Is anyone out there still using Adobe Dreamweaver in 2018? I am. It's my text editor of choice at work because 1) it was given to me to use, and 2) it seamlessly puts my files from my local environment to the production server. One of the features I've recently discovered, and love to use now, is how to synchronize files. It took away that pain-staking effort of comparing orphan and revised copy files between those two servers. The thing I didn't know was that I could delete those files without having to actually get or put anything on the production server. All I wanted to do was delete files that were no longer needed in production.

How I Synchronize Files to Delete

1. Right-click on the folder that I want to target and synchronize. Select "Synchronize.."
2. From the Synchronize with Remote Server dialog, under "Direction", choose "Put newer files to remote".
3. Check the "Delete remote files" checkbox. This is the important part. I think "Put" and "Get" are irrelevant for what we're trying to accomplish here.
4. Click "Preview..."
5. The "Synchronize" dialog will appear, listing what files will be deleted. If you have files that are identified under the "Put" Action, of which you aren't ready to put yet, just select all those files, and use the circle-backslash symbol in the bottom left to ignore those files.
6. Now for the heart-stopping dialog box: "Do you really want to delete the selected file(s)? YES. Yes, I do.

That's it! It's pretty straight-forward, and I no longer have orphan files living on my production server. Word from the wise, take small chunks at a time. For me, this is a process I embrace while making revisions to file names and deleting documents within my local environment. You could do it at the root level, but I'm not ready for that mess yet.

A Final Thought

The division I work for hasn't instated any type of version control, like Git (it's a dream of mine, though!), so I'm left wondering if that would replace the issue of orphan files and file renaming. Until then, this is my method to cross that divide.

My Question to You

What text editor do you use? And how are you able to synchronize your files between local and production environments?