File Manager

You can access to the File Manager by clicking on the "File Manager" tab at the bottom side of the window:

It lets you manage all of the files that be compiled into your publication; it behaves like Windows Explorer.

 

You have a global view of what will be inside your publication. The Folder tree displays the different sub-folders available - like if you were using a FTP program to manage files on a server.

To view the contents of a folder, just select it in the Folder tree and its contents will be listed. Note that HTML Executable can take some seconds for loading the entire file list when you display it for the first time (if your sub-folder contains a large amount of files).

The index page is always in the Publication Root folder (which is actually the source folder). It is shown thanks to a small house icon (as you can see on the screenshot).

If you select the "All Files (real paths)" node in the Folder tree, HTML Executable will list all files to be compiled with their full path.

If you select the "All Files (virtual paths)" node in the Folder tree, HTML Executable will list all files to be compiled with their virtual path (i.e. the path that follows the server or domain name in a URL), see below.

Please keep in mind that HTML Executable stores absolute paths in projects (full path including drive, directory...). Once a project is started, you should not move the entire source files to another directory (if you have to, then use the menu command "clone a project"). If it happens anyway, you will be prompted to select the new source folder and the program will try to correct all file path references.

About Virtual Paths

Virtual paths are paths that follows the server or domain name in a URL; we use virtual paths in publications because they work like servers: to access to a compiled file, you need to use its URL.

For instance, if you have this URL: ghe://heserver/images/picture1.gif

  • ghe:// is the custom protocol used by HTML Executable.
  • heserver is the name of our custom server (the publication).
  • images is the virtual path
  • picture1.gif is the filename.

Note that HTML Executable automatically manages virtual paths itself (see below); all features related to virtual paths are only designed for advanced users.

Managing files

All source files are generally added automatically when HTML Executable creates your project. But you can at any time add new files, folders or source wildcards to your list manually; or better let HTML Executable do this task itself thanks to the powerful Source File List Update (previously Live Folder update) option.

You can manage your files thanks to the button bar below or using the mouse's context menu (right click on the file list):

Each operation is more described below:

Adding files

To add files to the list, press the Add button and select an option: you may add single or multiple files, entire folders, virtual folders and custom wild cards. Just select the appropriate action when you have just clicked the Add button:

  • Add Files
  • Add Folder
  • Add Source Wildcard
  • Add Virtual Folder

For example, selecting "Add Wildcard" will open this window:

You can enter a path and specify which files should be added using a mask: in the situation shown on the screenshot only .html files from c:\my documents\heexample will be added.

Or you may rather add entire folders (including their sub-folders or not) using the "Add Folder" command.

When added files are not in the source folder or one of its children, you need to specify the publication path (called virtual path) which should be used to access to these files once they are compiled in the publication. HTML Executable lets you determine these "virtual" directories thanks to the following window (which is automatically shown when adding files):

The real paths appear on the left; on the right you can determine the related virtual path (a.k.a publication path).

By default, HTML Executable automatically tries to find the best virtual paths. But you can change this yourself: just select one or more files, then click "Modify Path". You will be prompted to enter the new virtual path and confirm your changes.

Once you have clicked OK, HTML Executable adds them to the publication's file list and this is the result:

You can see that the virtual paths "moreinfo" and "headers" appear as children of the Publication Root, although the files that were added do not belong to the source folder.

This option is powerful because you can actually add files from any folder and determine virtual paths yourself. The main advantage is that you do not need to copy the different source files to the source folder first in order to have them be compiled.

Adding virtual folders

If you wish to add blank virtual folders to your publication, click Add and Add Virtual Folder. You will be prompted to enter its name, and it is then created as a child of the selected folder (if no folder is available or selected, then it is created as a child of the publication root). You can then move files to that folder using drag/drop operations.

Important: if you do not place any file inside a blank virtual folder, it will be automatically removed next time when your project is loaded.

Drag/drop operations

HTML Executable supports drag/drop operations:

  • from Windows Explorer and other shell windows. Select all the files in the explorer, drag them onto the manager's file list and they are automatically added to the list. You can launch Windows Explorer by clicking on the Explorer button. You can be prompted to enter the virtual path for the dropped files as explained above.
  • in the File Manager itself: you can move files from a virtual folder to another (thus their virtual paths can be changed the way you want). Highlight the file(s) you want to move in the list, then drag and drop them onto the destination folder in the Folder Tree. Note that real paths are not modified (source files are not physically moved).

Removing files

To remove one or more files from the list, select it/them and press the Remove button.

You can select multiple files by pressing Ctrl+Click or Shift+Click. You may also use the Select All menu command from the context menu.

Finally the Clear button lets you remove the entire folder currently selected in the Folder Tree. This includes all files and subfolders which are children of that selected folder. This operation cannot be undone, so be careful!

Notes:

  • you cannot remove the index page from the publication.
  • you cannot clear the publication root: use the Remove operation instead.
  • removing files does not delete files from your hard disk. This only "removes" files from the publication.

Sorting Files

HTML Executable displays information about each file: filename (or file path/virtual path), file type, size... If you need to sort your files according to a specific data (for example, file types), just click on the associated column. You may also resize the different columns.

Source File List Update Operation

Generally source files need to be updated: you can add new files to the source folder, update existing ones or even remove non-used ones. In other words, the contents of the source folder may vary and consequently the file list kept by HTML Executable may be outdated.

You can therefore use the File List Update action. This action forces HTML Executable to scan the source folder (and its subfolders) and to detect all changes that happened. It then compares results and determines the appropriate actions to take:

  • if new files are found (not in the file lists), they are added. You can optionally be prompted to specify the new virtual paths (see the Environment Options).
  • if some source files are newer, HTML Executable updates its file lists.
  • if some source files are not found (you could have deleted them), they are removed from the file lists. You can also be prompted to confirm the operation (see the Environment Options).

You consequently do not need to manage the file lists yourself manually.

There are several ways to cause a File List update:

  • click the Update button in the File Manager.
  • press F5 or select "Edition|Source File List Update...".
  • configure automatic File List updates using the Environment Options (when a project is loaded, compiled; or enable source folder monitoring...).

Notes:

  1. The File List Update only takes account of files in the source folder (or subfolders)! If you have files from other folders, the operation will ignore them.
  2. HTML Executable will store the changes in the Project Changes/Notes registry. You can access it by pressing F6 or selecting "Edition|Edit Project Notes/Changes".
  3. You can exclude some files from being added to the file list (based on their extension): go to the Environment Options.

Editing files

Select a file in the list and click the Edit button.

  • If the selected file is a HTML-compatible page, then the internal HTML editor will be displayed.
  • Otherwise the program registered with the file will be opened to edit it (this is exactly like if you were double-clicking on the file in Windows Explorer).

More information about the internal HTML editor

Setting file and HTML page properties

You can configure some options regarding compression, security for the source files. Select a file in the list and click the Properties button (or double-click on it). The file properties editor will then be displayed.

More information about the file properties.

Using the context menu

All of the previous commands are also available from the context menu: click on the list with the mouse's right button to display it. It contains additional commands not directly available such as "Select All" or "File Information". The last command gives you global information about the publication files of the selected folder (total size, number of files...). Finally the "Shell Properties" command will display the "Properties" dialog available in Windows Explorer (lets you access to the properties of the selected file).