HTML Basics ... Help?

[Brangwen]

Fellow Members:

My "problem" or question is fairly rudimentary, but one must start somewhere. My synagogue has entrusted me with updating our webpage. I thought I knew what I was doing but ... let's say the site was down ... all of the info was in a list!

Here's what I did. Using IE, I went to our home page and clicked on option to "Edit using Notepad." You must be joshing! That tiny typing and those incredibly numerous codes. So, I recalled having done this editing business before either using Opera or IE, I don't recall. I simply saved the page and somehow opened it to reveal the code ... but I've seem to have forgotten.

Then today I copied the home page, pasted it into WordPerfect 11. I edited a paragraph then under File I "Published it to HTML." It looked good to me and it saved as an Index file. I opened the edited page with my IE browser and it opened nicely and terrific looking. Then I accessed our FTP site and from my Local Site I found the newly edited Index file and swapped it with the old Index file that was sitting in the Remote site window. I thought, no problem. Then I launched the home page and it was a list: Parent Directory, etc. I feverishly scrambled and managed to reinstall the old Index file and the page again launches properly.

What did I do wrong?

Brangwen

[Scott Tiger]

From a quick read I'd suggest checking the case on the index.html file you're using. A lot of webservers run on some form of Unix and your letter case could be casing your problem.

[golfcart]

It's also possible that your editor saved it as ".htm" instead of ".html" and your web server doesn't recognise it

[Brangwen]

Thanks, but ...

The case on the index.html that worked and the index-072006.html that did not was the same, i.e., lowercase. Though you can see my newer index has an elongated name ... matter?

What is the best way to edit an exiting page? I have WordPerfect (latest edition), MS Word, Notepad? Could you give me a few pointers? Can Opera be used to work with a webpage for editing?

Thx a lot!

Brangwen

[golfcart]

Can you just rename index.html to index.bak and then rename index-072006.html to index.html ? That will probably fix it.. BTW, looks like your date is set wrong on your computer

[Brangwen]

Golfcart:

Interesting ... I can try that. You believe that the WordPerfect did the job then? I would think if the browser loads the "index" file nicely, the FTS server should ... you think?

BTW: I just guesed at a date ... that wasn't automated.

My only concern with the WordPerfect generated page is the revealed codes look way different. I'm a bit gun shy that I'll lose the site and not be able to reload anything. But your "bak" idea makes sense.

Thx.

Brangwen

[VHockey86]

I wouldnt suggest any kind of word processor to do the editing other than notepad or wordpad, all the other "publish to web" functions can screw with you, especially if you're trying to keep it simple.

Idealy for managing a site dreamweaver is your best bet (I think its around 300 dollars though). Next step down doesnt have a WYSIWYG interface as an option but Homesite is a great HTML editor (also costs money).

Then theres always frontpage.. I dont really like it but if you learn to tame the program you can often avoid its code-bloating problems