How can I reconstruct my website

September 21, 2005 11:23 PM

My laptop recently got stolen and all of my website files where on it... I use a specific program to construct the site - it codes everything in Absolute positions on an X & Y pixel grid layout - the program I used however can not edit the files individually - you must have the native format of the pages that the program then turns into .html files.. is there a program however that I CAN edit the exiting files that are on my server with... so I dont have to rebuild the whole site? the web address is www.robertalbrecht.com Thanks...
posted by crewshell to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

It would help if you told us the name of the program.
posted by bshort at 11:25 PM on September 21, 2005

bshort:

meta name="generator" content="Antenna 2.5"

Crewshell: you will be able to edit the existing files on your server, however, it may be necessary to learn some rudimentary HTML. Since it looks like your site is fairly static, and your changes will probably be few and far between, you can probably just use an FTP client to download the files in question, find and edit the copy using a text editor, then upload them back to the site.

I'm not real sure whether you'll be able to get these files back into Antenna, as i'm not at all familar with the program. However, learning how to update your website by hand will definitely add to your computer skills. (then you can put Web Editing under your special skills section!)
posted by fishfucker at 11:38 PM on September 21, 2005

Maybe a stupid question, but have you emailed the antenna people about importing it? Especially given that your website is listed in their "showcase" (here), they might be able to help you re-import your site.
posted by advil at 12:13 AM on September 22, 2005

btw nice photos bshort
posted by fishfucker at 12:38 AM on September 22, 2005

You should be able to download the HTML files and edit them with your choice of editor, but if you want to change the format, etc you'll have to edit every single page
posted by delmoi at 1:18 AM on September 22, 2005

Yeah, to re-iterate, once you edit the pages by hand, you're probably not going to be able to get them back into Antenna. If you're looking to learn some HTML (or can learn to fake it), I really recommend getting a simple HTML editor that can ftp in for you, present you with the list of files on your server, and then let you edit and save to the server. I, for example, use DreamWeaver.

You're cute! :) Be sure to post in MetaTalk if you make it in this business we call "show."

And my favorite part of your website?

Special Skills

Singer (baritone), Computer Skills, Passport, Diverse Job history, SPORTS: Athletic,Baseball, Cycling, Swimming, Track, Soccer, College Rowing, Certified Indoor Rowing Instructor, Level 1 Rowing Coach, Weight Training MISC: Military Service, Small & large Fire Arms training, Combat training, Video Broadcast training, Able to move my nose, ears & one eye brow!

Special skills, indeed!
posted by chota at 5:41 AM on September 22, 2005

thanks, fishfucker!

Yeah, I'd recommend something like Dreamweaver as well. Going with something like Antenna is going to have exactly the drawbacks you're experiencing now, whereas Dreamweaver will work with whatever HTML files you have lying around.
posted by bshort at 8:09 AM on September 22, 2005

Response by poster: Hey guys

As of now there is no way to import them back into antenna - you have to have the single native file format that organizes and handles all of the files and then outputs them into standard HTML files. I know how to edit them by hand, but that can be QUITE time consumming, especially if I want to add anything significant .... I guess a more specific question would be, is there any program that will let me edt the pages quikly using a WYSIWYG format that utlizes absolute grid positioning.

Thanks for the input guys!
posted by crewshell at 10:14 AM on September 22, 2005

Not that this will help now but if you decide to continue using Antenna in the future yoy may want to include these meta files in your website uploads. You can set them to not be readable by anyone but you and the web server would be the perfect off-site back up.
posted by Mitheral at 2:44 PM on September 22, 2005