Why is my index page also changing when I try to edit other pages in the document?

Report · Mar 28, 2017

I have built the index page for my website and now I am trying to build the additional pages to go along with it.

I am trying to make a new page for my website but each time I try to edit the new page, it also changes what is on my index page (I'm using Dreamweaver). What I have done is:

Do Save As on the index.html file but change the name to illustration.html for a new page to pop up.

Under Sources and the CSS file management, I click the plus and choose "Define in Page".

I get a new CSS file named <style>.

I add a new selector called body in order to change the background of the page. Each time I go to change the colour of the background, it also changes it in the index file.

What am I doing wrong?

Here is the code I have for my index.html page:

<!doctype html>

<html>

<head>

<title>JACQUELINE VO</title>

</head>

<body>

<header class="header"><h1>JACQUELINE VO</h1>

<nav>

<a href="file:///Macintosh%20HD/Users/emmasoolepp/Desktop/Website/illustration.html" class="illustration"> Illustration </a>

<a href="file:///Macintosh%20HD/Users/emmasoolepp/Desktop/Website/video.html" class="video">Video </a>

<a href="file:///Macintosh%20HD/Users/emmasoolepp/Desktop/Website/contact.html" class="contact">Contact</a>

</nav>

</header>

<footer class="home"> Copyright Emma Soolepp 2017 </footer>

</body>

</html>

Report · Mar 28, 2017

You did not define a local site folder did you?

How do I know? Because your paths to files are all pointing to your local hard drive which nobody online can see except you.

"file:///Macintosh%20HD/Users/emmasoolepp/Desktop/Website

Start over using the steps described in Reply #2 of this related discussion.

Re: Creating a site

Nancy

Nancy O'Shea— Product User, Community Expert & Moderator

Report · Mar 28, 2017

I already defined a local site folder which was "Website" on my desktop. I went and redid it anyways but I get the same issue where my index.html page changes with every change I make to other pages.

Is there a way to unlink the pages and be able to edit them all separately?

Report · Mar 28, 2017

When I say start over, I really really mean start over. What you've no doubt done is to nest templates which cannot easily be undone.

If you make changes to a Template file, all child pages based on that template inherit the same content because that's how templates work. Starting over completely with fresh new documents is probably the best and surest way to cut this cord.

Nancy

Nancy O'Shea— Product User, Community Expert & Moderator

Report · Mar 30, 2017

I would be willing to bet the reason your index page is changing is likely because you are using the same external stylesheet for your CSS on both pages.

When you make changes to the style of an item on any given page in your site, the css is likely being written to the external Styles.css file. If the item you are changing on the secondaryu page is also on the index page (like the <body> element for example) the index page will seem to change as well. In reality, it's your .css file that is changing and those changes are reflected in how your shared html elements are displayed.

To get around this issue, use classes or ids in your html to style elements that are common across multiple documents, but need to be styled differently. For example, the <body> tag from an about and portfolio page could look like...

...and the css would then be something like...

.about {background-color:red;}
.portfolio {background-color:black;}

There is something strange going on with your links, as Nancy said, it's usually caused by a bad Local Root Folder setting in your Site Definition.

Report · Mar 30, 2017

Jon makes a very good point.

The "changes" you're seeing... are they style changes or content changes? That makes a very big difference. Styles come from the sitewide .CSS file.

Content comes from the .DWT and .HTML files.

Nancy

Nancy O'Shea— Product User, Community Expert & Moderator