1st time attempting to edit a website = help

Magic_x_uk · 22 Aug 2019 at 23:04

Hi. Looking at updating our clubs website. No experience doing this.

Been told it has been edited in notepad before and I will need a ftp program ( my laptop is windows 7)

I have the ftp address, user name and password.

What ftp program do I want and is this going to be hard work

Thanks

The1nonly1 · 23 Aug 2019 at 10:26

I like using FileZilla. It's free and easy to use. Instead of notepad, use Notepad++, again it's free and easy to use.

The level of difficulty will depend entirely on what you want to do.

Deleted member 77746 · 23 Aug 2019 at 10:31

Magic_x_uk said:
What ftp program do I want and is this going to be hard work

Thanks

It will be hard work if you don't know how to code or even what to look for. Having someone newto website building to update it isn't really a nice solution. Can be very messy. This might be better in the web forum. https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/forums/html-graphics-programming.41/

AHarvey · 27 Aug 2019 at 06:42

Have you got a link to the site you're updating?

Magic_x_uk · 27 Aug 2019 at 11:47

http://www.leafields.com/

Deleted member 77746 · 27 Aug 2019 at 11:56

Magic_x_uk said:
http://www.leafields.com/

That really needs updating.

Do you have a Facebook page? I would be tempted to get all the info onto Facebook and then just direct people to there. The site would then be already set up for you and it's easier to manage.

Magic_x_uk · 27 Aug 2019 at 12:03

Yes we do have a Facebook page. Which I admin on. My only concern with your idea. Is what would happen to people who don’t have Facebook?

Not everyone has it as you can imagine. Plus in this particular hobby. Some members / hobbyists can be ‘ old skool ‘ so them being on the internet is a big thing already to them

Randomface74 · 27 Aug 2019 at 12:09

get an ftp program, filezilla will do.
download all your content into a folder on your pc.
zip it up and stick a copy in your cloud storage in case you mess up.
install notepad++ and use this to edit your html files.
html is fairly straightforward, you're just defining headings, paragraphs, links, lists, etc. https://www.w3schools.com/html/
you can view the files in your favourite web browser to check your changes.
then ftp upload the files you've changed

because it's so old, you might choose to just start from scratch with a new site.
that way you would understand everything that's there because you will have created it.
depends how big a change you need to make.

Deleted member 77746 · 27 Aug 2019 at 12:14

Magic_x_uk said:
Yes we do have a Facebook page. Which I admin on. My only concern with your idea. Is what would happen to people who don’t have Facebook?

Not everyone has it as you can imagine. Plus in this particular hobby. Some members / hobbyists can be ‘ old skool ‘ so them being on the internet is a big thing already to them

Yep I understand it from this point of view. How about a template? There's a lot out there FREE. For example W3Layouts..

https://w3layouts.com/free-responsive-html5-css3-website-templates/

Magic_x_uk · 27 Aug 2019 at 12:55

Okay got Core lite FTP downloaded and managed to connect to the website.

Trying firstly. To see if I can change the 'home page' image.

Cannot even find it in all the folders to see which one it maybe is in. Navigating is fun...............

AHarvey · 27 Aug 2019 at 13:05

Magic_x_uk said:
Okay got Core lite FTP downloaded and managed to connect to the website.

Trying firstly. To see if I can change the 'home page' image.

Cannot even find it in all the folders to see which one it maybe is in. Navigating is fun...............

nope, first thing, create a backup of the entire site on your local machine in a zip file just in case you break something.

I imagine there's no database with the site so it should be quite simple to backup

Randomface74 · 27 Aug 2019 at 13:56

Magic_x_uk said:
Trying firstly. To see if I can change the 'home page' image.
Cannot even find it in all the folders to see which one it maybe is in. Navigating is fun...............

In your home page HTML is this:

Code:

<img src="wpimages/wpca22913a_05_06.jpg" alt="" style="position:absolute;left:0px;top:0px;" width="1260" height="1024" border="0">

Which I found via right click "inspect element" in Chrome.
so your image is at wpimages/wpca22913a_05_06.jpg
and if you replace the image with one with a different width and/or height it'll stretch because width and height are specified on the img tag, so you'll need to remove or update those attributes.

Magic_x_uk · 27 Aug 2019 at 13:57

Looked through it, Can connect to the web page. But cannot find anything that is 'back up' or save website etc from within Core FTP Lite

Bug One · 27 Aug 2019 at 14:06

Magic_x_uk said:
Looked through it, Can connect to the web page. But cannot find anything that is 'back up' or save website etc from within Core FTP Lite

An FTP programme is just a file browser. Copy all the files to your local drive, to make a backup.

Before editing anything online, you may want to try any changes out on your local machine. You can turn your PC into a makeshift webserver to try this out. Everything you need is probably already installed (You have to turn IIS on in Windows 10 features).

Much better to try stuff out locally where only you can see the results before applying any changes to the live system.

Randomface74 · 27 Aug 2019 at 14:22

it's just html (static content), don't even need a web server, just open the html file in any browser.

to back up:
1. make a folder called "club website backup 2019-08-27"
2. ftp download your whole site into that folder
3. zip the folder (most people use 7-zip for that)
4. put the zip file in your favourite cloud storage

Magic_x_uk · 27 Aug 2019 at 14:43

Okay. Will look in a bit. Just couldn’t see a way to download and choose a specific location from within core lite ftp.

Maybe I can do this and update it a little with some help from you guys.

It only needs to be basic.

Ideally. All that is needed is to change the ‘contact’ bit within the site.

Change the front page image.

And front page information text

Randomface74 · 27 Aug 2019 at 14:46

I have faith in you mr magic x uk. You can do it!

Another thought, it's worth running the pages through a formatter because at the moment they're pretty hard to read.
Copy the whole content of whichever html file you're working on into here and it'll fix it up for you: https://www.freeformatter.com/html-formatter.html
then just paste what it gives you back over the original

Bug One · 27 Aug 2019 at 15:02

Magic_x_uk said:
Ideally. All that is needed is to change the ‘contact’ bit within the site.

Change the front page image.

And front page information text

I hate to say, but it needs a lot more than that.

If I were you, I'd replace the entire site with a couple of lines of text, then a link pointing people to your Facebook page.

Magic_x_uk · 27 Aug 2019 at 15:37

Okay. Just has a go at a couple of things to start with.

Went into a folder from core lite. Found ‘page3’ and copied it to desktop and then opened with notepad++.

Changed the spelling of a name, ( in contact us) the word ‘secretary’ so it is incorrect!! then put it back in the core ftp program.

I then checked on my computer from chrome and IE. But no changes.
Checked on my iPhone though and the changes were showing live on the website.

So now I know I can change at least a little bit of text in a particular field.

But why is my computers web browsers still showing the old unedited version?
Is that down to cookies. Is there something I can do to enable me to instantly see website updates whilst working on it on the same machine.

Thanks everyone for your help so far

andy_mk3 · 27 Aug 2019 at 16:10

CTRL & F5 will force a page reload, and not used and cached data.

That's a very old school looking site, reminds me of the earlier days of the Internet

Personally, I would ditch that page completely and make something in WordPress. I did this with my own club site that I took over, now any updates are carried out in an admin panel just like typing a post on a forum.