Hi There - Ever since I started using RW many, many years ago, I thought that the images placed in a project needed to be kept in a folder so that the project could access then when designing a site. So, I have always been very careful about leaving my RW project file, “parts” file, and exported (local published) files together on the desktop. I just started on a huge site and much to my horror, when I grabbed a folder to trash I accidentally grabbed by parts folders and trashed it. With my heart racing, I opened my RW project and all of the images were still in place. So, I opened the file in finder and managed to copy all of the images in there into a backup folder. Of course they are all labeled digitally now, not the original file names. So my question is - do I need to clear the pics from the original, rename the back ups and them place them back into the project - or am I safe? Thank you!!!
I think the answer is it depends.
What version of RW are you using?
How are you using the images?
If you are using the latest RW then images placed in the site resources folder has an option under advanced settings to leave in place or copy into the document.
Your workflow is still a good practice, keeping at least a copy of originals together per project. If you trash something by accident, I would check my trash first, then go to a TimeMachine backup and restore from there as it would keep the names the same.
Using the latest version of everything. Just checked the advanced section and the option “copy into document” seems to have been the default selection - lucky me! So, my next question - I haven’t put names into the stack panel, if I do that will anything get messed up? Sorry, I’m sure these are dumb questions. I also need to figure out the proper way to name my pages so as not to mess things up. Been out of doing this for awhile (I tried retire) so am kind of relearning everything! Thank you 
Are you talking about naming images that have been dragged in? If so naming the images shouldn’t impact anything.
As for messing things up, if the pages haven’t been published yet, no problem naming them. You should keep the filename named index.html or index.php, and change the name of the Folder to something meaning full. Don’t use spaces in the names or any special char other than - or _ . Make sure you have the Tidy Links selected in advanced settings.
If the pages have been published, then when you are ready to rename them you should do a .htaccess redirect from the old page to the new. Search the forum and you’ll find a lot of post on doing this. RW8 has a .htaccess editor in the publishing area.
There are some videos on the new features on the Realmac site.
First - thank you so much for your patience and help, Doug :-).
I’ve only published to a desktop file, not to a server. It sounds like the thing to do is to clear that folder, name the page folders (not the pages?) and images and then republish to the local folder, does that sound right? I won’t be going live with this until I actually have everything right! I was looking for some very basic v rodeos of what should go in the page panels but haven’t stumbled on one yet. The screen shot shows what I have now for all my pages - about 6 completed. The page pane and image pane.
As for naming pages you might want to have a look at this video from @bon: https://rapidweavercommunity.com/tutorials/tips-and-tricks/how-to-customize-urls-in-rapidweaver
You should also add a “browser title” to that same inspector area.
As for the image names, I would change the Filename to something meaningful, try to keep it short though, and again no spaces or special characters other than a dash - or underline _. Also file out the alt tag field with a description of the image. This is displayed if the image can’t load or by “assisted technologies” like screen readers.
It is best to keep an Alias of your folder on the desktop, not the actual folder.
If you mistakenly drag it to the trash, nothing lost.
I know, I’m annoying.
If you don’t use Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner is a good substitute for weekly backups.
I’m glad you’re getting good advice from above. I’d also like to chime in with the “time to get a proper backup”. We’ve all been there. I lost my very first website contract work and had to recreate the whole thing in two days before the deadline. That was in 1995. My hard drive – a Syquest 45MB removable drive – decided it had had enough and that disk failed with 10,000 read errors.
For me that was the moment the wool was taken from my eyes and I saw the wisdom of backups. So whenever I see anyone in a similar position – having just lost a substantial body of work, I try to pass on that moment of clarity.
This is the time. Don’t let any future work be lost. Take the extra couple hours to get Time Machine working. Spend $100 and buy a backup disk. Or Carbon Copy Cloner. Or Super Duper. Or one of the online services like BackBlaze. Whatever you settle upon just make the time today to make it happen. Future you will thank you when the next accident occurs. Make no mistake, it will occur. Accidents always do.
Good luck. I think you have a good chance of recovering a lot of your data. If you can’t find it with the methods above there are people at the Apple Store and other vendors that can help recover accidentally deleted files. The sooner you bring them your computer the more likely it is they can recover them intact.
Isaiah
Also don’t forget if your project is finalized (and even if it isn’t!) you can simply save it to a CD or DVD depending on the size.
Yep, I do Time Machine back ups as well as onto a thumb drive. Just didn’t know if I needed to the insert images all the images again, if what was retained in the project were placeholders as opposed to the original files. Seems not and thanks to everyone’s help have ridden out the storm!
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