Cleaning Out Files on Your Local Copy

Expression Web can show you at a glance which images and pages are being linked to and which ones aren't. The stragglers that have no active link are not being used and probably can be deleted.

Under the Web Site tab, click on the Reports view icon located at the bottom of your screen.  The Site Summary Page will appear. This page contains a wealth of information about your web site. Click on "Unlinked Files". This will show you a list of all files which are not linked to anything in your web. They're just taking up space if they aren't being used.

Look through the list.  If you find an item you know you don't need, right-click on it and select delete.  Easy!

There are other great reports, too, such as broken hyperlinks, external hyperlinks, slow-loading pages, and much more.  From time to time go through these reports and fix what needs fixing.  Your site will load faster, you will use up less server space, and be much happier since things are nice and neat.

Cleaning House Live on the Server

Once your web has been published to its home in cyber space, you will make updates and changes and then republish.  If you delete files on your local web copy, you will receive a prompt that something has changed and do you also want to make those changes on the server-side copy.

If you've received this prompt and then panicked because you didn't know what you were being asked, you may need to do a little housekeeping live on the server copy of your site.

Go to File > Open Web.  [Requires the FrontPage Server Extensions] Instead of opening your local copy of your web, type in the full URL of your site, something like http://www.myweb.com.  You will be prompted for your username and password. Type them in and in a few minutes you will see your site open.

FrontPage 2003 and Expression Web work exactly the same whether you are opening up a local copy or the server (live) copy. The only difference is that if you make changes live, the change takes effect immediately!

You can delete pages, rename pages, and run your reports.... all live, in real time, with no need to publish.