web help

[Tom Finley]

Re: web help

Most people browsing the web don't like pages that open in additional windows. In other words, when they click on any of your links, a new window should not open. Instead, the new page should simple replace the old. To do this, you'll have to modify your links. Open a page in BV and right-click on a link. Choose "Properties." This will open a tabbed window, the first tab shows the URL you typed in for the link. Highlight that and click "Edit." On the lower field that says "Target," make that field EMPTY--that is, the field should have no words in it. Click "OK" a couple of times and you are ready to fix the next links. Unhappily, you have to do this for ALL links on ALL pages!

Time consuming, eh?!

[markallan]

Re: web help

Tom,
There never was any writing inany of my links "tarket field" right from the start, so they are and always have been empty. Having writen that, my web site still opens in stages. When you click on travelingtoddlers.com how does it open/appear???
As well my sleep page will not open and I have checked and double checked all the variables and still nothing. It appears as "sleep" everywhere. ????????

[markallan]

Re: web help

Tom, I see what you mean about new pages poping up each time vs pages replacing pages but as i wrote before there is nothing written in the "target " field, what next??? I tried choosing the word "Blank" but that did not work.

[Vasili]

Re: web help

1. On your index page, the HOME button link was improperly entered as www.travelingtoddlers.com/home.html >> change it to >> www.travelingtoddlers.com and nothing more.
This assumes that you have saved your index page as index and published it likewise. Not only will clicking on the "Home" button refresh the page when you are on the index page, if this link is properly entered on every page, it will return visitors to your index page as intended.

2. You need to properly space your navigation buttons horizontally, so they all "fit" within the margins of the index page. Once you do this, the steps below will make sense to you.

3. Once you have properly positioned your navigational buttons, open the Properties of each to verify that you are leaving the TARGET field empty, with nothing in it (manually delete anything, especially if it has _blank entered). *I believe this is where the confusion has been, the difference between the use of the word "blank": the Target field must be empty, as the use of _blank means for the action of the link to open a new browser window.

4. Your entire navigation scheme is incongruent page-to-page, indicating that you manually created them individually (notice there is not "Home" button on any interior page) rather than use the COPY icon to precisely PASTE into the exact position on each page. *Do not use the "Menu Command" or the "mouse-right-click" Copy+Paste method, but use the Copy icon in Blue Voda (looks like a clipboard, left of center on the top toolbar); the Paste icon is next to it on the right.
How? > a. 'highlight' the nav button by clicking on it once; b. click on the Copy icon; c. move to the next (destination) page tab -- must be previously 'opened' in Blue Voda; d. click on the Paste icon to perfectly place the button on each page in precisely the same position, with the same exact formatting; e. move to the next page and simply Paste using the same icon (no need to return to the original page to Copy again -- it is still on the BV clipboard).
Using the icons will duplicate items to subsequent pages, in the same format and in the exact same position.

5. If you correct your navigation scheme using the icons as discussed above, the buttons themselves will be formatted exactly the same, unlike your present layout: you can see on interior pages that the rollover settings are not set/not the same, as well as the forgotten Home button (which appears to not have been missed just to make them all "fit" on the page). It is important to have the Home/Main/Return button on all pages to complete the ability to fully navigate a website.

6. Have you yet installed a "Blog"? If you have done so via Fantastico, is it your intention that your "Blog" button first bring visitors to an actual web page (where I am assuming you wish to 'introduce' it with some written content), or do you really want them to go directly to your Blog? As it is now, your Button links them to a web page you have named "Blog" so you will need to think this out a bit because when you set up a forum/blog via Fantastico, you will be required to enter a "name" for it (because Fantastico will automatically create a directory to install it) and you cannot choose "Blog" again ....

7. Once you have properly positioned, configured (and verified), Copied + Pasted your buttons on every page (using the icons and not the commands), you will then SAVE each page using the exact same titles as they appear in the links you just set up. Then, you will PUBLISH each and every page over again, overwriting the previous pages and their errors.

This should once and for all "solve" your navigation problems and conceptual misunderstandings. There is no reason your links do not function like the many other thousands of us using the same tools, methods, and instructions. None!

You really need to become a disciple of the Tutorials ... all of them .... in the order they are presented. Had you studied them in the manner provided, you would not be in the position you are now, nor would your peers be so frustrated trying to offer core advice to no avail in thread after thread!