PHP to HTML?

[Baggy]

I get some of that, thanks.

 

I have been into Dreamweaver and changed a couple of files (saved them as the existing name - have copies). Then opened Localhost, clicked on the site name in Your Projects, this brings up the basic folder structure where all the 'operational stuff' is in the www folder. Click on the www folder and it opens the Home page live on the web - not in Localhost.

 

Where have I gone wrong now please?

[Baggy]

Can anyone help please?

[Wickham]

Then opened Localhost, this should open the browser you chose as a your default browser when installing WampServer and it should show http://localhost in the address bar.

 

clicked on the site name in Your Projects, this brings up the basic folder structure where all the 'operational stuff' is in the www folder. clicking on a folder name under Your Projects should open a new page in the browser headed Index of /test (where test is one of my folders in www directory) wit a list of files below in blue. If you click on a filename with a .php extension in the list it should open it in the browser with http://localhost/test/order.php where order.php is one of my files in the test directory.

 

Click on the www folder and it opens the Home page live on the web - not in Localhost. I don't get that result. I don't even see the www directory under Your Projects or in the Index of /test that appears in the browser window.

[Baggy]

replying in the order you have responded (Wickham):-

 

How can I check the winamp default browser? I suspect it's IE not localhost.

 

Please see my list of files as reported in post 6. There are no files with a .php extension. They are all in the www/ folder and when I click on that, rather than expand to show all the other folders and files, it opens the site homepage in IE.

 

When you say that you don't see the www directory under Your Projects - nor do I. Again, please see my post 6. The www/ I'm referring to is a folder within this site's structure, not the www in winamp.

 

It seems to me (in complete ignorance) that unless I can get winamp to expand this www/ folder, I will not get any further.

 

It's beginning to look like a lost cause.

[falkencreative]

When it opens the site in IE, what is the url? Does it include localhost?

[Wickham]

How can I check the winamp default browser? That's easy. If you follow the advice in my post 12 "Click the icon on your desktop and you should see a small semi-circular icon appear in the system tray. Left-click the icon and click the top item which either says Localhost or 127.0.0.1 and it should open the browser that you chose as the default." When the browser is open you can see which it is.

 

The www/ I'm referring to is a folder within this site's structure, not the www in winamp. If you have created another folder called www somewhere else, then you have confused yourself. There should only be one folder called www and that should be inside a folder called wamp inside C: Use Windows Explorer to check that it's still there as it's this www folder that you need to put your .php files inside (possibly after creating your own folder inside www) and then access them through WampServer using Your Projects from the WampServer Server configuration page which should be the first to show when you open the browser by clicking localhost in the system tray icon.

[Baggy]

Falkencreative: it's http://sitename.co.uk no mention of localhost.

 

Wickham: when I select localhost it opens http://localhost/ at the Server Configuration page.

 

I must try to clarify the situation - I didn't create the www/folder in this site, the web designer did that. If you look again at the folder configuration in my post 6 (repeated in post 28), you will see it is the bottom folder shown in Your Project. The web designer has placed all the current 'live' folders and files within www/.

 

Winamp has still got it's www folder and the whole downloaded site is in there. I cannot find a way of getting winamp server/Your Projects to display all the individual folders and files that are within the www/ folder.

 

It would appear that, unless a way can be found to get winamp to show the complete file/folder structure (as it appears in Dreamweaver), I am not going to be able to work on this site at all through winamp?

[Baggy]

PS. I have tried taking all the folders that reside within the www/ site folder out by copying them and pasting them individually into the Winamp www folder. They now appear in localhost/Your Projects but still the indes of files doesn't appear when I select a folder.

 

It either opens one file from that folder in localhost or (in the case of the main folder which contains index.php) I get a 'server error'.

 

I am bemused why this software is having such problems displaying the full site directory, when Dreamweaver shows it perfectly?

[Wickham]

If the index doesn't show, you should be able to open a file manually.

 

Get the browser open showing http://localhost,'>http://localhost, then open windows explorer and look in C:\wamp\www for the file that you want, make a note of the filename and type it after http://localhost like http://localhost/filename.php and it should open, or http://localhost/your-sub-folder/filename.php if you have created a sub-folder in www.

[Baggy]

Tried that - ie; http://localhost/C:/wamp/www/new/index1.php, also tried it without the C:/ then without the wamp/ - nothing works. It says 'the web page cannot be found.

 

Is there another way round this as, it seems winamp just isn't going to work? Is there some way of telling Dreamweaver to use localhost for viewing changed/added files?

[Wickham]

You must be very nearly succeeding; I said

http://localhost/your-sub-folder/filename.php

 

but you used

http://localhost/C:/wamp/www/new/index1.php

 

but it should be

http://localhost/new/index1.php

 

provided that you are using the browser which opened using WampServer and localhost.

Edited July 29, 2009 by Wickham

[Baggy]

Sorry, should have said that I'd tried that as well - gets this:

 

"Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

 

Please contact the server administrator, admin@localhost and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

 

More information about this error may be available in the server error log."

[administrator]

Hi,

 

I don't if you seen this video on server side vs client side programming languages, but it may help.

 

Oops, you should also watch this video on your first PHP script - I do the examples in Dreamweaver.

 

Stefan

[Baggy]

Hi Stefan,

 

thanks for the response. I had seen the first video but not the second. They are/will be useful but I have to overcome the problem with getting wamp to display the file/folder structure first.

 

I have tried so many variables of how I load the downloaded site into wamp (www folder) but none of them work and I am completely stuck.

 

The site file/folder structure looks fine in Dreamweaver and if it would display the same in wamp, I might start to get somewhere.

[Wickham]

You often mention Dreamweaver, is that the default browser being opened by WampServer? I think that could be causing a problem.

 

If so I suggest that you download Firefox, close Dreamweaver, reinstal WampServer and when you get the option to choose a default browser (just for WampServer's use), choose Firefox. Don't open Dreamweaver before or during using WampServer.

[Baggy]

Dreamweaver is just the editing/design program I have. I do have Firefox as well as IE on that PC and will try what you suggest.

[Baggy]

Oh dear! did all that - uninstalled wamp (again). To be sure I went into windows explorer and removed the wamp folder after using Add/Remove Programs for the uninstall. Then used CCleaner to clear any wamp Registry entries.

 

The re-installed wamp - selected Firefox as the default browser. Went back into windows explorer and copied the website folder and pasted it (as a 'master folder' in which all the site structure resides) into wamp www directory.

 

Opened wamp in localhost (in Firefox)and there was the website folder in Your Projects. Clicked on it and the same index appeared as I have previously shown here, with the www/ folder - clicked on that and ...

 

Same as before, instead of expanding the www/ folder to show all the other folders and files, it opens the web homepage live on the internet not in localhost.

 

Back to square one - going mad - on the point of giving up!

[falkencreative]

Have you looked at the PHP code on the home page, by any chance? Perhaps it has some sort of redirect script that redirects to the live website when it is first opened?

 

Alternatively, if you zip the files up and send them to me (ben [at] falkencreative.com) I can put them in WAMP and see if I can sort the problem out for you.

[Baggy]

Falkencreative - that's extremely kind of you. Do you mean zip the whole site to send to you, as that's 458mb, even when zipped??

[falkencreative]

Er. That's a bit much. Perhaps you can take a look through the files and see if there is anything specific that I won't need that is causing the ZIP file to be so large? (Design related files, super large image, etc?)

 

Alternatively, how did you download the site in the first place? Could you provide me with instructions on how you went about that (via private message, so the details aren't on view for anyone to look at)? What were you using? FTP?

[Baggy]

Hi Ben,

 

email and PM sent.

 

cheers

[falkencreative]

I took a look at the index.php file you sent over... I'm not seeing anything in it that would cause the site to pop up in browser (rather than localhost). However, some of the code present in the file, such as this:

 

<?php

# --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

include(INSTALL_PATH.'templates/footer.php'); ?>

 

Might indicate that the site uses a CMS of some sort or required installation. There is probably a config file somewhere that you may need to edit to use the correct paths, and if the site does use a CMS, it most likely also uses a database (which you would need to export from the web hosting and get set up on your own machine.)

 

You may want to look at "system/system.php" and see if that contains the config data, since that is included in the index file.

 

My impression is that this may be a bit over your head, to be honest. It seems like it is a bit more complicated than a simple PHP site, and that's why you are running into issues trying to set it up to edit it. What exactly are you trying to do, assuming you can get it set up properly on your computer?

[falkencreative]

Check your PMs - just responded.

[Baggy]

Sorry for the absence - can I re-open this thread please?

 

For the moment, we are content to make some minor changes, whilst considering the best way forward. One job I wish to do is edit the meta data (as it's really poor).

 

I have discovered that this (and possibly others) function can be effected by logging into the site as an Administrator, in a web browser. Having done so, I can go onto each web page and click on 'page setup' and see the meta (Title, Keywords and Description). If I hover over each, it says 'click to edit' and it allows me to make changes BUT I cannot see how to save the changes.

 

Can anyone kindly advise me how to save any changes please?

[falkencreative]

This will really depend on what content management system you are using -- there isn't any way to easily tell. If it is something that was custom created (rather than based on a freely available or paid system) you'd really have to go back to the original creator of the CMS.

 

It's possible that the CMS uses AJAX to save the data, so it is immediately saved after you change it, but the only way I could tell is by logging into the system myself and testing it.

[Baggy]

Thanks for that, I will try to ascertain what (if any) CMS is being used, if I can reach the original designer (not easy!).

 

If I have no success, I may have to take you up on your kind offer.

 

cheers

[Baggy]

I have made some progress: I can now change and save the meta data, so that's positive.

 

Apparently there is no CMS for the site, which is a shame. We have recently subscribed to a web design company for our business site, which provides a CMS that not only makes working on the site really easy, it provides a library of web designs which allows us to change the entire design of our site with a couple of mouse clicks, whenever we wish - great!

 

To be able to acquire the easy functionality of a CMS on my sons site (the one written in php), would be marvellous but I have been given to believe that adding a CMS to a 'flat file website' (whatever that means) is a considerable task.

 

Any thoughts/comments on the last points please?

[falkencreative]

Depends on the CMS that you choose. In general, I would say yes, adding a CMS to a static HTML site can take some work, because it often requires basically remaking the entire site within the CMS and re-adding all the content.

 

On the other hand, you might look at something like CushyCMS (http://www.cushycms.com/) which basically allows you to define certain editable areas in the site. I'm not sure if it will allow you to edit meta data, but it might be worth a look.

 

Something like Perch (http://grabaperch.com/) might be worth a look too, though that will require a little more work than CushyCMS.

[Baggy]

Thanks, that looks like a possible solution, I will have a thorough read about it.

 

much obliged.