Edit Wordpress in DW CS5

[DashDogear]

I have tried multiple approaches including Brian Wood's method here on the Adobe site, using MAMP and not using it. All of them go along fine until I get to the "Discover" part and I always get the error that DW is unable to locate some resources and therefore I still cannot view the site

enough to edit. Any ideas what might be wrong?

High Sierra 10.13.2 on a Mac Mini (mid-2011)

[Nancy OShea]

What do you think you're going to see?

WordPress is essentially 100's of PHP code fragments that get assembled on the fly by the server with content pulled in from the MySQL database.   There are no actual pages to edit in WP.   The only things you can edit safely in code view are select files in your Child Theme -- index.php, header.php, posts.php, pages.php footer.php.... and CSS. 

Theme Development « WordPress Codex

If dynamically related files cannot be found, look at your Permalink settings.

https://shirishkadam.com/2013/04/25/how-to-add-your-wordpress-website-to-dreamweaver-cs6/

Nancy

[DashDogear]

Thanks Nancy, but I am not sure I fully understand you. I am not web design professional and maybe this is all above my head.

I understand that they are multiple .php code fragments. That is why they are close to impossible to edit in Wordpress. The articles and You Tube videos about editing Wordpress themes in Dreamweaver show in the examples a WP theme in live/split view as one would see it in a browser with code and I cannot get that. I supposed it was because I wasn't getting all the dynamically related files as the error code states.

I want to change the CSS so a header image has a cross fading effect (I have the code), move the logo and alter some of the layout. I am probably way above my head on this, but is using DW to edit WP themes a pointless venture?

P.S. The Shirish Kadam article you reference was one I tried and still got the error.

[Nancy OShea]

If you can't work manually with PHP & CSS code, this is all above your skill set. 

The WP online dashboard offers options for changing Themes, colors, images, etc...  However, options vary depending on which Themes you use.   High end commercial themes usually provide more options and a good deal more site features, too.   If you're using a free Theme, your options may be limited.  Find a Theme you like.

Nancy

[DashDogear]

I am decent with CSS coding and have worked with .php. But, as I said I am not a web design professional. This is a web site for an artist friend and not intended for business. Just a resource to get his art out on view. He would rather not pay for a theme and I have looked at the jQuery slider and it doesn't really offer what he wants. I have code (CSS and HTML) that does exactly what he wants. But, so far I have only found one free WP theme that gives me access to the .php fragments I need. Unfortunately the layout is not what he wants. He can be frustratingly particular at times.

The main reason I started looking at Word Press was because he wants an easy image upload option for his art that he can work with on his own and I would rather not try to create that from scratch. That is definitely above my skill set.

Maybe Wordpress just isn't a good fit or I may just try and teach him how to use Worpress enough to upload his art right in WP. I already mentioned that and he was resistant (wants it easier). However, it may just be his only option.

Thanks for the replies.

[B i r n o u]

as you say that you have decent knowledge on css and php, well you can use only the back side of WP (that way your friend can upload and change anything in the galleries, and you will handle the front page as you like without refering to any theme... but you still have acess to the WP core engine...

just add

<?php

     define('WP_USE_THEMES', false);

     require('../wp-blog-header.php');

?>

and use the codex

Main Page « WordPress Codex

to dig in the database

[Nancy OShea]

Seriously, WordPress sounds like overkill.  If all you need is a simple way for your artist friend to upload images, you can do that with the HTML5 Image Upload API.  This is not difficult to program. 

https://www.webcodegeeks.com/html5/html5-file-upload-example/

The only caveat is your friend must use a good browser (not IE or Edge).

https://caniuse.com/#feat=fileapi

Nancy

[osgood_]

Having just written an upload file system for one of my clients I think it gets a bit more difficult than is shown at the link provided.

It offers no way in the php file of checking the file size, dimensions, the extension/s of the image required/allowed, whether another image  already exists in the upload folder, error messages, it does not replace spaces in the image file name with underscores.......I could go on and on and on.......my advice is if you are not familar with quite complex coding then don't go there as there is far far more to it than initially meets the eye once you really start testing a workflow out.

As far as I can tell the stuff in that folder is very basic and not integrated either.

[Nancy OShea]

That was just one example.  A Google search will reveal many other file upload scripts. 

[osgood_]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Nancy+OShea  wrote

That was just one example.  A Google search will reveal many other file upload scripts. 

There are indeed but you need to know what you are looking for because a lot just address the basic fundamentals, which is great of course, but you soon discover in a 'real' situation that a lot are inadequate.

The problems grow because once you have suceeded in uploading the files with the correct extension/naming convention, checking you are not overwriting images already uploaded etc you then need another script to pull them from the upload folder or you need to insert the file name into a database if that is a workflow you are using.............loads of things to think about.

[DashDogear]

Maybe I should clarify, I am pretty decent with CSS, but PHP is still a work in progress, in my brain at least.

I have worked with Wordpress before and can maneuver around decently.

I think that much of this is too complicated for the actual purpose of the website. I am going to try and talk my friend into learning Worpress enough to get his art up on the site. In the meantime I will muck around and see if I can get an image transition that he likes. It is only for two images anyway.

Thanks everyone for the replies.

[Ben M]

I agree with Nancy's comments.  What you are seeing with Live View requires work.  It requries that you move your database to a testing server and basically have a testing and production environment.  Without the testing environment there is nothing to see and even that is not much.

This is all for the reasons mentioned because Wordpress is a fragmented pile.  You can only see the index file because that is the only page within the site that actually renders HTML.  The rest just do a lot of the backend work of piecing everything together.

Personally speaking I agree with the sentiment of finding a quality commercial theme.  There's some good free ones, but if you are running a business and don't want an internal coding resource, your best bet is to get a quality theme that offers the support you need without having to perform any of the coding modifications yourself.

[Nancy OShea]

WP Plugins offer many site enhancements that your WP Theme may be lacking.

DashDogear  wrote

I want to change the CSS so a header image has a cross fading effect (I have the code),

Look at the WowSlider plugin for WP.   It has lots of options that you can work with inside your WP dashboard.  No coding skills required.

• WOW : jQuery Slider w/o Coding : jQuery Slideshow
• How to add a WOW Slider to your wordpress website

Nancy

[B i r n o u]

well, I agree that WP is a bit out oversized, but any way on an application which can be very simple at start, it is always coming to have to handle this and that, and security... and AJAX ... and metadata to filter images, and options... and so all the classes present in WP can be very usefull to be used...

I think that for much small application needed by folks around... WP is a very good framework to be learned... instead of running directly with sypmphony, zend, laravel and so on...

just in case I give back this link (already presented in an other thread) ... it's dated... but still in uptodate Building Web Apps with WordPress - O'Reilly Media