User Guide

Understanding Projects 127
The location of a manual-inclusive folder cannot be changed.
• Auto-inclusive folders Include every file in the mapped directory by definition.
You can specify which file types you would like to include (for example, all the
HTML files) but you cannot specify individual files to include. Auto-inclusive
folders are automatically updated when you add files to or delete files from the
mapped directory.
Changing a folder from auto-inclusive to manual-inclusive retains all files by
default.
Virtual folders
Virtual folders function as repositories for files that have no logical relationship to
each other on a disk drive. You can think of a virtual folder as a container into which
you can place whatever files you want. Virtual folders are a useful way to organize
files that can be distributed across your file system.
Quick reference for project folder types
The following table shows the icon for each folder type and a description of when
you should use each folder type:
About the project file
Both physical and virtual folders point to files in your file system. These pointers, or
references, are contained in the project file.
The project file is created and saved (with an apf extension) when you create a new
project. You are prompted to save changes when you close a project.
The project file is stored in an XML-defined WDDX format. This format can be
difficult to read and it is not the ideal location from which to view a list of project
files. The VTOM scripting engine functionality is more suited to this task. For more
information on the VTOM scripting engine, see “Scripting the Visual Tools Object
Model” on page 195.
Icon Folder Type Usage
Virtual folder Use when you want to organize files from several
different locations into one location.
Auto-inclusive folder
(physical)
Use when you want all the files, or all files of a
certain type, in a specific directory to be included
in your project.
Manual-inclusive
folder (physical)
Use when you want to select exactly which files,
on a file-by-file basis, in a specific directory are
included in your project.