What do I do now? Trying Frontpage

[mariahorn]

I have created a site using Frontpage and was hoping to publish it to my site (http://mariabrouillard.com). It is hosted by Startlogic. Don't ask me why they don't have a www in front of it, I'm not sure. I built the site initially using their web building tools, but it is very restricting and did not allow me to include things like pictures, forms, file attachments, etc, so I created a better one in Frontpage.

When I went to publish it, I get the error message that it won't work because either frontpage extensions are not installed, server is out of service, proxy server settings may be incorrect, or an error may have occurred in the web server.

I have been exchanging emails with their support team. They said the frontpage extensions may be corrupt, so they deleted them and reinstalled them, then did a test page (located at http://mariabrouillard.com/test.htm) and said it was fine. But I still get the error message every time I try.

I then have the option to do it via ftp (which I know nothing about), but when I do that it says it can't find ftp://mariabrouillard.com, would I like to create one, and I say yes, and then it can't do it still.

What am I doing wrong? I have tried everything I can think of and it's not working. I sent another email to the support staff a few hours ago and have not heard anything back yet. I need to get this site published asap (I'm a teacher and my students need to access it during the break). Any other ideas? If I were to do it via ftp, what should I do?

I am totally new to frontpage and web design/publishing, so are there settings somewhere that could be wrong?

I'd appreciate any help you have as to what I can try to make this work. If someone out there has a site that I can try to publsih to to test this out that would be nice too, to find out whose end this error is on.

Thanks so much!
Maria

[E-Liam]

Hi Maria,

I'm just off to work in a little while, so I'l go through the points later. In the meantime, I can upload your site to mine to test. Just post the code here in [code] tags and I'll do it later.

Cheers

Liam

[DumberDrummer]

FTP is a separate protocol.

You need an FTP client to play around with, such as SmartFTP

I would wait for Liam to get back to you before we start getting started with FTP though, it can be a little daunting for new users.

[Chevy]

Internet Explorer supports the ftp protocol, including file browsing and permissions.

However, your ftp address may be different (maybe somthing like host.com/~mariabrouillard).

When you set up the hosting, you should have received an email from them listing your site address, passswords, and ftp address. Double check that.

And then wait for Liam ..

[E-Liam]

Hi Maria,

I've checked and your host fully supports Frontpage extensions, so that should be fine. As far as FTP goes, although in the background it's more complex, all you really need to know for now is that it's simply a way for you to upload files from your computer to a website.

I use Ipswitch WS_FTP. I have the fully paid up version but the link will take you to a 30 trial. There is also Smart FTP and Ace FTP but I would suggest that you use the trial version of Ipswitch, and once your're familiar with how it works you can choose one of the permanent free programs once the trial runs out. It's fairly intuative once you get the basic hang of it.

You'll need to start off with, (check your welcome email from StartLogic) your username, password and ftp address. These should be sent when you sign up.. if not contact them.

Once you've set up the connection.. and I'll help you specifically with that once you have a program installed.. you will have a pane on the left with your local files, ie. on your machine, and a pane on the right with the files/folders that are on the web server. You will need to upload your files to the folder for public documents. This will be called public_html or http_docs or similar. To upload, you'll simply open up the correct folder on the right, open the folder on the left, and highlight which folder/file you want to upload and click the right facing arrow. A progress pane will show at the bottom of the screen when the upload is finished.

It sound complicated, but once the connection is set up, you should be comfortable with how it works in minutes. If you choose any of the other ftps they all work in a similar way.. I just find this one easier to use if you're unfamiliar with the whole process.

As I say, get the connection details from either your welcome email or from StartLogic, download the ftp program (or all of them, then find which one works best for you) and I'll talk you through setting it up.

Must go to work now..

Cheers

Liam

[mariahorn]

Thanks for all your help, but I finally figured it out. Apparently when I was trying to publish from Frontpage my firewall was blocking the attempt, but not givng me the pop up warning that it was doing so. I have to completely turn off my firewall each time I publish, but it's only for a minute or so and then I can turn it right back on. Someday when I have more time I'll play around with my firewall (Zonealarm) and make sure it is set to accept Frontpage.

If you want to see my website as it is now, check out http://mariabrouillard.com This site is for the middle school music program I teach.

[DumberDrummer]

Glad to hear that your problem got fixed, even if we weren't that much help.