How to consolidate iWeb sites on two Macs

Hi all, I have what I hope will be a simple problem to fix.

I use two computers, a desktop iMac and a MacBook Pro. I have a couple of different websites I've created using iWeb, and would like the capability of having both computers show the same iWeb files, meaning the same updates at the same time.

I have Time Machine, and I'm wondering if it would help me to use that instead of the individual machines. However sometimes I'm working off site and would like to do updates there as well.

I don't use MobileMe to publish the sites, I have my own domains elsewhere.

Any help would be much appreciated.

I don't have an answer for you and sorry to hijack, but how do you host iWeb sites on other servers? I have a godaddy account, is it going to load my site faster than my MobileMe account?

floridaloha,

It isn't a simple fix. First, as far as I know, there isn't a way to combine or merge separate iWeb project files into one.

iWeb creates project files that are complicated folder hierarchies. You can double click the top level name and the project opens in iWeb. Usually people have one and it is ~/Library/Application Support/iWeb/Domains.sites2. This file holds your Sites. iWeb also remembers which was the last project file you had open. So you could duplicated that folder and open the new one in iWeb, make changes and end up with two .sites2 projects that are different. Notice that this is what occurs if you dragging and dropping your single .sites2 file between Macs. If you change both copies without first syncing the first changes with the opposite computer, you have no way to sync them up beyond manual labor.

That .sites2 file does not have to reside in the folder location mentioned above. The easiest way to handle this is to move the file to a USB thumb drive with sufficient space for growth. iWeb is a pig for space. An alternative would be to upload the entire content to an online server. You could ZIP the folder which would require that you upload and download it every time you make a change, and also ZIP it and un-ZIP it. You could also use a WebDav connection and edit straight from that but it would likely be very slow going. WebDav is not a great performer.

If you are using someone else's computer to edit your iWeb file, you'll want to reset their iWeb to open their file. Double click on their file in the folder I mentioned above to open it once. Then quit. The next time they open iWeb, it will fine their file.

Time Machine is a backup mechanism not appropriate for what you are looking at doing.

ZorroAMG, I know the answer, but since your whole purpose was to knowingly hijack this thread, I'm not going to answer you here. Start a new thread.

Thanks very much xstep, I like the idea of a large thumb drive or the online server option. I think that would solve my problem.

I'll publish my results to the thread when I try this out.

Remember to backup the content. If you lose the file or it gets corrupted, you'll require the backup.

I look forward to your findings.

How to merge iWeb sites on 2 machines

YES it can be done and its easy. You need to access the Sites2 "file" on both machines in my case as I am steve on both machines. Alternatively use spotlight to find the file

/Users/steve/Library/Application support/iWeb/Domains.Sites2

Now I suggest you take a copy of each. I created 2 files one from each machine. Of course you have a time machine backup don`t you, but still

MBPDomains.Sites2
imacDomains.Sites2

Place both these files in the iWeb directory above. If you now click on these files inside the finder you can open up one at a time with iWeb

Now go and fetch some donationware called iWebSites

iWebSites

Select both files and merge.

iWebsites

iWebsites is the business, does exactly what I wanted...

I suggest you give them a donation