Anansi enables you to upload your new and changed files with only one click. Or to replace all document colors by new ones. Without the Project Manager this wouldn't be possible. The Project Manager keeps account of all the files belonging to your homepage and of all the new and changed files since your last upload.
Each project can be given its own email address, that will be used for the email links and forms. You can also define a default style for the background and the fontcolors.
A project is the whole of all the files that make up your homepage. Most internetusers only have one provider and therefore one location for their homepage. However, the Project Manager will support an unlimited amount of projects.
Use File| New Project File and File| Open Project File. As long as you use these two functions, the Project Manager will know which files belong to the homepage and which files need to be uploaded by the next FTP-session.
File| Add File and File| Remove File do what they say. Add File will add files of an already existing homepage to your project. Remove File removes files from the project.
Forget File| New File and File| Open File. These functions should only be used in case you want to do something without affecting your homepage.
Projects are defined by File| Project Manager. Each project has a name, which can be renamed anytime. The Project Root Directory stands for the starting directory of your homepage. A sample:
As soon as you have started working with your project, you won't be able to change the Project Root Directory again. In some cases it will be practically impossible. Consider having files in c:\windows\homepage and then trying to change the Project Root Directory to c:\windows\homepage\welcome. If you want to try, go ahead. Anansi will forget all the files belonging to the project.
You can use drag and drop from Windows' filemanager if you need to import many existing files. Remember, don't drop them at Anansi's main window, this will be interpreted as an attempt to link. Instead open the File| Open Project File window. Now you can drop all you want, assuming it fits the root directory of the current project.
FTP settings for each project are to be found under File, Project Manager and then the FTP section.. If you're new to FTP, a short explanation follows.
In this example I will use my own settings. As FTP address I use the domainname of my provider. My username for FTP is the same as the one I use for logging in with my provider. The only thing I needed to know is that I had to use a special upload directory by the name of www. Ask your own provider about your special upload directory, if there is any.
Now, that's not that hard, is it?If your restricted to some kind of DOS/ Windows server that only accepts short filenames, you'd better disable the automatic htm-to-html renaming. This can be done by opening the file anansi.ini with Notepad and adding the following line to the WebManager section:
HTMtoHTML=0
The style settings determine the default values for new project documents: background color, background image, text color and the various link colors. Filling in the style settings is not required, it's just meant to make things easier for you.
The settings will appear in new documents after applying the Basic Structure Assistant.
These settings are not that important. The first two determine the opening directories of the File Open Dialog. I find this useful because I use separate directories for my images. The WWW Address - if defined - is used for displaying filenames as if you're already on the web.
The Default HTML Directory will be especially useful in case you're migrating existing files to the project with File| Add File.