[Pro] Saving error due to large Freeway file

Freeway
1

I was having problems saving a file that had grown too large 2.3 GB. I contact FW help and was contacted the same day with the suggestion that I needed to split the site into smaller units, and saying that they would help me with the details of this if required.

I downloaded FW6 and used it in demo, but five would have been fine, I’m sure.

As my site had grown my FW file had grown until it was over 2GB. Pics were optimised, so to reduce the file size I needed to break up the site into multiple files.

I already had sections of my site in subdirectories for convenience so that was handy.

To keep everything together and avoid confusion I copied the FW site file to a new folder and then published the entire site to a new folder within that folder. then I duplicated the FW file seven times, once for each subdirectory in the original site and using the same file names as the original subdirectories the new files would represent.

I now had eight identical 2.3GB FW files, one for the main domain and one for each subdirectory.

I then opened the domain file, deleted all subdirectories and republished the site and saved it. When prompted to retain links I said OK.

The domain folder now contained the main site html files and resource folders etc, but no subdirectory folders. I wondered if I should create the lost subdirectory folders manually, but decided not to do it yet and see if FW was intelligent enough to do it on the fly.

I then opened the other seven FW files, deleted everything that was not part of each particular subdirectory (saving links when prompted) before publishing to the same folder as the domain file and saved.

As I published, new folders were generated automatically for the new sub sites within the main folder. Phew!

I then dragged index.html into the browser and, hey presto, the entire site worked, with all links still intact. Magic really.

FOR THOSE WHO HAVE ALL THEIR PAGES IN THE MAIN DIRECTORY… I imagine the trick will be to create new folders in FW, naming them sensibly, and dragging appropriate pages into them from the main directory and going OK when prompted to maintain the links. Publishing, saving and following the system outlined above.

I have added pages to the main site and some of the subsites and linking is no real problem, either, for a new link, using the external link/ browse function, or for an established link or button just copy and paste across from one file to another. The links stay fully intact. Very nice altogether.

Uploading… Using FETCH - I deleted all the site files from the server (but if you are nervous doing that one could just upload the new slimmed down main site and it should delete all unneeded files and folders)

Then I uploaded each sub site to the public_html directory as usual. Once again FW created the subdirectory folders on the fly.

I was watching this happening in an open Fetch window and at one point the main site info was lost, but I just re uploaded that again at the end and it was fine. I have done minor changes and uploads since and all is working fine.

This may look complex, but it is in fact fairly simple. Start with a duplicate file and take it one step at a time. If your FW file has grown large it is definitely worth it. Quicker saving, easier updating and, so far, complete elimination of repeated errors and glitches. FW working as it was intended once again after almost losing patients and leaving the platform altogether.

If I was to build another site that may grow over time I would build it in sections from the very start.

Http://brushwoodstudios.com is the site to which this relates.

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2

Thank you very much for this post. I’m currently running into the same issue. I’m a little bit afraid about the break up of my page because the re-upload would take forever.

Is it possible to receive a screenshot from your FTP structure to understand how you split up the page in sections but kept it as one page?

For my understanding - now you’ve got 7 FW documents but you only operate with the latest regarding uploads? Or are you working with all of them if you need to change any content?

How do you avoid that each page build their own index file and replace or confuse the index.html in you main page?

Thank you

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3

Hi David, first off, the site didn’t take that long to reload. FW seems to optimise the images fairly well.

I am on my IPad at the moment, but tomorrow I will post some screen shots, this may be easier if you let me have your email. You can mail me at etienneATsneem.com

If I need to change a part of a subdirectory I work on that sub-file and upload to the public_html file. It is automatically loaded into the correct subdirectory. If you create your subdirectories logically this is quite handy as it is easier to keep track of things when there are fewer pages to keep track of in an open document.

Working in the way described in my original post, the subdirectory files do not create their own index file. I also thought they might create extra index files, but they just use and link to the files already in the folders. Magic, I know.

It may be clearer when I post you some pictures tomorrow. I will send a pic of the folder with all the files FW documents in it as well as a pic of the domain folder with all its subdirectories. It will be quite obvious what relates to what from the pics.

Whatever you do, create a duplicate of your FW document and publish it to a new content folder before you do anything. Then if it goes pear shaped you can always ditch it and start again. If you don’t know how to publish to a new folder let me know. It is easy.

I was a little daunted to start too, but it went more easily than I expected in the end.

Do it, it is so worth it. Since I have broken the files sizes down I have had absolutely zero problems. Such a relief.

Etienne

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4

When you split a site, you generally create a separate folder (subfolder within the main root folder of the server) for each of the sections of the site, and you have a single Freeway document for each section. That makes a nice and clean separation. Each document will publish an index.html, but it will be the index file for that specific folder, not the entire site. When you make changes, you open up just the one document related to the section of the site where the changes are, and you change just that page or pages. If you need to make sweeping changes to the entire site – say global navigation or something like that – then you do have to publish each document in turn.

The old Freeway 3.5 manual had a great section on this, starting on page 334. You can download it here: http://download.softpress.com/downloads/FW35UserGuide.pdf

Walter

On Oct 29, 2013, at 6:19 PM, David wrote:

Thank you very much for this post. I’m currently running into the same issue. I’m a little bit afraid about the break up of my page because the re-upload would take forever.

Is it possible to receive a screenshot from your FTP structure to understand how you split up the page in sections but kept it as one page?

For my understanding - now you’ve got 7 FW documents but you only operate with the latest regarding uploads? Or are you working with all of them if you need to change any content?

How do you avoid that each page build their own index file and replace or confuse the index.html in you main page?

Thank you

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5

Hi Walt

My sub folders didn’t generate index files. They just used the files already there, links and all. You could stipulate an index.html file for each sub folder, but it is not mandatory.

As long as you create the sub folders within the original FW document and drag the documents from the root directory into them you don’t even have to create target folders to publish them to. You just publish them to the main site folder and the sub directories are created on the fly. This is the same when uploading to the server… Upload from any of the sub documents to the public_html folder and the sub folders are generated automatically.

Astounding really.

Et

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6

Hi David

I uploaded a Screenshot of my directory structure here.

The folder at the top (brushwood) is the site folder
The Blue item is the root directory document
The yellow items are the sub directory documents

the red items are one of the sub-directories, the folder it publishes to, and the primary page in that sub-directory.

As you can see, there is no index.html page in the sub-directory.

If you leave all the page names the same as in the original document then the links will be maintained when they are moved to the new folders.

If you want to see the above in action…
Http://brushwoodstudios.com

Extra tips

Tip 1… Don’t create a target folder inside the main root folder to publish sub-folder documents to… if you do FW will create a second folder of the same name inside your target folder and your links will be lost. Just publish everything to the root folder and FW will take care of the directory structure automatically. it just knows what to do and you confuse it if you try to help.

Tip 2… Don’t create target folders on the server when you do the upload for the sub folder pages… As above, just upload everything to public_html and FW will create the necessary sub-folders.

Tip 3… when you create your new sub-documents using the save-as function, name the new sub-documents identically to the sub-folders they will publish to. This makes it much easier to keep track of the site and may be critical when publishing.

It is actually not hard if you don’t over think it. if a Luddite like me can do it it obviously cannot be hard

Good luck

Etienne

Http://brushwoodstudios.com

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