Where are the project files kept please?

Bootstrap Studio Help
1

Hello,

I imported a bunch of CSS, JS and some HTML yesterday into a new project. But as it took some time, it made me wonder where those files are kept? I see them in the project and various folders within the project. I see an assets folder but are the files held there before saving? And also rather than importing all the files into the BSS project could I copy and paste the files into the assets folder and it would read them there instead if I closed and reopened it again?

TIA

2

Hiya asmiles, a few things here to note:

  1. First, the files are all in one single file that is saved for the project. You access the files inside it by Exporting within the app. Everything you see within your project when you are within BSS, is exported (unless you have set it to only do specific images in the project settings), as well as a Bootstrap folder which contains the default Bootstrap files. NOTE: A Fonts folder will only show up if you have added new fonts to your project, it will not show up if you are using the defaults.
  • The Bootstrap, CSS, JS, Images and Fonts will all be within an 'Assets' folder. - Your HTML files will all be in the root of the folder you are exporting to.

  1. BSS cannot read files outside of the app so the answer to if you put files in the assets folder will it read them, is no. You CAN however, upload files to a location on your server and use 'Absolute' links to the files so that you don't have to constantly change them before exporting. Or you can do as I do for some of my galleries which I use external scripts for and use 'Relative' paths once I am sure it's all working. You won't see it in preview since it cannot read from an external file source, but once exported and upload it should all work perfectly. Depends on your situation.

  2. I would "Highly" recommend that you do "NOT" put things into the Assets folder that were not added there by BSS. My reasoning may not be the same as everyone else's, but if you do this: a. You risk deleting it if you accidentally use "replace" instead of "Merge" when you are copying your files over to the main directory after exporting (which is how I do it, rather than exporting directly to the live site's directory). Much better to just create a new directory for them where they can reside permanently without worrying about if you are going to have to constantly replace them if accidentally deleted.

Hope that answers your questions, working around these things isn't all that hard to do so don't give up on it too quickly over these things.

1 Like
4

When you import files into your open website project in BSS, you see them in the folders in the design tab in the lower left, but those folders don't actually exist in a physical sense on your hard disc. They exist within the software for the duration of the session, and when you save your website (or it is backed up by BSS), everything is compressed into a single file with the extension .bssdesign . This file is essentially everything that is in your website that the program decompresses when you open your website to work on it.

The only time the assets fold (and its subfolders) are created is when you EXPORT your website for the purposes of uploading to your server. I agree with Jo's #2 point above. You shouldn't put anything inside that assets folder after you've exported it. If you want to add files that can't be imported into BSS directly (live videos or PDFs, etc) either place them in the root directory, or just make a separate folder on your server, and reference the path in your BSS links. That way, you don't ever have to worry about BSS accidentally deleting or overwriting your own files the next time you export your site to upload it.

5

Thanks Jo

6

Prinninja thanks for a great synopsis.