Environment Sidebar

The Environment sidebar allows you to manage Spider Writer projects, Visual SourceSafe projects, and data connections. See each section below for detailed help on what the treeview and list do for the various environments. The Environment menu contains numerous commands that apply to this sidebar.

Spider Writer Projects Spider Writer projects allow you to easily organize the web pages that make up your sites and publish them out to a remote server. It also brings forth additional features such as date/time stamps, file inserts, and the ability to browse project documents through a specified URL. See the Project Fundamentals topic for more help on Spider Writer projects. Project Folders Treeview The Spider Writer Projects root node of the treeview displays all the projects currently open by Spider Writer. It shows all the projects and their subfolders in a tree format. Clicking on a folder in the tree displays all the project files in that folder in the list at the bottom of the sidebar.  Context Menu: The New Project command starts the New Project Wizard, which takes you through the steps of creating new projects. The Open Project command displays a dialog box for opening an existing project. Close Project closes the currently selected Spider Writer project. Synchronize Project starts the Synchronization Wizard, which aids in Spider Writer project file management. The Publish Project command starts the Publish Wizard, which publishes Spider Writer project files to a local directory structure or to a remote web site. The Project Properties command displays the Project Properties dialog for the currently selected Spider Writer project. Project Files List The list displays the files in the currently selected project folder. Double-click on a file to open it. Context Menu: The Open in New Document command opens the selected documents in Spider Writer. The Open All Documents command opens all the documents in the current project folder. The Insert Into Document command inserts the selected document into the current document. The Edit File command edits the selected document in its default application. The Create Hyperlink To command creates a link to the selected document. The Remove File from Project command removes the selected files from the current project. The Publish Selected Files command starts the Publish Wizard, and publishes the selected files. The Refresh command refreshes the project file list. The Rename command renames the selected project file. The Properties command opens the properties window for the selected file.
Visual SourceSafe Projects Visual SourceSafe projects allow you to connect to Microsoft Visual SourceSafe databases. This product provides excellent source control management features and if very useful in multi-user environments. Spider Writer's integration with Visual SourceSave lets you check in and out files, among other operations described below. See the Visual SourceSafe Project Fundamentals topic for more help on Visual SourceSafe projects. Project Folders Treeview The Visual SourceSafe Projects root node of the treeview displays all the Visual SourceSafe projects currently linked to by Spider Writer. It shows all the projects and their subfolders in a tree format. Clicking on a folder in the tree displays all the project files in that folder in the list at the bottom of the sidebar.  Context Menu: The Open SourceSafe Project command starts the Visual SourceSafe Project Wizard which is used to connect to a Visual SourceSafe database. Close SourceSafe Project closes the currently selected Visual SourceSafe project. The Change Working Folder command allows you to set the local working folder for the selected project. When you download files from the SourceSafe database, they are placed in the local working folder that you specify. The Project Properties command displays the Project Properties dialog for the currently selected Visual SourceSafe project. Project Files List The list displays the files in the currently selected project folder. Double-click on a file to open it. Context Menu: The Open in New Document command opens the selected documents in Spider Writer. The Open All Documents command opens all the documents in the current project folder. The Insert Into Document command inserts the selected document into the current document. The Create Hyperlink To command creates a link to the selected document. The Get Latest Version command retrieves the latest version of the selected files from the server. The Check Out command checks out the selected files so that you may work on them. The Check In command checks in your local copies of the selected files and posts any changes to the server. The Undo Check Out command removes the check out status on the selected files however it doesn't post your changes to the server. The Remove Local Copy command removes the selected files from the local working folder if they exist. The Compare With Master Copy command checks to see if there are differences between the master copy of a file and the local version stored in the local working folder. The Refresh command refreshes the project file list. The Properties command opens the properties window for the selected file.
Data Connections Spider Writer data connections allow you to connect to various types of databases. Once connected, you can enumerate assorted database objects and use the data objects in a number of ways. Each type of data provider has different capabilities. The Connection Wizard window describes the capabilities of each data provider from within the wizard. See the Data Connection Fundamentals topic for more help on data connections. The Generate Simple ASP VBScript SQL Query with Selected Columns command (see below) is a very quick and powerful way of generating HTML tables of simple data queries from a data source in an ASP page. Database Objects Treeview The Data Connections root node of the treeview displays all the data connections currently set up in Spider Writer. It shows various database object containers (such as a Tables list) and objects in a tree format. Clicking on an item in the tree displays all the database objects in the list at the bottom of the sidebar that the item contains. Context Menu: The New Data Connection command starts the Connection Wizard which is used to connect to various databases and create data connections. Remove Data Connection removes the currently selected data connection. The Open Table command is available if you open the context menu off of a table or view. This feature opens the table or view in the SQL Query Builder and displays its contents. Data Object List The list displays the database objects contained in the currently selected item in the treeview. Context Menu: The Insert Connection String into Document command inserts the connection string of the selected data connection into the current document. The Insert into Document command inserts the names of all the currently selected database objects into the current document. The Generate Simple SQL Query with Selected Columns command instantly creates a SQL query that selects the currently selected table or view columns into an HTML table. When the button is pressed, a menu appears, allowing for the selection of which scripting language to use for the query. Spider Writer currently supports ASP VBScript, ASP JScript, and CFML. The Generate Result Set SQL Query with Selected Columns command instantly creates a SQL result set that lists out the contents of the first record from a query of the currently selected table or view into an HTML table. Spider Writer aids in building a WHERE clause for the query. When the button is pressed, a menu appears, allowing for the selection of which scripting language to use for the query. Spider Writer currently supports ASP VBScript, ASP JScript, and CFML. The View Source command views the source of a stored procedure or view. The Refresh command refreshes the data object list.