FrontPage: Corrupted Exension files (I think)

[Gayle A]

Greetings,

Thanks, DL, for inviting me to post here.

I have inherited a website in FrontPage, a program I knew nothing of. I've studied hours over the last few days and have learned much. In the process, though, I fear I may have made a grave mistake and don't know what to do about it.

After downloading the website, I noticed all the files were unmatched so I studied up on that. Then I matched them all (maybe should have just left them alone) except for four files. Maybe they are not SUPPOSED to match.

.cshrc, .login, .profile.

I've been trying to study about these but I still don't have a clear understanding of their relationship to the rest of the site. I know basic page maintenance, not this behind the scenes stuff.

But this is not what most concerns me. Rather, I know I did "something" to my .log file. It seemed like there was something wrong with it initially, but now I fear it was fine and I should have just left it alone. Alas, I didn't.

I do have a copy of the folder contents on my local drive. This is good, I know! I also have it still there on the remote. However, I did "something" to it so now I can't delete the contents inside the .logs file on the remote and I know I should be able to. (The file had grown quite large).

Further, I did something I REALLY know I shouldn't have done now. I was curious what would happen if I uploaded the same the .LOG file without the period. Now that file is on my remote as well and it will not allow me to delete it. Doesn't matter which route I take to delete it (right click, from the menu, etc), it absolutely will not allow me to.

I don't know if this is a real serious thing. I fear it is and I'm quite anxious about it. Thanks much for any insights. I'm willing to read any articles or study tutorials that would answer this if you can direct me.

Thanks so much. I really need to resolve this.

Gayle

Edited July 14, 2005 by Gayle A

[dman]

Hi Gayle,

First a thought about frontpage. I won't comment on it as a web authoring tool since you inherited the site, but it is a good idea to avoid using the "live edit" feature. You want to be working on your local computer (after making master backup, of course) and only uploading pages when you are satisfied. Too many things can go wrong doing live edit. If you need assistance setting up local web server on your machine to use for developmant will be happy to help. What OS are you running, BTW.

Are you trying to delete these files through frontpage? I don't use it, so can't offer help there but have you tried a regular FTP connection? You should be able to delete, download or upload any file via FTP as long as your login has permission on the files. I like the fireftp extension to firefox or smartftp freeware.

Hope this is some help.

EDIT: Don't be worried or anxious about any of this because you have the golden ticket (working backup). There is nothing really bad that can happen if you have this.

Edited July 14, 2005 by dman

[Gayle A]

Dman,

Thanks for your response. I just wrote you a long response and lost it. Doggone it. No time to write it out again.

I use Windows MX. I am not using the live feature but am making changes locally than uploading to the remote when I'm done.

I think the bottom line of what I'm grappling with is this: My knowledge of web design is basic and so I can't yet discern when I run into a glitch whether it's a geneal html issue or if I am fighting against some of the unique coding of FrontPage. I know that MS Programs have this propensity for trying to do us a favor; that is, thinking it knows what we want and doing it for us; e.g, Word adding tabs, bullets when you didn't ask for them.

Perhaps it was less unwise than unnecessary for me to be so concerned about making sure my remote and my local system agree. In fact, good grief, I just had an epiphany. When I used Dreamweaver, I couldn't care less that the remote reflected my local. I have all kinds of files related to the local that I decided didn't need to be uploaded. Of course they wouldn't agree.

So, I guess my last question for the moment is this: My original concern centered around these files: my .log, .cshrc, .login, .profile. Are these FrontPage files OR are these files that I would find on any website?

I do wish I could delete the log I created in SmartSource. This is the FTP I use and have been pleased with it. Perhaps I need to ask them how to delete this file. Or better yet, I suppose I need to actually go to the Hosting Company and maybe ask them. Bottom line, I don't want it there and I can't get rid of it.

Thanks again!

Gayle

[dman]

Someone please correct me if I’m wrong here, I'm not an expert either. The .cshrc, .login and .profile files are in your "home" directory root, yes? They are used to set your UNIX (Linux) environment variables on login. I think it only applies when you are running a shell (I believe these are for cshell) like through SSH. I don't believe that these have any bearing on the operation your website. They definitely are *NIX files, not frontpage. Not sure if the log is your web log or a system log. What do you mean you created it with ftp program?

You are right about frontpage adding junk. dreamweaver too. Really there is nothing better than a good simple code editor like notepad++. I am trying to learn how to build a xhtml compliant site with CSS. I gave up on all of the IDE tools because they all want to add their own little unmaintainable, non-compliant things.

What type of message are you getting when you try to delete the log file?

Edited July 15, 2005 by dman