Suddenly no Frontpage extensions

[BarryF]

I moved to Pinbrook for hosting in February 2007 checking that they supported Frontpage and Actinic. All was going well until they removed FP extensions over the weekend. I understand they gave notice to existing clients in June of last year. Anyway I can't blame them for ditching old tech but after picking myself up off the floor I find I cannot update my website in the old way and apparently need to use a special FTP transfer program.

Can anyone help me please? I have local Frontpage files stored in a folder called Outdoorfocus. On the server there is also a folder called Outdoorfocus which contains my web and acatalog is outside this folder. I really need a one-click solution to updating my Frontpage designed files by FTP - I had one until Saturday - It was called Frontpage. Words of one syllable please. With repect saying 'just use any FTP client will not help'

My attempts to transfer files via the ftp otions within Frontpage have created files either outside the server folder outdoorfous or added a new folder called outdoorfocus.co.uk . I was also informed by the software that this FTP server does not support folder names with spaces. This is strange because there are existing folders of this type on my live web. If I change the folder names this will presumably mess up my search engine links. What a mess! I suppose that I ought to be grateful since my clumsy FTP fumbling has not corrupted the existing website which I am in the process of selling on as part of my retirement plan. Fat chance at the moment.

Actinic seems fine and I appreciate this is an Actinic community but I am quite frankly desperate.

Regards,
Barry Fielder
www.outdoorfocus.co.uk

[leehack]

To use it, you need the extensions installed on your server, if there was a way round this, then i'm presuming these extensions would never have been used. Therefore, it would appear that you have 2 choices:

1 - move hosts onto a service that supports Frontpage and will do for sometime

2 - get the pages designed using a different piece of software and get rid of the reliance on Frontpage extensions

I don't see any other options unless the pages are brought inside of actinic and controlled by that.

[jont]

Frontpage can upload in 1 of 2 ways:

HTTP : which requires the frontpage extensions to be installed (default transfer)
FTP : which operates like a regular FTP client

Frontpage does not require Frontpage extensions to be installed to create a website on a server without the extensions unless you are using the proprietary DHTML functions - if just a basic text page (which looking at your site they appear to be) Frontpage is perfectly fine.

I would suggest there is something amiss with the paths in either where you have set up the folders on the server or where you are publishing the site to from within Frontpage.

Check with Jo at Pinbrook on where the sites are sitting from the root of the server - you may be able to check this from within your control panel for the site.

You should really avoid folder names with spaces at all costs and is bad practice. You can set up redirects from the old pages to the new pages without spaces (search this forum for redirects) and this will not affect your search engine rankings. You you need to get the pages up there in a hurry you could try renaming them inside Frontpage such as your tent section page

tent%20lists

with the %20 being used for the space. This may trick FP into uploading via FTP to the current server.

HTH

[BarryF]

Pinbrook support have just cleared away all my garbage for which I am very grateful.

I have decided to ditch frontpage publish as a means of updating and purchase an FTP Client. Any suggestions on which would be the simplest.
Something visual where I can see folders in local and remote locations.

[pinbrook]

Filezilla is open source (ie free or you can make a donation to the open Source Project)

[BarryF]

Thanks Jo,

I have now installed Filezilla, made a connection and can see local and remote files. Now reading about transfers before doing any damage. Many thanks for helping to sort me out. Is there a quick equivalent of what Frontpage called 'Publish changed pages only' which does not require me to remember which pages I have been working on.

Barry

[pinbrook]

move hosts onto a service that supports Frontpage and will do for sometime

Not necessarily the best advice, FrontPage is fine, FrontPage Extensions are not.

Additionally it does not take into account the fact that Microsoft dropped support for FPE for unix on 30 June 06. Thus there have been no updates or security patches since then. Anybody still using FPE has to bear in mind they are EOL.

[BarryF]

Have used Filezilla to upload corrections to my site and start the process of dealing with spaces in folder names. Many thanks to all the above for helpful advice. I shall certainly sleep more soundly tonight.

Best regards
Barry Fielder

www.outdoorfocus.co.uk

[jont]

Any suggestions on which would be the simplest. Something visual where I can see folders in local and remote locations.

Don't forget good old Internet Explorer .. simply use ftp://www.outdoorfocus.co.uk to connect . you can then have Windows Explorer open with the files listed by date (to see the changes) and then simply drag from the Windows Explorer window into the Internet Explorer window