I don't know where to begin

[Ed Lake]

I've been operating my web site for about 14 years, but I've been using Netscape's composer and Windows XP.
 
Now I'm trying to figure out how to maintain my current web site (www.anthraxinvestigation.com) using Firebug and Windows 8.1.

Example problem:  I want to add a comma into a sentence.

Old way:

1. Open the stored file in my computer.
2. Add the comma to the sentence.
3. Save the file.
4. Upload modified file to my web site.

New way? I have no clue.

Where do I find out how to do something that basic?  The FAQs and instructions seem to be about a totally different way of doing things.  I don't know where to begin.

Ed

[JP Charrier]

Ed your problem doesn't seem to be with firebug? What were you using previously to upload the file? What were you using to edit the file? How has this process changed?

Ie if you were using an ftp program and notepad, that is still available on windows 8.1

Regards,

JP Charrier

Sent from my iPhone

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Firebug" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to firebug+u...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to fir...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/firebug.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/firebug/822397ef-80f5-48cb-bb73-70043e23f23e%40googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Jan Honza Odvarko]

On Friday, October 31, 2014 8:22:31 AM UTC+1, JP Charrier wrote:

Ed your problem doesn't seem to be with firebug? What were you using previously to upload the file?

Yep, exactly, Firebug is not a tool for
uploading files to HTTP server.

Honza

[Ed Lake]

JP Charrier,

I use CUTEftp to upload the file.  I should have mentioned that.  Sorry.

I also neglected to mention that I bought a new laptop a couple weeks ago, and I'm trying to use it to update my web site.  It has Windows 8.1 and Office 365.  I can still update my site via my old computer, which has Windows XP and Netscape composer.

I suppose I could copy CUTEftp over to my laptop.  I did copy it from my old-old computer to my new-old computer years ago.

I use Netscape composer to edit the html files. 

I spent several days trying to figure out how to use Office 365 to update html files.  I got nowhere.  It looks like a lot of web site software that was in previous versions are no longer available.
 
Then I discovered Firebug and tried to use it to to edit a small html file in my computer, but it seemed incredibly awkward, and I couldn't find any way to save the file.

I'm even thinking of setting up a NEW web site just to practice with.  I've owned the domain name ed-lake.com for a long time and never created the site.

But first I need to find an equivalent for Netscape composer.  Composer doesn't have some capabilities that I'd like to use, like inserting YouTube start images.

Maybe I'm in the wrong ball park.  I'm just blundering around at the moment.

Ed

[Christ van Willegen]

Hi Ed,

On Fri, Oct 31, 2014 at 2:59 PM, Ed Lake <det...@newsguy.com> wrote:
> Maybe I'm in the wrong ball park. I'm just blundering around at the moment.

As was already mentioned, FireBug is not a tool to save HTML files, so
it won't get you anywhere.

Perhaps SeaMonkey[1] can do what you want? It seems to be able to
generate HTML files, and I trust Mozilla to generate better HTML than
Microsoft Office...

What FireBug _can_ do is help you in understanding what changes are to
be made to the HTML (or CSS, or JavaScript) sp that the site works the
way you want.

Hope this helps!

Christ van Willegen

[1] http://www.seamonkey-project.org/

[Ed Lake]

Looks like I need to re-learn how to post to a newsgroup, too.  I didn't realize it was going to copy over all that extra stuff.  Sorry.

What I'm looking for is a free web site composer package - like Netscape composer, only with modern capabilities.

Ed

[Ed Lake]

Christ van Willegen,

Thanks!  I was beginning to suspect I was in the wrong ball park.  Nothing made any sense. 

Ed

[Ed Lake]

Everyone,

It looks like SeaMonkey is exactly what I was looking for.  I'm on my old computer right now.  I'll switch over and try downloading it on my new laptop.

Thanks!!

Ed

[Sebastian Zartner]

Even when SeaMonkey might do the work, I wanted to mention that there are plenty of tools out there to create websites. Just do a quick search for 'program for creating websites' in your favorite search engine and you'll find them.
If you want to dive deeper into website creation, I suggest you buy literature about HTML, CSS and JavaScript basics and/or work through some online tutorials on that topic.

Note that Firebug is a tool for debugging websites. If you want to learn more about it, please visit getfirebug.com.

Sebastian

[JP Charrier]

Further to what Sebastian said, there are many options for you Ed. 

A good editor (try a couple, download trials demos etc) this will replace composer. Plenty of free ones around. 

An ftp program. I'm not familiar with what's available on windows (I'm on mac) but I do know there are loads of ftp programs available for pc also. 


Personally I wouldn't use sea monkey but that's just my opinion. I would use an editor, an ftp program and leave debugging apps for debugging. 

Regards,

JP Charrier

Sent from my iPhone

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Firebug" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to firebug+u...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to fir...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/firebug.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/firebug/a73ab7f4-8fb0-44fe-8c22-2a6608cf70e3%40googlegroups.com.

[Ed Lake]

Sebastian and JP,

From what I can tell, SeaMonkey looks perfect for me.  It looks like an updated version of Netscape composer, which is what I've been using for 13 years.

It even seems to include a way to upload files, so I won't have to use CUTEftp anymore.

While there might be other ways to create web sites out there, SeaMonkey seems to require the least amount of learning.   

I'm not likely to use CSS or Javascript.  I'm not even sure why ANYONE would want to use them.  It's like a different world where people do things very differently. 
Basically, all I want is a way to continue updating my web site at www.anthraxinvestigation.com using my new laptop.  It didn't seem like I could use Netscape composer for that.

Right now, I'm trying to figure out a way to describe all this on my web site.  I'm not sure what kind of world I stumbled into when I tried using Firebug.  But, I'm thinking I stumbled into a world where people use iPads and Smartphones instead of desktop and laptop computers.  I don't even understand what you do with Firebug.  It certainly isn't what I do with Netscape composer.

I don't really think we're speaking the same language.  Or we're not looking at things from the same angle.

Thanks anyway.

Ed  

[Mike Velasco]

Hi Ed,

CSS is used to style websites.  It keeps the structure (also called the content layer, HTML) separate from the presentation layer (the CSS).   The third layer, known as the behavior layer is controlled by JavaScript.  Firebug is a tool used by web developers to debug their websites from within the browser itself.  It also allows temporary on the fly changes to see how updating CSS or javascript will affect the website before going back to a code editor and committing those changes.

If you ever want to get into more of a modern workflow, a tool like Brackets is a nice, free and lightweight editor.

To start with the basics, you can take a free course over the course of a month.  http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/courses/30-days-to-learn-html-css

Hope that helps.

-Mike

[Mike Velasco]

I should also mention, that since you seem to want to edit in a visual way, then for the short term, a free program like BlueGriffon is probably the closest thing to Netscape Composer these days.

-Mike

On Saturday, November 1, 2014 12:18:38 PM UTC-4, Ed Lake wrote:

[Ed Lake]

Mike,

"Style web sites"?  "Presentation layer"?  "Behavior layer"?  Debug web sites?  To me, that's like debugging a screw driver or a picture frame?  What's to debug? 

But, like I said, we're in different worlds.  What I'm doing is evidently very very basic. 

But, BlueGriffon looks like it may be an option if I can't figure out how to use SeaMonkey to do the only thing that Netscape doesn't seem able to do: create a visual link to a Youtube video.

Thanks for the help.

Ed

[JP Charrier]

Ed, modern websites are a lot more complex and dynamic than the one you update. And cannot be achieved the way yours is. Not say one is better they are different. 

You have entered a discussion forum on a developer tool. A highly advanced tool to inspect and figure out why something may not be working as expected a modern website. 

There are many ways to edit and achieve updates on a website. Yours happens to be fairly simple and there are many options. But your speaking with people who work at the other end of the scale, people who push and make new boundaries of what is possible...not maintaining what was 13 years ago... So please bear that in mind. 

All the best with your updates :)

Regards,

JP Charrier

Sent from my iPhone

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Firebug" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to firebug+u...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to fir...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/firebug.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/firebug/2a6628a4-c12b-4e8b-9c06-c09bbb9294eb%40googlegroups.com.

[Lawrence San]

I've found that in talking to non-developers, using words like structure, markup, presentation, style, and behavior are just confusing. We're so familiar with those terms that we forget that they require a context that most people don't have.

I've done a lot of tech writing aimed at non-geeks, and in my experience the best way to summarize the three web client-side languages for them is something like this:

HTML: A simple language that describes the purpose of different parts of the page -- this is a headline, this is a paragraph of text, and so on.

CSS: A graphic-design language used to tweak the appearance of items on the page -- this headline is big and green, this sidebar is blue and has a wide border, and so on.

JavaScript: A real programming language, used to create complex interactions between the visitor and the page -- if you click this button that picture will get bigger, stuff like that.

Hope that helps someone.

[Ed Lake]

JP Charrier and San,

Got it.  Thanks.  I'm just a guy with a web site, not a web site designer.  I only created my web site 13 years ago because I needed a place to save links people were using on newsgroups (a.k.a. discussion forums). Later, it expanded into a place to show differences between what people believed and what the facts and evidence said.
 
Here's a new term I've recently learned: WYSIWYG.  That's my ball park for web site work.

Thanks again to everyone.  There is probably a better forum for discussing all this, but this forum just happens to be the one I stumbled into.

Ed   

[JP Charrier]

Hi Ed, there's a lot of developers out there (myself included) that would be willing to help you when your ready to upgrade to a system that would be easier for you to update (like updating a word document). 

In terms of forums I Would suggest taking a look at tutsplus.com, there are many free articles and how-to tutorials should you want to learn some more and their comment area (not so much a forum) are excellent. I'm not really aware of a forum centre aimed at your level, if there isn't one then the industry is really lacking. I could suggest others but most are aimed at developers (some get pretty grumpy when you ask low level question *glares at certain forum*). 

Best of luck :)

Regards,

JP Charrier

Sent from my iPhone

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Firebug" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to firebug+u...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to fir...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/firebug.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/firebug/c06790cb-198f-48f2-8a4b-3420c97438d3%40googlegroups.com.

[Ed Lake]

JP Carrier,

I update my web site nearly every day, and I sometimes revise the updates maybe 10 times before I'm satisfied with the wording.  I haven't yet tried it with SeaMonkey, but it certainly doesn't appear to be much different.

Thanks anyway.

Ed

[Sebastian Zartner]

*snip*

I think there were enough explanations and suggestions to improve knowledge about website creation. I don't want to sound rude or anything, though this forum is the wrong place for discussions like this.
Ed, if you want to keep on editing your website as you do now, that's totally fine. If you want to know more about web design and all that stuff, so you can improve your website, you already have some links now to get a better understanding of how to do so and you see that there are many people willing to help you with that.

Sebastian