Uh oh, changed names now it won't preview in Safari

I changed the info in page information…the folder name and file name, changed those for all of my pages, assuming it would do the detailed work… now when I publish to a folder, then drag the main home page index.html (that I didn’t rename) to Safari, it stays on the spinning arrow forever, not loading any of the images on the home page, it’s as if it lost track of the images… I have backups thank God, but can’t we rename those things in page info… isn’t that why it’s there, to be edited? I’d like to have the folders named after the pages, so page name general is also folder general, page is general.html, like that I named all things after the page, pages, I know something of how html works and in theory names should not be a problem, it’s as if RW lost track of the images on the home page. I had JUST created a page with 32 large images on it, accepted the default site image type for all, total 8 MB of images… shouldn’t be a problem either, it’s not the home page, it’s not showing the home page’s images, and I have a slider at the top, it’s spinning in that location, spinning arrow forever… what gives ? Don’t know if I should revert to a previous backup or if this is something that can be worked out. Odd.

This is the page I JUST created, then I published to a folder, trying to open the pages in Safari, as you can see here, it has no idea where the images are… accepted Site type of image for all, publishing went OK so it seems… pictures here of the page I just created, with all question marks for the site images, and my output folder, which shows I renamed my folders and pages, thought that RW would keep track of things… does it not? Are you stuck with all pages being named index.html, and all folders named Page-X ?

NEVER MIND: I did a “Republish all files” and that cleared up the problem.

So sorry.

You really should name the file index. That’s what servers look for by default, also allows you to “tidy” urls in Gen. setup. That way a user does not need to know file name, just folder url.

Locally things will be shaky unless you run a local web server like MAMP. The server keeps track of pathing and resources. Much better and easier to develop and publish to a sandbox on your web host.

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I can set all the files back to index.html, but I don’t see why it’s necessary, a site within itself knows the names of the files, updates links accordingly… I don’t know about tidying URLS in Gen. setup, new to RW, don’t see why this: “That way a user does not need to know file name, just folder url.” I will only have people surfing my site, I dont think anyone will try to type the name of a path, to a folder, in hopes index.html is in there… dont get that. Dont get when it would happen.

Dont get the whole second paragraph, over my head. Why would things be shaky locally? What does local mean… while I develop, on my. own machine, to a published folder??? Then are you saying “forget publishing to a folder and viewing in safari” “Publish to your server to a test location, a “sandbox””. Are you saying that’s better, for some reason? I would think that publishing to a local folder is TOTALLY FINE… for it is all about paths, and where things are, what they are named, I mean websites should run out of folders just fine.

So I’m a tad confused, because you know much more than I, and you don’t go Into enough detail for this newbie to grasp what you’re saying. Though I am listening.

I’ve used a number of web programs in my 30 years on computers, and you could always publish to a folder with success… I made a website in GoLive once, and it stands to this day as my software’s online help system, and it’s in a folder… I dont get why folders aren’t good enough. I am learning slowly. It may be that I’m used to really simple websites, that is entirely possible. It may be that I’m in a new league now. Like when I published to the folder and tried to view, the page I have with a contact form on it comes up as just html text in safari, probably because in the folder arrangement there is no php support…would that be correct? Funny though it DID come up previously, showed the form, in Safari, from folder… now it won’t show that page, though nothing has changed. A tad confused.

My pages are all intact within RW, so I’m going to go on developing on this copy, without reverting to a backup… I think it’s knowledge I lack that is the problem… problems…

Any clarifying comments from you Pros appreciated. By the way, how do you get RapidWeaver Pro after your name? Is that something you get when you reply enough on here? Just curious, I’m not clamoring to be one, for I am not. I’m a beginner for whom things are going pretty well…

If index.html is best, why do they allow you to change it?

Is it OK that I rename the folders?

It seems from your answer that that is not your focus in answering, that seems to be OK.

There’s a lot in that last post. In general, as long as the pages are just HTML and not PHP, you should be able to publish to a folder and then view them in a web browser. However, things have gotten more complex in websites over the years.

The files are meant to be served by a web server and not just opened from a folder on a computer. Are you going to by putting your website on a server on the web or just browsing locally from a folder on your computer? If you are going to be placing the files on a web server, then skip publishing to a folder now. There’s no good reason to do that, and it’s just going to complicate things for now. When you preview in RW, you are viewing the pages served by a web server built-in to RW. If you just want to see how the pages look in Safari, us the Preview Page in Safari feature from the file menu. RW will serve the pages to Safari from it’s built-in web browser.

As far as changing folder and file names, it should not make any difference. You can name either whatever you want. With that said, general best practices are to name the folders based on their content and leave the file name “index.html” or “index.php”, as appropriate. Leave “Tidy Links” enabled in RW preferences.

Basically, you treat every page the way the main home page is treated. You only need the folder name and not the folder name and file name to get to the page. With the way you named the pages, the complete url to your about page http://website.com/about/about.html. With tidy links and naming the page index.html, the url can just be: http://website.com/about The web server will serve the correct page. If you even add a more complicated stack to that page that requires server-side code to run (generally PHP), then the url stays the same. It’s just cleaner and better.

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You can do whatever you like. I was just suggesting how sites are normally constructed by naming the folder and leaving the file index.

A lot of the issues you seem to be having are because the site isn’t published to a web server. As I already stated, you can do this locally using MAMP (free). And the site will behave just like it is hosted on a web host. (Navigation, images, forms, Site-wide code and CSS will all work) most people find it much easier to just publish to a temporary (sandbox) location on their hosting account, usually a subdomain.

But if you want to do things the hard way, by all means, go straight ahead and do that.

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I dont see Tidy URLS anywhere in setup, but otherwise I get your answer Don, it makes total sense, thanks for going into things in common language so I could grasp it. I’ll rename the pages back to index.html but leave the folder names. Are you sure Tidy URLS exists in the latest RW, I have the latest, and there’s no Tidy URLS in either General prefs or on the General page where you put your website name and such… checked all menus, checkboxes, can’t find Tidy anywhere.

What I’ve done in the past was pure HTML, I mean by that “simple sites”… I’ve never even had a contact form, only text and images, and iWeb has been my tool for years, and it somehow never lets you experience a hiccup, it always just works, RW lets you feel things, more so, it’s more capable and complex, so I’m hitting things I’ve never hit before.

To answer you, my site is destined to be hosted on the web. I have a site up there now, Goravani.com, made in iWeb, hosted on GoDaddy, I will try to setup my publish settings, and publish my site up to the real web server from now on, skipping folders… what’s the diff between Export site and Publish site to a folder? They both put the complete site in a folder, but in my case, one is 3 MB more than the other… that’s not the most crucial question however.

I think you and Scott answered me, along with Doug in another place, and that is that a web server is really needed to test your site. I have it, and I get my paths on my web server, I use Fetch to maintain my software’s download files on there… I’m a wee bit savvy with that end of things, so I will publish to the web, to a temp test site location… and see how that goes. Everything works from the folder, except two things… I can’t go back to the Home page once I go off it, and the page with the contact form on it comes up as just html in safari from a local folder… safari as Preview inside RW is different as you explained… in RW all my pages come up just fine in Preview.

Sounds like all is normal, just I was expecting a tiny bit more… for all things to work out of a local folder, and it’s not possible I’m hearing. Which is fine. Just didn’t know.

So far everything has had an answer ultimately. I’m weaving away pretty well… getting the hang of it all.

No I don’t want to do things the hard way, just wasn’t aware of the things you’re making me aware of. I really appreciate your help, and don’t mean to upset you. Not at all. I’m a grateful newbie, who realizes you don’t need to spend your time helping me, so I am thankful. I get it now, there are things that don’t run on a computer out of a folder, and I had a different past experience because of my sites being simple.

I found Tidy urls, it’s in advanced settings… just missed it, and there it explains the tidy url idea. Got it.

Thank you Scott, and Don, and Doug.

I’m not on my computer at the moment so I can’t send a screen shot showing tidy links but it’s there.

Publish local and export should give same results.

Preview in RW works because RW starts a sudo-web server for preview. That doesn’t happen when you load a page from finder or safari directly (unless you are running MAMP)

Edit: you’re to fast fo me, I see you found tidy links. And not to worry, I’m not upset.
Here’s the thing… there are over a thousand stacks, themes and plugins for RW. They may be loading other libraries or JS scripts, they may rely on php server side, they may not. That’s why it’s just easier to develop and publish to a web server, it takes all of those issues out of the equation. There is also no way for someone helping to know what you are using unless we can see a published page.

Trust me, your development will get much easier and things will work more like you would expect if you set up or publish to a server.

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Got it, will do, happy to, I just thought local would work, but I get now that it has serious limitations.

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