I’ll enter ftp://PHPseeds.com (your location will be different).
2. In the Directory field I’ll enter phpseeds.com/FTPexample. There is no folder named FTPexample, but Expression Web will create it upon publishing.

   Note: Your entry in the Directory field depends on how your host has set up your FTP account. If you’re not sure what to enter, check with your hosting company first. Some common directories to publish to are: wwwroot, public_html, and so on.
   
   Because this is an example, you’ll want to be sure to keep the files segregated from your active site, so choose a directory accordingly.

3. In the Credentials group I’ll enter my User name and Password that I use for publishing. If you’re unsure of what yours is, you’ll need to contact your host.
4. In the Settings field I’ll leave the Maximum simultaneous connections at its default of 4 and leave Use Passive FTP selected.

   

   Note: You can upload multiple files to the server simultaneously, dramatically reducing the publishing time.

5. Click Add when you have completed the settings.

Adding the Publishing Destination

After you finish editing the connection settings, you’re ready to add it as a publishing destination for future use.

You’ll see your new destination listed in the Site Settings dialog in Publishing Destinations. It’s plural because with Expression Web 3 you can have multiple publishing destinations, which is extremely helpful if you’ve got a staging location and final publically visible publishinglocation, andmaybe an additional location for archive purposes, and a number of other reasons.It’s a very good feature for a professional user.

Publishing Destination and Publishing Options

1. In the Site Settings dialog click Add to add the destination.

   

2. In the Options section, choose the options you want to publish with and click OK.

Important: Use the Optimize HTML during publishing option with care, as it performs a fairly complex set of operations. It can strip all HTML comments and other application-specific artifacts.

If you are using metadata locally or relying on application-specific features such as Dynamic Web Templates or Save-Time Includes, be very careful with this option. The result could be a site on the server that you can’t simply publish down to your local computer and pick up where you left off.

Starting a Publishing Session

After you have set up a Publishing destination by choosing your connection settings and publishing options, you are ready to publish your site.

1. On the Site menu, click Publishing. Your workspace will change to Publishing view.

   
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   With your User Interface appearing similar to the image above, it’s now time to connect to the destination and then publish into it.
   

2. At the top of the Publishing view, click the Connect icon to the right of the "Connect to" drop-down.

   
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3. When prompted, click OK on the server log in dialog that will appear.

   Once you’ve connected to the remote website, your workspace will show the familiar Remote/Local panes.

   
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   Unlike previous versions where the publishing options and triggers were at the bottom right of the Workspace, all of the common publishing elements are on the toolbar above the workspace:

   

   • Connect To shows the remote site in use,
   • Connect connects to the destination shown in the Connect To field,
   • Disconnect logs out of the destination,
   • Add adds a new destination, and
   • Stop stops a transfer, but does not disconnect from the destination.
4. Click the local to remote arrow between the local and remote panes.

Publishing

You’ll find three arrows in the space between the local and remote panes:Local to Remote, Remote to Local, and Synchronize.

When the transfer begins, notice the Publishing Status pane at the bottom of the workspace.

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This pane is tabbed across the bottom for:

• Queue: files currently being published,
• Failed: files which failed to publish,
• Completed: verifies all published files, and
• Log: shows a comprehensive log for the publishing session.

This pane also reveals something new: you can see with a visual scale which files are being published and what percentage has already been published. Since Expression Web 3 is very fast, you’ll notice them more when the application reaches a folder of images. Text files (HTML, PHP, ASPX, etc.) upload so quickly that they’re hardly noticeable.

Another point to take note of is that you can see multiple files being uploaded simultaneously. This makes a huge difference in overall publish time.

Another benefit that doesn’t get mentioned much is this; if you’re keeping your local web organized using Metadata, and you probably should, using a third-party FTP program uploads the Metadata files along with the visible files and increases upload time greatly. Expression Web doesn’t suffer from this issue.

Finishing the Publishing Session by Checking the Site in a Browser

1. Click the default file in the remote pane and then click the Preview button on the Common toolbar.

   
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2. Expression Web will display a dialog prompting you to set up a Custom Preview URL.

   
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   Click Yes. The Site Settings dialog opens showing the Preview tab.

3. Since this FTP publish will result in an HTTP location of http://phpseeds.com/FTPExample, that’s what I entered in the Custom URL field.

   

   Click OK.

4. The site opens via its http://address:

   
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   Note: In some cases a particular computer’s security settings will not allow the application to rewrite the URL and you’ll be directed to the FTP address. In this case you can simply edit the address in the browser’s address bar and visit your page via that method.

Conclusion

I’ve been using Microsoft Web authoring and publishing software for more than 10 years. This change in FTP publishing is one of the most significant I’ve ever seen in the product line. One would assume that since the FrontPage Server Extensions which make HTTP publishing possible are being phased out, the Expression Web development team put this level of improvement to ease transition away from HTTP publishing and provide users with a viable FTP alternative. I think it does.

Chris Leeds is a long-time Microsoft MVP and the author of two Microsoft Press books about Expression Web ( http://ExpressionWebStepByStep.com). Besides writing about and using Expression Web, Chris is also the inventor of ContentSeed ( http://ContentSeed.com) a very simple Content Management System that enables end users to be able to edit content on their web site with nothing more than a browser.