SiteSpinner Preview Folder

Why do I need to know where my preview folder is?

You probably do not need to know where the preview folder is. SiteSpinner works fine without you knowing. But suppose you decide to implement any of the scripts from the tutorials on this site or other sources. Or you may want to create a copy of your website on your local disk. In that case, you will find that sometimes additional external files are required. You must copy these files into the Preview folder before previewing your SiteSpinner project.

Where is my preview folder?

If you click on the Options item in the main menu, a drop-down menu will appear with a menu option of “Preview Options…” (figure 1).

When you click on this menu option, the Workspace Options window will appear with the “Preview” tab being active (figure 2). You can also use the Options main menu item to select the “Workspace Options…” and then select the “Preview” tab after the Workspace window opens.

Fig. 2: The Workplace Window with Preview tab open

The upper section of the Preview tab displays where your preview folder is. Additional options allow you to change the preview folder location and view or delete files in that location.

The default preview folder is in your Windows user account Temp folder in the “SiteSpinner Pro V2\Preview” folder. If you use the standard SiteSpinner version, the folder is named “SiteSpinner V2\Preview.” The advantage of using your account’s Temp folder is that a disk clean-up will delete all your files. The disadvantage is that if your project uses external files that you copied into the Preview folder, they also will be deleted when emptying the Temp folder.

Setting a custom location

Since I often use external files in my projects (CSS, JavaScript, and media files), I prefer to set up my own Preview folder. This way, I can clean the disk without worrying about losing files.

If you want to change the Preview folder location, use the button to the right of the folder location display labeled ”…”, which will open a “Windows Browse for File” or “Folder window.” There is one quirk with using this button. The Browse window shows folder locations with the displayed location as the root, so you begin browsing from here using this location. To use a different folder location, enter a disk drive name in the entry field before you click the Browse button. The entered drive name must be in the proper format (e.g., C: or D:). At any time that you want to switch back to your user’s account Temp folder, click the “Reset to Default” button.