Editing site

It's really hard to tell how easy you'll find this. It depends on the changes you want to make.

Am I correct in saying that you were quoted €500 to change the content of your website? Thats crazy! Is it just a html website that you need changed? Notepad++ is your friend

I code in notepad++ for small sites but if you are going to be doing alot of page updating or template changes it is alot easier to use dreamweaver.

Also if they created the site in dreamweaver then i am pretty sure there are seperate template files that they should have given you unless they uploaded the files to your webserver.

If you have the FTP server name/username/ and password then you can FTP in and download all the files you need to update it.

If it is a basic HTML site that is... if they have coded it in PHP then thats a totally different story. It is easy enough to read up a few tutorials on how to update it... definetely if its going to save you 500 quid... and you will be able to update it in the future.

Dreamtime wrote: »

ok so that worked for me eoin thanks does that mean i can edit the site from there ??

The best thing to do would be to download the site to your local computer and edit it from there - then upload the files when you update them.
another feature of dreamweaver is that there is a built in ftp client so you can automatically make it upload the new version.

Might be an idea to look into your control panel on your website and see if there is a backup facility so you can download everything in one.

you dont need dreamweaver to get access to your site.

as daymobrew suggested you need to download an FTP program to access your FTP where you can download the website files to your computer. i use one called FileZilla. its good and free.

there are two ways you can go.
1) Dreamweaver: you can download a trial copy from http://www.adobe.com/products/dreamweaver/ and edit your pages in a wysiwyg (what you see is what you get) editor (alot like word in that you dont see all the code that makes text go bold or italics etc). thats alot easier to do, and there is a code view in dreamweaver (well there was a few versions ago when i used it) so you can see the HTML code updating as you change the text. That might be a good way to start off learning HTML as you are actually doing something, and can see how you are doing.

2) learn HTML/PHP. This is the quick and dirty way to update websites. very handy when you are more experienced or know your way around web pages.

If you do go for option 1... at the end of the 30 days trial (if it is 30 days) you will either have to pay out the US$399 to buy a license or switch back to HTML (or maybe another WYSIWYG editor)

Dont forget to take a backup

im not sure of how your server is setup.
but usually when you FTP into your account, on the right hand side usually( files on the left are on your machine, and files on the right are on the remote machine) you should see maybe "www", "public_html", or the name of your domain, "dreamtimebouncycastles.com" ?
in there you should see all the files that are available on your web server.
They are the ones you are interested in.

if your website is dreamtimebouncycastles.ie then you should see a few files in your root directory (that you found above), index.html, or index.php or index... something.
you will see a folder for products, special_deals, booking_request, and contact us, and a few other.
(all gotten from looking at your website)

once you find them.
you need to select them all and drag them over to your computer - somewhere logical. i have a web folder under My Documents, and all the sites i edit there.

You're starting to mess up your site badly, you're using html elements to format your document's structure and you're adding inline styles - have a look at your source code, it's a mess:

<span lang="EN-GB">We’re a family-run business covering all areas of Dublin, Kildare, Wicklow and Meath. Whether it’s a family, corporate or community event, you can rely on us for great prices, service and advice, as well as one of the most exciting ranges of <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"><u><a href="http://www.dreamtimebouncycastles.ie/products/"><span style="font-size: medium;"><strong><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">bouncy Castles and Inflatables</span></strong></span></a></u></span><u> </u>in the country.</span>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"><u><a href="http://www.dreamtimebouncycastles.ie/products/"><span style="font-size: medium;"><strong><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">bouncy Castles and Inflatables</span></strong></span></a></u></span><u> </u>in the country.</span></p>
<p> </p>

<p><span style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255);"> <span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Birthday Parties</span>                                    <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">Christenings </span>                                              </span><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 255);">Communions</span></p>
<p><span style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255);"> <span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Confirmations</span>                                       <span style="color: rgb(128, 128, 0);">Corporate functions </span>                                  <span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Community events </span>                                      </span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255);"> </span><span style="color: rgb(128, 0, 128);">Fun Days</span></p>

Leave editing your site to someone who knows what they're doing. As it stands now you are damaging it and it will cost you more than 500 in the long-term.

Dreamtime wrote: »

hi cormee

can you explain what you mean by ive messed up my site badly

ive never went near any html on the site yet, iam here looking for info before i touch anything on it.

only things ive ever done on the site is in the cms adding a book now button to products and basic text

it has actually camu up on wc3 before that there was tons of errors

You said in your first post you'd edited the site.

Who added the:

Birthday Parties Christenings Communions

Confirmations Corporate functions Community events

Fun Days

section in the centre?

The code I posted above is behind that. It's been added since March 7th ( http://66.102.9.132/search?q=cache:vzR_7czFfaoJ:www.dreamtimebouncycastles.com/+http://www.dreamtimebouncycastles.ie/&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ie&client=firefox-a )

And I said you're starting to mess up your site badly.

Dreamtime wrote: »

yes eoin i think you have said it i have added that through the cms as plain text so why does it come up as cormee has said ?

Because you're laying out that centre text incorrectly, it needs to be done using an unordered list (you're using the space bar to format it) and your styles need to be imported from a separate style sheet (you're currently creating new styles and hard-coding them into the actual page), the CMS isn't really at fault here it's only doing what it's being told.

If it was done correctly it would look like:

<ul>
<li>Birthday </li>
<li>Parties</li>
<li>Christenings</li>
<li>Communions</li>
<li>Confirmations</li>
<li>Corporate functions</li>
<li>Community events </li>
<li>Fun Days</li>
</ul>

instead of what I posted earlier.

Dreamtime wrote: »

yes eoin i think you have said it i have added that through the cms as plain text so why does it come up as cormee has said ?

  is the HTML code for a non breaking space. This is needed because HTML will not show multiple spaces between words. For example:
If your HTML has the following:

"This      gap"

It will appear as "This Gap" in your browser

However, if you pad out the spaces like this: "This      gap", the spaces will appear as expected.

Unfortunately, this is very messy markup and is to be avoided.

The items you are displaying should really be in an unordered list like this, with CSS used to lay it out properly.
[HTML]<ul>
<li>Item 1</li>
<li>Item 2</li>
<li>Item 3</li>
<li>Item 4</li>
<li>Item 5</li>
<li>Item 6</li>
</ul>[/HTML]

Unfortunately, you need a decent knowledge of HTML and CSS to get the hang of this. I don't know if any WYSIWYG editors will help you too much with this.

Edit - beaten to it...

eoin wrote: »

Edit - beaten to it...

- your &nbsp explanation was better in fairness.

@dreamtime - I see you changed it to a ul - well done - the code is much cleaner now.

Now get rid of your inline styles - go to your html view in your cms and remove all the

<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"> <span style="font-size: medium;"> type code between your <p></p> tags

ideally you should not have any style code between your <p>'s. Also use <strong> instead of <b>, also never use underline <u></u>.

Err on the side of caution when you use a CMS, it gives you the ability to make too many changes and some users will get carried away with the end-result of their page having the dreaded ransom-note look.

Dreamtime - you should not be using your live site to test this stuff out. Do your testing locally, and upload it when you're happy it works.

The CSS will be something like

li
{
display: inline-block;
width: 150px;
}

Did you try to install an evaluation version of Dreamweaver to see if you can run the site on your own PC first? There's a good chance that you're going to spend a lot of your time to save €500 and end up needing professional help to fix the site anyway.

That is handy, but in this case, I think the last thing the OP wants to be doing is real time updates of his live site.

if you use <img src="name_of_image.jpg"> the name_of_image.jpg file needs to be in the same folder as your image.

you can display any image if its on the internet.
so you can use the URL for the src
<img src="http://www.dreamtimebouncycastles.ie/img/logo.png"&gt; for example will display the logo on your site.

Dreamtime wrote: »

I have that part of it and it works fine but iam trying to use different images that are saved on my computer and dont know how to do that part of it.

You have to upload those images to your web site - this is where FTP comes in, or you can probably upload them via a File Manager in your hosting Control Panel.

I recommend putting them in the 'img' directory like your other images, for consistency.