Can't edit a page

[Ed Sowell]

I'm working with FP on a Web that I inherited. I can edit some pages just
fine, but others seem to be locked. When I click on the html file name in
the tree-view of the Web in the left pane it opens in the right pane in
Design mode. But when I move the cursor to the left pane the cursor turns
into a red STOP icon (circle with slash) and I can do nothing. Why is this?

TIA

Ed

 

[Ronx]

Sounds like you are working in FrontPage 2003 with a page attached to a
Dynamic Web Template (DWT). The DWT has editable and non-editable
areas. The editable regions are bits you can edit, the non-editable are
bits you should not edit, such as (for example) navigation, company logo
and copyright notice.

To change these regions you must edit the DWT. In Code view, the
location of the DWT is at the top of the page, and you will notice that
all the non-editable stuff has a yellow background.

If you edit the DWT, every page attached to the DWT will be changed.

 

[Ed Sowell]

Thanks, Ron. That seems to be it. However, I thinks things are a bit screwed
up. The previous Webmaster (for our car club) was stumbling around a bit, as
I am, and appears to have introduced a DWT at some point on some of the
pages. The intent was probably to have only the page graphics and navigation
menu in the template, but somehow the content that needs to be edited was
not properly placed in an editably section. Also, the template file
/Templates/template_sub.dwt is nowhere to be found in the Web: when I do
Edit|Open attached template file it says server error:
/Templates/template_sub.dwt not in this Web.

Any idea how I can straighten this out?

Ed

 

[Ronx]

The easiest way to check if the template file is in the website anywhere
is to go to
View->Reports->Files->All files

In the Type column heading, click on the down arrow, and look for dwt in
the dropdown. If its there, select it. The result will be every DWT in
the website, and you may find the correct location for yours.
If dwt is not in the dropdown list, then there are no DWTs present. In
this case you can remove all references to a DWT in the pages. (Don't
forget to set the dropdown back to All Pages when you are finished)
This means removing tags such as:

<!-- #BeginTemplate "path/to//template.dwt" -->

<!-- #BeginEditable="xxxx" --> (xxxx can be anything, and several
different values will be in each page)

<!-- #EndEditable -->

Global find and Replace (all pages) may help with this.
--
Ron Symonds - Microsoft MVP (Expression)
Reply only to group - emails will be deleted unread.

http://www.rxs-enterprises.org/fp

 

[Ed Sowell]

Thanks again, Ron.

Did as you suggested, finding no DWT files in the Web. I've sent a note to
the previous Webmaster asking if she might have it on her machine.

If I remove all the references to the template then I should have a Web I
can work with, but is there a way to recreate the template? For example,
since some of the pages seem to be properly configured, could I:
1. make a copy of one of these god ones, strip out the editable section,
and save it as a .DWT of the same name as originally used
2. Make copies of the bad ones to protect the wanted content that has
been placed in the non-editable sections
3. Update all the files so they all get a proper copy of the template.
4. If I understand correctly, step 3 will leave the bad files with empty
editable section, but I should be able to do a copy & paste from the copies
saved in step 2.

What do you think?

Ed

 

[Ronx]

You have a working plan there. When you strip out the editable region,
leave something there so it can be seen on the finished DWT - when you
attach the DWT to an existing page the editable bits will not be
replaced.
Also make a backup of the entire web - not just the "corrupted" files.
--
Ron Symonds - Microsoft MVP (Expression)
Reply only to group - emails will be deleted unread.

http://www.rxs-enterprises.org/fp

 

[Ed Sowell]

Thanks, Ron.

What is the easiest way to do the backup from FP 2003? TheWeb
in question (www.lajagclub.com) has many megabytes of photos. I recall FP
2000 having an Export
option that alowed photos to be excluded, and it was pretty easy. In FP 2003
it seems that I have to create a "package" first. Is that right?

BTW, I thnik I know how the Web got messed up. Since it uses DWT it must
have been created using FP 2003. Yet I know that the immediate past
webmaster used FP 2000 to work on it. I happen to have FP 2000 on my old
computer running XP, so I opened the Web with it and discovered that FP 2000
is totally unaware of the editable/non-editable boundaries. That is, I can
edit anything I want with it. So that must be how the body material got
placed in what should be non-editable sections of some pages.

Also, where should /Templates/template_sub.dwt be: (a) in a local copy of
the Web, (b) on the online host, or (c) both? Since we have been maintaining
the Web directly on the host one would think it should be there. But, if
that is the case, why isn't it there now? The immediate past webmaster is
sure she hasn't deleted anything there, and has no copy of the template on
her local machine.


Ed

 

[Ronx]

If you edit live, I would place the template on the live site.

The easiest way to backup is to publish to another location, such as
your PC. If the images are in a subweb it will be easy to publish just
the web without subwebs.

Purely for *backup* purposes, you could use FTP to download the site -
but this will also download files in _vti* folders which should be
deleted from the downloaded copy (publishing does not move any _vti*
folders or their contents).
--
Ron Symonds - Microsoft MVP (Expression)
Reply only to group - emails will be deleted unread.

http://www.rxs-enterprises.org/fp

 

[Ed Sowell]

I can't seem to find a way to do full or partial local backups of our car
club Web. I can export a single file by selecting it, which activates the
Export command from the File menu, but that's not practical for a large
number of files. If I select a bunch of files they all want to open rather
than be exported. If I select the Web root or any folder the Export command
is not active... it's grayed out. When I search Help for Export it guides me
through creation of a Package which can be Exported. However, I can't do
anything with the Package, since the whole Package business seems to be
related to MS SharePoint, which is not available on my local machine or on
my host server, even though the latter has FP extensions. I've also tried
selecting and dragging folders to my local machine, but this does not copy
files, merely links to the files on the host.

I include below some suggestions from Ronx when I asked about this in
another thread. I've thought about Publishing to my local machine, but I
believe that would require me to install IIS or something, and from what
I've read that leads to a host of other problems. I tried FTP, but
apparently my hosting service doesn't support FTP. For example, if I set up
the site using WS_FTP it seems to successfully open the site, but I can't
see any of the Web files.

One big problem in all this is I have not been able to get any support from
the hosting service. The person in our Club that set this all up several
years ago has set up a succession of Webmasters with logon/admin IDs, but no
support contact info. By doing an trace I can see that the servers are
operated by CARI.com, but I suspect that they are not necessarily the
hosting service that our guy dealt with. They don't answer my email to their
customer support address.


Any suggestions?

TIA

Ed

 

[Ronx]

Publish to a folder on your PC, there is no requirement for any server
(IIS or otherwise).

--
Ron Symonds - Microsoft MVP (Expression)
Reply only to group - emails will be deleted unread.

http://www.rxs-enterprises.org/fp

 

[Ed Sowell]

Ron,

I tried that once and it didn't work. But, since you insisted that it does,
I tried again and it worked! Don't know what I did wrong the first time.

Actually, it turned out to be more than just a backup. I Published the whole
Web to my desktop machine and now do all my maintenance locally then Publish
back to the host. Much better practice and it works great. I remember doing
this with FP 2000 under XP with IIS installed, and thoght the latter was
necessary.

Thanks a bunch!

Ed

 

[Trevor Lawrence]

Ron,

I tried that once and it didn't work. But, since you insisted that it
does, I tried again and it worked! Don't know what I did wrong the first
time.

Actually, it turned out to be more than just a backup. I Published the
whole Web to my desktop machine and now do all my maintenance locally then
Publish back to the host. Much better practice and it works great. I
remember doing this with FP 2000 under XP with IIS installed, and thoght
the latter was necessary.

Thanks a bunch!

I thought that "everyone" did this. However, that's being presumptuous. This
post is just agreeing that it is so much better this way. It works for me,
and I have not installed IIS!!

 

[Ed Sowell]

Trevor,

When starting a Web from a blank sheet it's a no brainer... develop locally
and Publish. OTOH, when one inherits a Web developed my someone over the
horizon into the past with nothing but a URL and a logon, editing on the
server seems very convenient. That said, form now on if ever asked I'll
recommend Publishing to a desktop machine and working in the more correct
manner.

For me, the term Publish has been a disconnect. I developed my first Web
befor that term had been invented.... a bunch of HTML hacked into a file
caled index.html on the server. I encountered the "develop and Publish"
methodology when first confronted with FP. Somehow I decided that one
couldn't Publish to anything but something that wasn't prepared to process
HTML. Now I fail to see how Publish is any different from the old fashioned
term Upload/Download. Perhaps someone can enlighten me.

Ed

 

[Trevor Lawrence]

Trevor,

Now I fail to see how Publish is any different from the old fashioned term
Upload/Download. Perhaps someone can enlighten me.

Yes, I agree.

Except that in FP, there are things that happen in the background relating
to FP features - includes and so on. If these features are used, then it is
NOT a good idea to just upload via FTP