I am losing all my templates if I open the webpage in Frontpage :(

[vchell]

Hello All,

I am new to this, and I was asked to edit a webpage that was already done in FP.

I try to open the website in FP, and it asks me "FP needs to add information to your folder in order to help manage your Hyperlinks and other Web site content. Do you want to add Frontpage information to to your website?",

If i say no, it does not work, but if i say yes, then it loses all it templates, the website has become a bunch of webpages, and the home page (index.html) does not now have any links to other pages (because the template is gone.)

I am missing something. Can you please help.

Thanks
Vchell

[onlyme]

The message you get means that the folder you are trying to open is NOT a FrontPage website. Becuase of this FrontPage has to add information to it, to make it a FrontPage website.

By template maybe you are meaning "theme" and the navigation has gone. That can easily be overcome.

Where did you get this website from? is it live? in which case "Publish" it back to your hard drive, do not copy or import. You will then have a complete "FrontPage" website to work on. To publish the live site back to hard drive. From within FrontPage - File / open web and in the address bar type the full url of the website. eg http://www.yoursite.com - you will be asked for password. Once the website has opened up publish it and select a location on your computer to publish it to.

[vchell]

onlyme,
Thanks for the direction.

Yes, the site is online live. I tried to publish it the way you mentioned (after putting in the password). But the publish option in File menu is greyed out. Why could this be?

Thanks
Vchell

[onlyme]

So you managed to open the website then? so at what stage does FrontPage give you the following message
>>>
"FP needs to add information to your folder in order to help manage your Hyperlinks and other Web site content. Do you want to add Frontpage information to to your website?",
<<<

That message says it is not a frontpage website. So that is probablyl why the publish button is not available. However I am not sure how you then managed to log in with the password.

you are using HTTP and not FTP?

what is the url?

[vchell]

Thanks for the direction so far.

Whatever/whenever I let the "Website" be touched by Frontpage 2003 either in the server side or in the local desktop side, the "web page", becomes a mere page without any templates, links etc.

I am not even able to publish the website to local. The moment i try the live web page becomes a single page.

Help please. thanks much. have been spinning my wheels for a while..

-vchell

[vchell]

onlyme
I get the message only when I try to open it in my harddrive...

I am able to log in (for the http site), no problem there, but as soon as i 'touch' anything, it blows it and loses its structure, template etc.

the url is www.roast-a-matic.com

i tried publishing from site to local, but touching the site either in local or in server, changes it.

i tried ftp, too, no improvement..

thx
vchell

[onlyme]

Your template is a FrontPage theme. It needs the Extensions on the live site.

Please do not even try ftp. Using ftp can/will corrupt the extensions on the server and then pages will break.

May I make a suggestion that you open your live site. Publish it, using http, back to your computer but to a totally new location than where you have your site now - not even in the same folder as your current site. Make a brand new folder somewhere, then in the publish box you can browse to this new folder as the location to publish to. When publishing you should have all the theme publish over also. It could be something on your current local site is corrupted.

[MandyJay]

Have you solved your problem?
Thanks
MJ

[vchell]

Thanks for your help..

let me clarrify: I have access to the live site, and also i have the same in my harddrive. (I was given it in a cd). my job now is to edit the website using frontpage.

If I try to publish from FP to local as you recommended, the live site loses its links and templates. if I open the 'good' local harddrive copy of the website through FP, then again, it loses all its links and templates. I have the original site on CD, hence i am fine, even after many experimentations.

i am using fp03, and this site may have been completed in a fp from a previous version. does it matter.

thanks very much
God bless!
vchell

[MandyJay]

It should not matter which version FP made the site.

I go back to your first post when you said this:

quote
I try to open the website in FP, and it asks me "FP needs to add information to your folder in order to help manage your Hyperlinks and other Web site content. Do you want to add Frontpage information to to your website?",

unquote

That tells us that you do not have a FrontPage web, but just a folder containing all the webfiles. You must answer yes when you get that message or FrontPage will never be able to manage that website for you.

Is this site originalyl taken from the CD? in which case how are you getting it from the CD to your computer?

You cannot just copy it... you HAVE to publish it.

Let me explain, when a web is first made in FrontPaage, FrontPage has to create certain files of its own. These files helps it to maintain Themes, navigation and hyperlinks .. hence the message you got. If those files are not inside the web (they are hidden so they dont accidentally get deleted) then FrontPage cannot manage that web and ... Theme (template) and navigation will/can be lost.

Not being able to see exactly what you have, I would suggest that you have the CD in the drive, open up FrontPage, click on File/open web .. or open site whichever your version says ... browse to the CD and to the website stored on the cd and open that inside FrontPage.

Once you have it open in FrontPage then click on File/Publish .... and publish the CD copy of your web to a NEW location on your hard drive.

To tell if a website is a frontpage website the main folder will have a blue icon on the folder. (not the inside folders, just the main "root" folder)

You see at the end of the day you dont have any choice. As you say in your first post, if you answer No to the message, you cant edit the website, if you answer yes you lose navigation and theme ..... so try the way I just suggested, see if that gets you all the navigation and theme/template (assuming the web on the disc actually works correctly, have you tested it?)

Once you have "published" (not copied, not imported, but published ...) the disc copy to new location on hard drive, see what happens, if no luck come back and I will try and talk you through how to get the theme/template and navigation back ....

MJ

[vchell]

thx for your input abt the publishing..

I was able to do that to a totally new location, and it creates a FP site in that local hard drive place, but still it opens (the home page) only as a single page and not as a website(with links & themes), and if i publish from the live site itself, then it also loses the themes etc(in the live site itself), and then it becomes a small crisis, and I have to upload the 'good' version by ftp so that the live site is not 'down'/incomplete with only one page. (the ftp works for this, and I have used it several times to make the live site come back, after trying to publish to my local drive.)

Thanks for your patience and kind help.

God bless your day
vchell

[MandyJay]

Have you checked to make sure the theme is applied? with your page open click on Format/theme ....

Using ftp can/will corrupt the extensions on the live server. So it could just be a catch 22 .. you lose the theme, (which you may just need to apply again and all would be okay) so you use FTP and any extensions are corrupted so the theme wont work anyway ....

MJ