NOTE: Delete only hidden metadata files from this Web site, preserving all other files and folders would delete only delete the metadata files and retain the files and folders in the web site.
Web site Views
Microsoft Expression Web has four different Web Site Views to help you design, publish, analyze and manage it.
Web Site Views
Folders: This is the default view of Expression Web. The view presents a list of folders and pages in your website. You can navigate through your web site to find files and folders using this view.
To open Folders view, from Site menu choose Folders. Alternatively open the website, and from the Website tab in the Editing Window, at the bottom of the window click Folders.
Remote Web site: This view is used to publish files to your Microsoft® Expression® Web site. Remote Web site view presents a list of folders in your website in both the source and destination websites. Source means your local website and destination is your remote location.
To open Folders view, from Site menu choose Remote Web site. Alternatively open the website, and from the Website tab in the Editing Window, at the bottom of the window click Remote Web site.
Setting up remote website and publishing it will be explored in a future article.
Reports: Reports view gives you a quick summary of the statistics of your web site. You can also traverse through the links to access more comprehensive reports.
Site reports in Microsoft® Expression® Web enable you to group, analyze and summarize website statistics in a number of ways. In the reports, you can filter the data to present only the information that is relevant to you.
The Site Summary report as shown above, gives you a quick rundown through all the website statistics that are available. There are a variety of other reports that are categorized as follows:
A. File reports
All Files: gives you a detailed report of all the files in your website. This report helps you locate files easily.
Recently Added Files: gives you a list of all the files that were added to your website in the past 30 days. You can also change the number of days defined in ‘recent’.
Recently Changed Files: gives you a list of all the files that were changed to your website in the past 30 days. You can also change the number of days defined in ‘recent’.
Older Files: gives you a list of files that were not changed in the past 72 days. You can also change the number of days defined in ‘older’.
Checkout Status: displays the checkout status of files and also gives the details of the user who has locked the file and when.
B. Shared Contents reports
Dynamic Web Templates: lists the Dynamic Web Templates in the web site and the pages and files that are linked to it.
Master Pages: lists pages that are created using ASP.NET master pages.
Style Sheet Links: lists pages that import or reference external style sheets.
C. Problems reports
Unlinked Files: lists the files that do not have any hyperlinks to them.
Show Pages: lists the pages that take more than 30 seconds to download at a connection speed of 28.8 Kbps. You can also change the number of seconds and the connection speed that is defined as slow.
Hyperlinks: lists the pages that have broken hyperlinks to internal pages as well as other websites.
D. Workflow reports
Review Status: displays the review status of the files in the website. It also shows to whom the files are assigned in the Assigned To column.
Assigned To: displays the list of files and to whom they are assigned to. This report also gives other Assignment details like the Assigned Date, Assigned By and so on.
Categories: gives a list of files or pages and the categories to which they are assigned.
Publish Status: shows the publish status of each page in the website. The ‘Publish’ column in the report shows this status as Publish or Don’t Publish according to the status marked for the page.
Hyperlinks: This view shows a diagram of all the files that are linked to and from the selected file. You can facilitate your view by setting various options and use the diagram to verify the hyperlinks to external files.
A few viewing options have been explained below:
To show or hide hyperlinks of a file that is linked to a selected file: In this view, click on the (+) or (-) sign next to the file name (over the icons of the files).
To verify a hyperlink to an external file: Right click on the filename for which you want to verify the hyperlink.
To list repeated hyperlinks: Right click on the blank area in the ‘Hyperlinks View’ and choose ‘Repeated Hyperlinks’.
Conclusion
I have tried to explain all the actions we commonly perform while working with the website and also the different views that are available in Expression® Web. I hope this article will help you work with your websites efficiently.