It is my workflow typically to publish onto a local file on my computer and then upload with an FTP program, specifically Yummy, which works wonderfully.
I have noticed, though, that if I try to just publish the new or changed pages onto the local file, and then upload the changed pages only that the site invariably crashes or lacks assets needed to fully load the page.
Is is best practice to just delete and republish the entire site to the local file, and then do the same for the FTP upload? I would have hoped that with a single page update that it not be necessary to reload the entire site each time.
Is this a common problem? And are there workarounds for it?
I would expect that to work without any problems. If you publish your site to a folder and Yummy FTP notices all the changed files, and successfully uploads them, then it should work.
So my guesses on what’s happening would be:
the pages ARE actually uploading correctly, but your browser has cached some old files, old resources, old images, etc. – and those old bits stuck in the cache are preventing you from seeing the site correctly.
solution: clear all your caches – or better yet, try a totally different browser.
or maybe Yummy FTP is actually uploading all the changed files – but the problem is that RW is not publishing all that it should. this can happen especially after a major update in RapidWeaver, Stacks, or some other content on your page. if the underlying content changes without RW “seeing” it, then sometimes things can go awry.
solution: try choosing Republish All Files. this will force everything to publish. then see if Yummy notices any other new things.
or maybe RapidWeaver is publishing everything correctly, but Yummy FTP is failing to notice the changes. this seems not so likely, but still… it could be. see if you can find another ftp app to demo for a few days and see if it does anything different.
basically, i’d recommend trying to break down the problem into 3 pieces: browser, FTP, RapidWeaver. make changes to just one of those things at a time, test if things improve, and then move on to the next bit.
Depending on what type of changes you make in your pages, you may also need to upload to your server the rw_common folder and perhaps resources folder as well—not just pages alone.
Just my 2 cents… I almost exclusively use single page publishing only. (right click the page and publish) - When uploading with ftp you should upload all the “new” files that RW created. I have a specific folder set for upload and I keep it empty. With each publish I can then see exactly what files RW has output for upload. This is also a good way to learn what RW is doing when it publishes. For a single page you would TYPICALLY have your index or php page, a folder for that page (contains the page specific images, css, etc) and then also a rw_common folder. I’ve done this for years with absolutely no issues at all.
So, when the pages update and are identified as “new” sometimes the common folder or resources folder is not correctly identifed as “new” so that it doesn’t necessarily update as it should??? Thanks for that.
sometimes the common folder or resources folder is not correctly identifed as “new”
No, that’s not what I meant.
If you let RW publish your changed site, rw_common and resources folders are uploaded automatically. But if you use an FTP app to upload your changed pages, then you need to consider manually uploading those folders as well (depending on the kind of changes you made to your project). If you only change some text or html, you probably do not need to worry about those two folders. But if you change style, links, navigation, images, etc—then you need those folders updated as well. If you don’t use Resources module in RW, then, of course, you don’t have it in your local export folder—less to worry about and lesser project file size.