Adobe® GoLive® CS2 offers a variety of versioning tools, including directory-based versioning, support for Concurrent Versions System (CVS), versioning via FTP, and support for Perforce. But GoLive’s integration with the rest of the Creative Suite is what makes Adobe® Version Cue®, the suite’s built-in versioning system, so compelling.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to make a new Version Cue project, how to take an existing site and turn it into a Version Cue project, and how to mount a Version Cue site.

Introducing Version Cue

What exactly is Version Cue? Simply put, Version Cue is a file-management and version-control system specific to Adobe Creative Suite. It made its debut in the first edition of Creative Suite, but in CS2 has become more discoverable, more robust, and easier to use. If you have a standalone copy of Adobe GoLive CS2, you will not have Version Cue because it ships only as a component of the Adobe Creative Suite 2. However, each of the individual Adobe products, GoLive® CS2, Photoshop® CS2, Illustrator® CS2, InDesign® CS2, and Acrobat® 7 Professional, can hook into a running installation of Version Cue.

Version Cue is a server, a holding area in which you create projects that you want to manage with the Version Cue features, such as sharing files with a co-worker. Version Cue projects can contain documents of all kinds, and those documents are accessed either via the new Adobe Bridge application or, in the case of GoLive, from the Site window.

After completing a default installation of the Adobe Creative Suite 2, Macintosh computer users will see a new icon in their Finder menu bar whereas Windows computer users will find the icon in their Taskbar. This means Version Cue is up and running on the local machine. In both cases, you’ll be able to access several important functions of Version Cue from this icon, such as the Version Cue preferences and the Advanced Administration area.

The Version Cue preferences and Advanced Administration areas are easily accessed via the Version Cue menu found in the Windows task bar (Windows) or the Finder menu bar (Mac OS).

You can also turn Version Cue on or off directly from this menu. When Version Cue is off, its icon displays a little red stop sign on it. Choose Turn Version Cue CS2 On to enable it and Off to disable. As it is starting up, the leaves in the icon first turn gray and then turn green one-by-one until the whole icon is colored in. When the icon is completely green, Version Cue is ready to go.

Run Version Cue on a separate server

The default Creative Suite installation installs Version Cue CS2 on your machine and turns it on automatically. If you would instead prefer to run Version Cue on a separate machine so that all users on your network can access it, you can do so by doing a custom install of the Creative Suite. Simply deselect Version Cue in the list so it won’t be installed on the local machine. Then, run the installer on the second machine (the server) and deselect everything except for Version Cue CS2. This will install Version Cue CS2 on the second machine. You can find the network address that the users will need to access Version Cue in the login screen of the Advanced Administration area.

Log into the Advanced Administration area

Using the Version Cue CS2 icon in the Windows taskbar (Windows) or in the Finder (Mac OS), choose Advanced Administration. Your Web browser will open and display the login page. The default login and password system is noted directly on the page above the login and password fields. If you do not need secure access to the Version Cue administration features, you can leave the defaults as they are. If you prefer more security, change the defaults in the Users area after you have logged in. Be sure to note your new username and password before logging out.