Site has developed a glitch. Any suggestions?

[JoyceOdell]

Have developed a glitch, and my attempts to fix it have made it worse. Any suggestions?

I built a site in Dreamweaver 2021, on a  2018 iMac running Mojave, just in case this is relevant. The site has been online since about February 2022.

Okay, there is a main title image and an image banner at the top of the pages. These are individual .png files. 

I changed the image banner with the individual page subject name of one of them. I relinked it, it showed up in Dreamweaver, but although I replaced the banner image on the site, the new title didn't swap out for the old one. Even though I had deleted the old one, that was still the image that showed when I opened the page in a browser.

Okay, that was phase 1. Annoying, but the page still functioned. So today I tried to fix it by changing the name of the .html page and re-linking it to the menu in the template. It appeared to work. I re-uploaded the correct image file, and uploaded all the pages linked to that template.

Now the page appears to be lost. The menu link does not bring it up at all. 

I went into TimeMachine and restored the site from yesterday. All of the site. All of the files. Everything ought to be back to where it was yesterday, right?

It isn't. The page has the old name. The Template links to it under the old name. But when I try to preview in a browser, I get a lost page which never  appears.

Does anyone have any idea of how i can fix this and get the page back again. Preferably with the correct image banner, but I'll do without if i have to.

[JoyceOdell]

That is interesting. I will definitely keepi it in mind.

[osgood_]

I speak from experience.  Perform the date & time test right away. 

When server's clock is set to the wrong date & time, bad things happen.  This might explain some of your issues.  Your host may need to reset your server's clock to the correct date & time.

By @Nancy OShea

Unfortunately you are talking to a brick wall. Any number of simple tests, which have already been suggested could point the way forward but they have been ignored.

[Nancy OShea]

Sigh.  You may be right. 

It reminds me of Einstein's parable about quantum insanity -- rolling the dice over and over and expecting different results.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/einstein-s-parable-of-quantum-insanity/

[JoyceOdell]

The issue is that I don't know how to do two thirds of what's been suggested. The fact that I did get a limited success with my last round of uploads gives me a prompt to let things ride overnight and try again tomorrow. 

The site is something like 280 pages, so I'd rather not take the chance of messing anything more up right at the moment.

I was reasonably conversant with Dreamweaver CS6. But that barely runs on Mojave, and is not going to run on anything more recent. I have not taken to DW 2021 much at all. But it's about my only option if I expect to be able to continue to work with the site if I end up needing to replace my computer. Which is certainly in my future, so I needn't think I'm going to manage to evade it.

[Nancy OShea · Accepted solution]

Static HTML and Templates were intended for small sites, no more than 50 pages or so.  You've exceeded that threshold  by more than 5 times.  With a site that large, you need a dynamic solution with content in a database and scripts that create pages & navigation for you on the server.  That will eliminate 90% of the site management problems you're having now and free you up to work on content.

There are several dynamic options.  Some free, some open source. But static HTML is not the way forward.

-- Wappler ~ Visual Web App Builder - https://wappler.io/

ONLINE SITE BUILDERS:

-- Squarespace - https://www.squarespace.com/
-- Webflow - https://webflow.com
-- Wix - https://www.wix.com/
-- WordPress (open source) - https://wordpress.org/

[JoyceOdell]

Yeah, the site as it stands was always intended as a stopgap, so there would at least *be* a workable site in case of computer failure, and the need to port it to a newer OS. The number of pages are divided up among 7-8 different templates. The worst is the tarot deck, with something around 82 pages. This collection has something like 64. Those are the largest. 

It's going to require a site redesign and moving it into something at least a bit more responsive. But there was no way I was dealing with that  a couple of years ago when I discovered how little DW 2021 has in common with CS6.

It's definitely on the to-do list, and working it's way up to the top. I still have my Classroom in a Book, and I *think* I saved the original turorial files. Or will see if the publishers will allow me to download them a 2nd time. I'll need to investigate the templates provided and see if there is anything that can be re-purposed to my requirements. I didn't really see anything that ssuited me the first time round and ended up taking something apart and rebuilding it. The .pdfs are still not going to be accessible on a smartphone, but they currently will display on a 13-inch laptp. I may be able to get them to work on a tablet.

I truely resent the current paradigm which has agreed to pretend that computers, with proper screens do not exist.

[JoyceOdell]

Well, I just checked. The patch seems to have taken. All three of the browsers now load the page, and the page has the correct .png file. I'm not at all sure just why it took so long to recognize the uploaded files. But so it goes. Or went.

I still would rather the page URL say pachyderm instead of elephant, but that can wait for the redesign, and the rebuild. 

Once that's underway, I'll no doubt be making a pest of myself again. I'm going to have to find or figure out some way of re-designing the menus or whatever is going to be used to link to the different collections/pages. The essays are mostly too long not to entail a lot of scrolling, and the other collections may end up using that more extensively as well. But I may need to develop seperate navigation pages for the different collections. Or sub-collections.

[Nancy OShea]

Hire a developer to create you a WordPress site.

[JoyceOdell]

No, that would be giving up. I've been don't-it-myselfing this site for over 20 years, and I'm not handing it over to someone else now. Even if I will continue to grouse about people changing my tools.

[Nancy OShea]

The web has changed too much in 20 years and you don't know how much you don't know.

[JoyceOdell]

Oh that's the truth!

[B i r n o u]

@JoyceOdell Sorry to jump on the bandwagon just now... as it was a very hot topics, I missed it out.... ;)... , SO I didn't follow everything, so please correct me if I'm wrong...

you're a photographer and you'd like to publish your various plates in the form of collections, am I right ?

you're currently using HTML and don't want to abandon your project by switching to technologies you don't master... is that right?

[JoyceOdell]

Nope. Graphics Designer with a hobby of designing books. The main reason for the site to exist is the Publications collection. Virtual books in .pdf format (which is just so terribly 2010). There is also a collection of graphics, either class assignments or fan art, usually done for things like fanfests and gift exchanges. There is also an *extensive* essay collection. It's basically a brag site. Completely non-commercial.

Only problen is that my tools keep getting shot out from under me by changes in operating system and internet paradigm shifts, and I have to play catch-up.

[B i r n o u]

• what exactly would you like to see happen?
• what are your prospects for the coming months?
• what are your real needs, because let's not forget that your site is over ten years old, and so far, willy-nilly, it hasn't died out?

[JoyceOdell]

Well, right off the top, I need to redesign the navigation. I'd rather not fall into the land of too many clicks, but the fact remains that there are something like 280 pages and you can't list them all in one place. Nor can you drill down too many levels before the visitor just gives up.

I also need to redesign the majority of the pages. Certainly for the essays. Or most of them. One of them includes some graphics that are not going to to be readable on a smartphone. Probably for the Graphics collection too, although that's going to take some thought. The Publication pages, could be redesigned, but the publications themselves are not going to be readible online on a smartphone. 

As to the needs; I'm a disgusting show-off, and am making no money on this. It just needs to work.

I have no idea how much traffic the site gets these days. There used to be one of those free counters on each page which recorded the number of visitors to the site. There was quite a bit of traffic over the years. But those counters all quietly died some time around maybe 2016 or 2017 so I have no record of the cumulative number of visitors since then. It isn't set up for discussion, either. There's an email button on all the pages, but hardly anyone has ever bothered to use it. There may be something on the server that keeps a record of the traffic, but I've no clue of where to find it, and it doesn't much matter anyway, since the site isn't going anywhere as long as I pay the rent. 

Frankly, I prefer designing for reading on a computer, with a proper screen. But too many people can't be bothered to sit at a computer to read an essay, or a novel. And it won't kill me to figure out how to build something that will adjust to a different-sized screen.

[B i r n o u]

I understand your situation and background a little better... tahnks

concretely, through this description, would you need 'any help in particular, whether in terms of a possible organization or method of approach, would you need technical help?
or do you prefer to work as you go along, according to how you feel?

regarding the visit counter, it all depends on your type of hosting: shared, VPS, etc... but generally, shared subscriptions offer a sort of free mini analysis system based on server logs... for example, Plesk offers plesk-stats, (if your server is managed by Plesk) or Awstats if your server is managed by cPanel... if these two server operating systems don't suit you... ask your host.

[JoyceOdell]

My mode of operation on this is 1. figure out what you're going to do, and then 2. do it. I'm very much in stage 1. I'll probably be haunting the W3 Schools site and looking at what kinds of differnt solutions they offer the code for until I make up my mind. 

There was a company which did Dreamweaver plugins which did a lot of interesting expansions, but most of their stuff stopped working after CC2018. I'm getting the impression that that may have been a watershed year which saw a lot of changes to the most popular coding conventions.

[BenPleysier]

My mode of operation on this is 1. figure out what you're going to do, and then 2. do it. I'm very much in stage 1.

By @JoyceOdell

Joyce, the moment I was confronted with

I saw a disorganised mind.

Please forgive this cranky old geezer for being so straight forward. I do not mean to hurt you; I just want to be constructive.

As an example of simplifying things and assuming that the sub-menu items are all publications, then I would not have them as sub-menu items. They are meaningless until I open the relevant page. Would it not be better that, when I click on Publications, I get a neatly laid out set of cards (for need of another name) containing brief information regarding the publication. If I see a topic of interest, a simple button could take me to the full page. 

I compare this to an e-commerce site where the (grouped) products are listed on one page while selecting the product of interest, takes me to the details page.

Having said that, this screams out for a database driven site.

Start out with a design. By this I do not mean graphics, that will come later. Group the topics as much as possible. Publications is one of those groups. Blogs could include What's New?, Graphics and Commentary. An About Us section could include Who's Hen and the eMail.

Lastly, this reply has gone completely off topic. May I suggest that you start a new topic if you want to further this dicussion.

[JoyceOdell]

Actually that's the Potterverse Essay collection. Publications is a different collection. Those are the sub-topics. And yes there are a swarm of them. There's something like 60 different essays linked to this page, all told. Each of those collection buttons has a drop-down menu to the individual essays.

I agree that it needs to be split up and grouped more, which will add another layer to the land of too many clicks, but that would fit onto a smaller screen. Knowing what is in those sub-collections, I could readily see combining them into something like 4 groups with a range of anything like 8 to 20-plus individual essays in the various groups.

A main part of the reason for so many buttons was to shorten the drop-downs to the point that the whole menu would display on a small laptop screen. Scrolling is all very well for the body of a page, but you can't let the bottom of a menu extend beyond the screen or the last items will be inaccessible.

I already split off the character studies (there's about 40 of those) Into another collection which the 'Potter People' button leads you to. The At Tome button leads to yet another sub-collection of general subjects. So that would be six sub-collections in all. Probably doable in itself. But will take some planning out before I get anything like to a starting point.

[B i r n o u]

@JoyceOdell are you ok now, ?

[JoyceOdell]

Yeah, the glitch finally got settled. Or rather, that glitch got settled. I've another balky graphic that refuses to show the correct version, even though I've deleted everything *but* the correct version. But I suspect that one is a browser issue.

Haven't come to a solid conclusion regarding the redesign, though. That may take a while.

[B i r n o u]

it's great to see that you were able to somehow solve your problem.

the new problem you're talking about seems to stem from a caching issue, either client-side with your browser, or server-side with over-preservation to optimize delivery.

if this persists, please open a new ticket and come back here to this group.