At work I work with a lot of local files, and repetitive file groups. Meaning, I might have 30 folders all with the same CSS file or JavaScript file. The trouble I run into with using a lot of the same files is changing them, then having to copy/paste the file a gillion times. It gets really old. (To answer your immediate question as to why I don't just use one file outside of all the folders; I have to send each folder as a separate package to the client because the server they go on handles them as single entities. This however is beside the point of today's post, because you can use this in many situations.)

I work on a corporate network, so i can only install approved programs on my work computer. This keeps me from using my preferred win32 text editor. However, since I work with Flash a lot, I also have DreamWeaver, which is an acceptable text editor in a pinch (as long as you never EVER use the WYSIWYG window).

After using DreamWeaver a while, I've found that it does have a few very useful features. For instance, DreamWeaver has a lot of functions built into the api that can access the file system. These can be utilized within extensions; which brings me to today's goodie. The DreamWeaver Mass Find Replace extension.

I built this because of all the time I was wasting every time I needed to make changes to a file that was used multiple times. The nice part about DreamWeaver's access to the file system, is that it isn't restricted to just DreamWeaver file associations, so you can use this to replace any type of writable file. I use it for Swfs all the time.

Here is an example of how it works:

1. Open the extension and choose a master file (meaning, the file you want to replace all similarly named files with)
2. Choose the folder (and all sub folders) where you want to Find all files with the same name as the file you chose, and Replace them all with the chosen file.
3. Click OK.

That's it. You're done! This is a very simple, but powerful tool, so be careful using it. It overwrites all files with the same name as the replace file without warning.