I am very new to Freeway so this is probably a very easy question to most.
I want to link some type to download a pdf (an competition entry form). The file is on my desktop but obviously it can’t be downloaded by browsers from my website. I understand the pdf will need to go into the ‘resources’ folder? How do I get it in there and then link the text? I know it will need to be via hyperlink but that’s about all?
There’s a built-in Action in Freeway just for this. With your text
cursor inside the HTML box where you want the link to appear, choose
Insert / Action Item / Link to PDF. In your Actions palette, enter the
text you want the link to have (default is Download, I think), and use
the file picker to select your PDF. If you want to style the text in
any way. just add a space before and after the Action-item in your
HTML box, highlight the whole “sandwich” (space - action - space) with
the text cursor, and apply any style you like. Freeway will build the
link and upload the PDF to your Resources folder for you.
It’s a very good idea to never add or modify anything in the Site or
Resources folder, by the way. Freeway manages those folders for you,
and considers anything you do in there to be “damage” that it should
“repair”.
Walter
On Aug 11, 2011, at 10:28 AM, Jon Bion wrote:
Hi,
I am very new to Freeway so this is probably a very easy question to
most.
I want to link some type to download a pdf (an competition entry
form). The file is on my desktop but obviously it can’t be
downloaded by browsers from my website. I understand the pdf will
need to go into the ‘resources’ folder? How do I get it in there and
then link the text? I know it will need to be via hyperlink but
that’s about all?
Forgive my intrusion into this thread, but I note your advice about the Site Folder and Resources folder. Should files you wish to link to be placed in the main folder then?
The files will be copied from their current location (anywhere) to the Resources folder by Freeway when you publish the site. The original file can be anywhere on your Mac, or any file server it can reach, and it won’t be modified or moved. If the original is subsequently updated by another application, the next time you upload, Freeway will send the latest version. That’s one of the great things about Freeway – file management is not your job.
When you create a new FW doc from a template a Media folder is created as well.
It is very wise (in the interests of easy file management) to put all the files that you are going to use in the site within that folder - by all means have subfolders in there too - and then import these filles into FW from there. (PDFs, jpegs, mov, etc. etc.)
That way you will have all the originals in one place.
As Walter suggests FW takes care of the file structure for your site when it is published or previewed and creates its own version of your originals which are placed in the Resources folder.
The HTML pages created by FW are placed in the Site folder (that you designated in File>Document Setup) alongside the Resources folder.
You should treat the contents of the Site Folder (and the Resources folder within it) as a No Go area. FW manages the entire contents of the Site folder and tracks every single item within it.
It is through this process that FW ‘knows’ which files and folders have changed and compares them to those on your server when it does an upload.
There are various actions that allow you to add files to your site if that is what you want to do and using them ensures that FW can manage the whole site for you.
So unless you are 100% sure that you know what you are doing then leave the contents of the Site folder well alone.
Thank you for your reply waltd. I have managed to link the file but can’t style the text. I don’t really understand what you mean by a space before and after, where do I do this?
If you apply the Action as an inline element (double-click inside an
HTML box so you see a flashing text cursor, then choose Insert /
Action Item / Link to PDF from the main menu), then you will be able
to wrap the Action-item (which looks like a little 12 x 80px box with
a cog badge in one corner) in spaces. The way this works is you first
need to have a text cursor, so double-click again, then when you have
the flashing text I-beam cursor, use your arrow keys to move the
cursor around the text. Think of the Action-item as a single, very
wide, text character. So place your cursor to the left of it, press
the spacebar, then use the arrow key to move right of the Action-item,
type another space, and finally, use your mouse to select the entire
“sandwich” of space-action-space. Once you have this selection, you
can use the Inspector or the Styles palette to apply any sort of style
you like.
Now that will take you through all of the style controls that have to
do with actual text – the font, size, spacing, etc. If you want to
override the default text LINK style, you do that in the usual way:
select the HTML box that the text is in (make sure its 8 handles are
showing) and use the Inspector’s Style tab, in the Links segment.
Walter
On Aug 16, 2011, at 5:51 AM, Jon Bion wrote:
Thank you for your reply waltd. I have managed to link the file but
can’t style the text. I don’t really understand what you mean by a
space before and after, where do I do this?