# Publishing your application

Publishing involves copying files (projects, resource files, and server configurations) to the correct location for the server to find and use them. In the test environments, these files may already be in the correct location. In some cases, temporary copies of the server configurations may be created. You can either publish your application automatically or manually.

Automatically publishing to a server

If the Automatically publish when starting servers check box on the Server preferences page ( Window > Preferences > Server > Launching ) is selected, the workbench checks to see if your project and files on the server are synchronized. If they are not, the project and the files are automatically updated when the server is either started or restarted.

To publish your application manually you can complete one of the following in the Servers view:

In the workbench, you have several options to choose for the Publishing settings. You can set these Publishing settings by going into the Servers view, right-click the server and select Open. The Server editor opens. In the Overview page of the server editor, under the Publishing settings, you are going to find the following settings:

- Never publish automatically: Specifies the workbench should never publish files to the server.
- Automatically publish when resources change: Specifies the workbench to issue a publish after changes on a file that is associated to the server are saved and a full time interval has passed in the Publishing interval setting.
- Automatically publish after a build event: Specifies the workbench to issue a publish after changes on a file that requires a build and is associated to the server are saved, and a full time interval has passed in the Publishing interval setting.
- Publishing interval (in seconds): Specifies the number of seconds that needs to pass before the workbench calls a publish to happen on the server. However, if you make a subsequent change to the files before this time interval has completed, the publish is delayed as the timer is reset. The workbench makes a publish to the server only after the full time interval has passed. If you set the publishing interval to 0 seconds, an immediate publish should happen after changes on a file are saved.

In the workbench, the default setting is the Automatically publish when resources change option is enabled with a value set in the publishing interval.

In addition, under the Select publishing actions list, select the tasks you want to run during publishing.

Manually publishing to a server

If you do not want to wait for the automatic publishing interval to pass, at anytime you can manually request the workbench to issue a publish command to the server. Each manual publish command causes a single publishing request to the server. To publish your application manually you can complete one of the following in the Servers view:

- Select the server and then click the Publish to the server icon located on the toolbar.
- Right-click the server and then select Publish.

All the projects defined in the server configuration that are associated with the selected server are published. The resources in these projects are transferred to the location that is defined by the server.

Parent topic: Publishing applications to a server
Related tasks
Defining the server preference