The Project Log

Large projects are sometimes made up of hundreds of documents that are shared between a team of people.  This type of situation could quickly become a nightmare if you can’t keep track of all of the separate files and the changes that have been made to them.  The Firework’s Project Log can assist with keeping your project organized by acting as a portal to all of your work documents.  It also cuts down on keystrokes and mouse clicks by allowing you to easily access the documents that you have stored in it.

Add documents to the Project Log by {Clicking} on the Panel’s Pop Out Menu and selecting "Add Files to Log…"  An "Open" dialog box will appear prompting you to select the files that you want to place in your Log.  Select the files, {Click} "OK" and you will see them listed in the panel. The Project Log not only gives you the files name but also the number of the frame that was last modified and the date of the modification. 

You can open a document by either {Double-Clicking} on the name of the document or highlighting the document name and {Clicking} the "Open" button at the bottom of the Panel. Either way is much quicker than going through the process of accessing your documents through the various tiers of the Menu Bar.

You can also quickly export your document with the default optimization settings by selecting "Export Again" from the Pop Out Menu. A dialog box will appear prompting you to navigate your way to the folder in which you want to place your exported document.

Get used to using the Project Log and place all of your frequently accessed documents in there.  It keeps your material in one central location no matter where it’s situated on your hard drive or development server.

A web page can, potentially, contain links to hundreds of internal and external pages. Keeping track of all these URLs can become a headache, especially, if you have to use the same one repeatedly. You could write all of them down on a piece of paper that you can refer to when needed or you could make a text file that contains them so you can cut an paste them into your document. Either way, it’s a labor intensive process that seemingly can’t be avoided. 

Fireworks has created a solution to this problem by providing the designer with the URL Library.  You can file all of your URL’s in this single panel and use them in multiple documents. 

To add a URL to your Library, type it into the field of the Current URL drop down menu and {Click} on the "Add URL" button. It will appear in the URL List and is now available to be used in any document that you need it in. You can apply by selecting a Hotspot or Slice Object in your Document Window and {Clicking} on the link that you want to use in the URL List of the URL Library.  If you check the Object Panel you will see that the Link has been applied to your selected element. We will be discussing Hotspots and Slice Objects in a later unit so for the time being it is only important to know that links can only be applied to them and no other content.

You can export and import URLs by way of the Panel’s Pop Out Menu.  Select "Export URLs" and Fireworks will save the URLs listed in your Library Panel as an HTML file. You can later import it into another document if you need it.

Any URL that you place in the Panel will remain there until you delete it no matter what project you happen to be working on. You must physically remove the URL’s you don’t use from the Library or, alternately, select "Clear Unused URLs" from the Panels Pop Out Menu.

Get in the habit of adding all of the URL’s you will need for a project right at the very beginning of the production process. It will save you a great deal of {Clicking} and typing time.