Publisher 2007 won't allow access to or addition of navigation bar

[DavidF]

Richard,

Some more thoughts:

You probably never imagined that your site would grow to 123 pages when you
first started this project, did you?

You should remind yourself before you start rebuilding your site, that you
have already developed 123 pages of content, so you do have that work behind
you. However, in my opinion you do need to find a better way to organize and
navigate all that content and that is going to take some time.

Given how large your site has grown, and how large it is likely to grow, I
think that if you break it up and produce it with multiple Publisher files
you will have an easier time managing and growing it. I have referenced
David Bartosik's article: Building a web site with multiple Publisher web
publication files:
http://msmvps.com/blogs/dbartosik/archive/2006/01/16/81264.aspx
I think that gives you a framework and mechanism to organize your site. I
also mentioned that I approach it a bit different than David suggests. The
main difference is that I don't use custom home page names...I use the
default "index.htm", and organize the web files generated from the different
Pub files in subfolders on my host.

To explain, using David's example of the "music section", he suggests saving
the home page of that section as "music.htm" and thus ended up with:

http://www.yourdomain.com/music.htm
http://www.yourdomain.com/music_files/page001.htm
http://www.yourdomain.com/music_files/page002.htm
http://www.yourdomain.com/music_files/page003.htm
http://www.yourdomain.com/music_files/page004.htm
http://www.yourdomain.com/music_files/page005.htm

All these files would be uploaded to the same directory level as other
sections you might create. I instead would create a subfolder at that level
called "music". Then when I produced the web files from that Pub file, I
would instead save them as the default "index.htm" and "index_files" folder,
and upload them to that subfolder "music" and the links would look like
this:

http://www.yourdomain.com/music/index.htm
http://www.yourdomain.com/music/index_files/page001.htm
http://www.yourdomain.com/music/index_files/page002.htm
http://www.yourdomain.com/music/index_files/page003.htm
http://www.yourdomain.com/music/index_files/page004.htm
http://www.yourdomain.com/music/index_files/page005.htm

Every Pub file I use gets its own subfolder on my host and most of them are
at the same level in the directory. I prefer this way because I find it
easier to organize and write the links when I link the different
section/subfolders on my site. It always uses the default naming conventions
built into Publisher and gives me consistency throughout the site directory,
with the only difference being the "custom" named subfolders created to
contain the html files that I create with each different Pub file.

You can use either approach, David's or mine, just be consistent.

The biggest challenge is for you to figure out how to logically break up
your site. I, like Spike, am a bit overwhelmed by your site, and a logical
way of breaking it up doesn't jump out at me. Instead I will suggest that
you read through the following references and then decide how you want to
organize it. Invest the time now planning the site and you won't have to
rebuild it again in the future.

Information Architecture for Web Design 101:
http://webdesignfromscratch.com/information_architecture.cfm
If you only have time to read one article, then this is probably the one you
should read. It will give you some good advice about how you should look at
organizing your site.

Site architecture - Why information architecture?:
http://webdesignfromscratch.com/ia.cfm
I suggest that you take the time to read some of the articles that are
linked from this page such as:

Navigation models:
http://webdesignfromscratch.com/navigation_models.cfm

Top 5 Home Page Mistakes:
http://webdesignfromscratch.com/top-5-web-site-home-page-mistakes.cfm
This is a new article on this site that I had not read. I liked it.

All of this is from the main site: http://webdesignfromscratch.com/ which I
think is a great site for understanding some of the basics of web design.

Don't forget that you can make your pages as long as you want. Each page
can be a different length as Publisher will truncate the web page after the
last design element, when you publish. As you study your content and current
pages, think about where you could combine the content of two or more pages
of content on one page. For example say you have 3 pages of widgets right
now, perhaps combine them to one longer page. It will be faster for the
viewer to see all your widgets by scrolling down than by loading two extra
pages. You can cut back on the number of pages to manage this way, and
simplify the navigation system by two pages.

As far as the navigation system, you can use the wizard built navbars, but
as David says:
"For links that cross pub files, such as the home page in your main pub file
linking to the dogs page in your dogs pub file, you need to use the URL of
the page and the "existing file or web page" option in the hyperlink dialog.
This is where the importance of site and naming convention planning comes
in."

You can also use simple textual menus that you build yourself. For that
matter you could leave your site as is and replace your current navbar with
a manually built textual one, but that would mean changing that menu on each
page each time you add a page or section. If you take the time now to
organize and break your site up, you should not have to edit the majority of
your site each time you add a section, or edit a section.

After doing the background reading and planning hopefully you will have a
better idea of how you want to organize your content and what kind of
navigation you want to use. The goal is to make all that content easy for
the viewer to find and get to, and also organized in such a way as it is
easy for you to manage, and easy for you to grow your site.

I hope this was more helpful than overwhelming. Good luck.

DavidF

 

[Richard Johnson]

Hi David / Spike

First, thanks for the input: I'm working through some of the suggestions at
the moment and reviewing those links you provided.

I've added some more data based on todays experiments, and will watch fr
your responses, but may go quiet for a day or 2 while I learn a bit more
about splitting the site.....

Meantime ANY advice will be welcomed at any time here - I need it to be
manageable as its just me doing it and its a complex task!

I think I can split it into four sections easily enough - general, advice,
product and product detail pages.

My current page naming is page specific descriptions and so tracking changes
shouldn't theoretically be such a problem providing I maintain each as a
separate pub file /prepublish to desktop and then upload/later use use
incremental upload - does that sound right?

I presume if I want to link the pages in separate files I have to publish
them on the desktop then link directly to the folder/subfolder/page.

can I link to a BOOKMARKED spot on a page in another file, or is page to
page the limit of Pub 2007?

In practical terms.... Separating into different files.... What does that
mean from the point of view of updating the separated navbars - will I have
to do it page by page and link by link if the parts are separated - that
thought does concern me!

Will this autoupdate cross-files for all pages of the files I'm working on
in publisher via the wizard?

Please say yes

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

positive progress: (by the way I do have FFox - and was already onto the
master page issue in the background... Some changes already made: removed all
master pages and embedded the header properly in each page - no master pages
are in use now at all.

noting your comment on gradients on other browsers, if I update the navbars
I'll change their fill structures to plain fill...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Results of some experiments that perplex me, as the problem appears to be
Pub version selective, with 2003 better than 2007:

if I ask it to add a new nav bar to all pages, it crashes pub 2007

If I ask it to add a NEW nav bar to one page only if copes OK

If I open ANY existing nav bars, I cannot edit them to change insertion
preferences, UNLESS I add a new nav bar - THAT nav bar can then be accessed
as "existing" and edited, but NONE of the nav bars that existed before the
problem can be edited at all. This seems to imply they are all corrupted I
guess.... Grrrrr

re page deletions:

deleted up to 100 pages in 3 steps of 33 and still Pub 2007 won't operate
properly - same error message.

Same file each time re-opened in pub 2003 was just fine if I was really
really patient waiting, with no deletion... and acceptable but still slow
after the first delete (with 100 pages still there).

with pub 2007 generally NO real improvement with existing nav bars by
deleting pages, yet pub 2003 needed almost no deletion for everything to be
perfect in all operations.

AFTER deleting all existing nav bars I can then add a new one in pub 2007.
This will allow me to rebuild navbars native to 2007 at least I guess.

the above same results on 2 very different PCs with 2 different downloads of
pub 2007 and same ex CD version of pub 2003

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I wonder....

WHY is all in general OK in Pub 2003 but not 2007?
is it a problem created during migration from 2003 to 2007?

if so....

Should I simply rebuild it all in 2003 and then migrate to 2007 only for the
"top" links
Should I leave it in 2003 and add HTML for the "top" links?
Should I simply rebuild it all in 2007 from the start?

Enough for now, its almost midnight!

Thanks again for all time spent helping

Richard

 

[DavidF]

Lots of questions but here are few comments...

Incremental uploading: Incremental uploading only works if you are using
HTTP uploading protocol with the FrontPage server extensions. As I haven't
spotted any forms on your site, you don't have to use HTTP and can use FTP
which is easier and less likely to cause problems. If you aren't using a
third party FTP client yet, I would recommend that you download and install
FileZilla which is freebie: http://filezilla-project.org/ Then if you do
use the subfolder method of organizing your site, you just log onto your
host with FileZilla and upload to the individual subfolders. This is one of
the reasons I like the subfolder method of organizing your site. It is much
easier to manage.

---------------

I presume if I want to link the pages in separate files I have to publish
them on the desktop then link directly to the folder/subfolder/page.

If I understand this question correctly, then your links would be created in
the navbars before you Publish to the Web and generate the html files with
each Pub file you use to build your site. Yes, I would direct those files to
a folder on your local computer, and then upload them with FileZilla. I
would create separate folders on your local
computer that would correspond with the subfolders on your web host
computer. Then it is just a matter of uploading all the content in that
folder on your local computer to the corresponding subfolder on your host.

----------------

Bookmarks - While Pub 2007 has the bookmark function built in, this is not
by itself a good reason to buy Pub 2007. You can create bookmarks with any
version of Publisher. Insert your anchor on any page, anywhere on your site
using insert html code fragment:
<A NAME="READHERE"></A>
Then write insert a hyperlink to the anchor from any page:
http://yourdomain.com/index.htm#READHERE

---------------

"In practical terms.... Separating into different files.... What does that

mean from the point of view of updating the separated navbars - will I
have
to do it page by page and link by link if the parts are separated - that
thought does concern me!" -

That is one of the primary issues to consider in organizing the structure of
your site and building a navigation system for it. Here is a long winded
answer:

There are many ways of organizing your content, but the first step is
probably to figure out the main sections that
will not change over time, and then create a main or primary navbar for
those sections. This might be a horizontal navbar at the top of the page
plus a bottom navbar. This would include only buttons and links to your
current home page, contact, orders, support, product, advice...whatever you
determine to be your primary section "home" pages or "parent" pages, and
plan on putting this navbar at the top and bottom of every page of the site,
so a viewer can always go to the "home" page, or "parent" page of each
section regardless of where they are in the site. You could create a single
home page with one Pub file, and those 8 to 10 primary sections could be
built with a different Pub file for each section. Once again this primary
section organization would be static so you would not have to change that
primary navbar when you add more content.

Now assuming that you are going to create subfolders on your host directory
to contain the different sections, the links in this primary navbar would
point to the index.htm file within each of those subfolders on your site.
You would write absolute links in that primary navbar. Example:
http://www.yourdomain.com/contact/index.htm ,
http://www.yourdomain.com/orders/index.htm ,
http://www.yourdomain.com/product/index.htm ,
http://www.yourdomain.com/support/index.htm etc.

Now you ask how would you build that primary navbar if you are creating a
single home page with one Pub file? If you want to use the Publisher navbar
wizard, I would open a new blank Pub web publication. Then insert a new
navbar. In the Create New Navbar dialog, opt to insert on every page, and
Update this navbar with links to existing pages in this publication. Then
insert another blank page making sure that Add hyperlink to navigation bars
is checked on the first dialog, and click More... to get the Insert Page
dialog, and opt to duplicate all object on page 1 and add hyperlink. This
will create a second page and add a navbar button to both pages. Do this for
as many pages as you have main sections on your site. Then select the
navbar, format, navigation bar properties and in that dialog modify each
link. You have done all this before but now there is an important
difference. Instead of Place in this document, choose Existing file or web
page and insert the absolute links, such as
http://www.yourdomain.com/contact/index.htm for your home page. At the same
time change the Text to display from blank to the Home, Contact,
Orders...what ever you call your main sections. Save this Pub file and when
you start rebuilding your site, you just copy and paste this navbar to your
pages. As you have inserted absolute links in that navbar it does not matter
where you put that navbar and as long as you don't change your main site
structure, you won't ever have to edit it. If you use Pub 2007 you can
create both a top horizontal navbar and a text only bottom navbar at the
same time.

Now in your Pub file for your Contact section, that is also a single page,
so you would not need to create any additional navbars. You just produce
that single page, copy and paste the top and bottom primary navbar on that
page, and upload the index.htm file and index_files folder that you generate
from the Pub file to the "contact" folder on your site. You won't have to
change this section/page in the future as the navbar links always point to
the index.htm page of each section...the home, or parent page of each
section.

When you get to the "support" section, and its Pub file, you will have
multiple pages in this section. But now you also need to create a navbar to
navigate within that section. So, you create a vertical navbar that
navigates and links to each page of that section, of that Pub file...or
another way to describe it, the "child" pages of that section. This navbar
might vary as you change the content of that section, but if you are using
the navbar wizard it will update the navbar across that publication, that
section, as you add or delete pages. Once again you might consider using
absolute links vs. the relative links to pages in that publication, and also
custom naming the .htm files rather than allowing Publisher to choose an
arbitrary page number. You could choose a descriptive name for each .htm
file, or as David Bartosik did, name the files page001.htm, page002.htm etc
so you will know exactly how to write the link to that page from elsewhere
in the site. Once you get the vertical navbar built for navigating within
the pages of that Pub file, you would also copy and paste your primary top
and bottom navbars on each page so the viewer can jump to the other
sections. Don't forget that when you Publish to the Web you will save this
as the default index.htm so that the primary navbar you created will point
to the first page of that section, or the parent or home page of that
section.

This approach of having a primary navbar with links to each section of your
site, would require the viewer to go to those "home" pages of each section
to access the links to the child pages as presented with the secondary
navbars created for each Pub file. This structure would mean that you would
not have to edit or update your primary navbar, and your secondary navbars
would be updated automatically via the wizard when you add or delete pages
in that section.

I am sure that is all clear as mud, right? Hopefully you will have read the
reference material and remembered David Bartosik's article and my
description of using subfolders which will make all this more
comprehensible.

---------------

"> Results of some experiments that perplex me, as the problem appears to be

Pub version selective, with 2003 better than 2007"

and

"> I wonder....

WHY is all in general OK in Pub 2003 but not 2007?
is it a problem created during migration from 2003 to 2007?"

Based on your comments I tried opening your file in Pub 2003 which I had not
done previously. I found that the navbar had been disconnected from the
navbar wizard. It was now just a group of individual buttons with links. I
could insert a new navbar that would pick up ~60 pages in the publication,
and could copy and paste in 2003. As I remember you said that you originally
created this site in Pub 2003, and then edited it in Pub 2007. This suggests
that in doing so this is how the navbar corrupted, and is probably why it
became unworkable in 2007. It also suggests that you can forget this whole
discussion about breaking up your site if you wanted to do so, and just
delete your current navbar and rebuild it. The navbar wizard is different in
the two versions and apparently you can't go back and forth without
corrupting the navbar.

--------------------

Whew! I am done now. I hope I addressed most of your questions and that I
was clear. It seems to me that there is no compelling reason for you to buy
and upgrade to Pub 2007. You can do bookmarks from page to page and
publication to publication in Pub 2003. Though the html coding engine has
been changed and maybe improved in 2007, if you uncheck the option of using
VML in 2003, it will produce code much as it does in 2007. I do like the pdf
add-on in Pub 2007, but you can get similar results with the free
www.primopdf.com . And there are other differences but in your case you
don't really need to upgrade unless you really want to, and in reality Pub
2007 has some bugs with print documents that makes me feel Pub 2003 is the
better, more stable version. If you choose to buy 2007, then just keep 2003
installed, as there will likely be some things it can do better. If nothing
else, it has a far superior HELP section.

DavidF

 

[Richard Johnson]

Hello again

I promised to work on things and come back to report: Here is some feedback.

I changed the overall site structure significantly and then rebuilt the
navbar/links structure totally within Pub 2007. Also removed all use of
master pages.

I did however decide to keep it as a single large file for now - however the
re-structure also means that that file is reduced in page # by a third, so
its not as extreme size wise now.

Even though I rebuilt it to ostensibly be simpler in individual navbar
structure it has smaller navbars, but more of them.... so in fact its changed
in style, but not less challenging to the software.

Pub 2007 is handling multiple navbars flawlessly now however, much quicker
and with no errors at all.

Problems I've struck:

***Accepting that some of my pages are extreme in size/length so any issue
is magnified... A more WYSIWYG approach here would be helpful.

For example, If I use single line spacing its sort of OK most of the time
with little problem but to keep the web page look readable I really have to
use an extended (1.25) line spacing.

However if this is done, (Using web font sizes and a relaible web font) then
the page always translates badly into a web page, with image and text box
positionings really out of place and messy: The only fix for this has been to
place everything "inline" which is doable but to say the least, inconvenient.

***Its really important to avoid the opportunity to open the Pub 2007 file
in Pub 2003 - so associate the file correctly as opening it in pub 2003
fritzes the navbar immediately and there is no recovery possible. I proved
this twice at various stages by making a backup then doing it - each time the
result was the same.

***The "Wizard created pages" also seem to create problems - auto sizing of
fonts in the text boxes makes for non web compatible font sizes so this seems
a wrong thing for MS pub 2007 to do - I ended up dumping all wizard created
page formatting and doing my own from scratch - no big deal but it took a lot
longer, when perhaps a more thoughtful approach to wizard page design may
have saved that time...

***There does still seem to be some small problem with reading Pub created
websites nicely in Firefox - its pretty well OK layout wise however if any
image or shaded box used / is changed in size within publisher, FF seems to
display it badly.

However, apart from that, so far, so good.

After a lot of very helpful advice from David and Spike I can now say that
my problems are for now solved.. THANK YOU.

It appears that the original source of my problem when I first posted was
definately the migration back and forth between 2 versions of Publisher, that
Publisher 2007 handles any sort of wizard use of navbars without any stress
at all and that there are not, as far as I can see, any "limits".

Definately the interface is a little slicker on Pub 2007 so apart from the
bookmark ability, I still think the upgrade is well worth the cost.

Lots learned, lots more to learn, but I'm getting there! Best regards and
thank you sincerely once again for spending so much of your time in helping
me.

Richard

 

[DavidF]

Hi Richard,

Thanks for posting back and taking the time to share your experience. It is
appreciated.

If you decide you want to tweak anything more and need more help, post
again, and perhaps provide a link to your site so we can see how it came
out.

DavidF