Spry Navigation - Dreamweaver CS3 - From menu to menu, spry adds to much data and then causes broken links

HI. Sorry, I'm not understanding what you mean. Can you elaborate a little?

Thank you!

I noticed when you have a folder name or web page name that is more than one word you have spaces in them - THAT'S A BIG FAT NO-NO and NOT recommended for web development.  This goes for PDF's, images, everything.

For example - folder "Communications Pages" or web page "Adult Education.html".  Change those spaces to underscore symbol. IE: _

Since you are using Dreamweaver, if you rename folders or files in Dreamweaver it will update all pages calling that folder or files.  Then just re-upload your entire site.  In the files list in Dreamweaver if you left-click to highlight a file, then wait a second and left-click again that puts you in rename file mode.

Those spaces could very well be your problem and I've seem them screw up things or create wacky results in the past.

For more detailed reference, check out the section about 3/4 down this page called "Don't hit the space bar" http://www.netmechanic.com/news/vol6/html_no6.htm

Regards,
Torrey

PS: like the site!

Hi. I wondered about spaces. I'm self taught and most of my web design knowledge comes from trial and error and web tools like EE.

I'll make those changes. Appreciate it!

Jeff

What issues are you still having?

Hi. The site is still in production. What's happening is when I go from one navigation menu, to another, it adds the previous column to the link and errors out. How do I fix that?

htlc.pcbydesign.net   -    that is the address. Try going from one directory to another.

Thanks

I did copy the links from page to page, once the Spry was setup. THat makes sense as to why it is not working. Thank you for your help!

I thought that since I made the menu once, then copied to all pages, that once I recreated it inside of each page, that it would work, but it still doesn't. I know I've already assigned points, but can you advice? I changed the About Us Section, but when I'm in About Us and try to click a link over to, say Ministries, I get the 404 error. Changed the links to root level. What am I missing?

Thanks!

>> Changed the links to root level. What am I missing?

Did you upload all the pages?  I just looked at your site and the links look the same as they did before.

I did upload yesterday, but didn't see any change, so  I started making other changes. I'll reupload again.

The way I'm changing the links in Dreamweaver,  I went to manage sites, then changed the links from page relative to root, but is there another way I need to do it?

I've always just left them at page relative. Is it better pratice to go to root relative?

I've uploaded a image.

Thanks

>> The way I'm changing the links in Dreamweaver,  I went to manage sites, then changed the links from page
>> relative to root, but is there another way I need to do it?

Changing it in the site definition only affects future documents.  You do need to go through each of your pages and change the links by hand to correct the problem.

>> I've always just left them at page relative. Is it better pratice to go to root relative?

It really is six of one, half-dozen of the other.  It depends on your personal preference and (to some extent) how your site is set up.  If you have very few folders and subfolders, it is probably easier to use document relative.  If your site has lots of folder depth, root relative may be better.

When you only have one or two levels of folders, all links will look like this:

<a href="path/to/secondlevelpage.html">Going down</a>

or

<a href="../../index.html">Going back up</a>

That's pretty easy to see and understand.  But if your site has four or five levels of folders document relative links begin to look pretty messy:

<a href="path/to/a/page/five/levelsdeep.html">Going down</a>

That's not too bad.  But going back up is ugly:

<a href="../../../../../index.html">Going back up</a>

Trying to keep track of all of the ../ iterations is a pain.  It's worse when you try going up a few levels, then back down a few levels:

<a href="../../a/new/path/index.html">Going back up then down</a>

Whereas if you use root relative in the same situation:

<a href="/index.html">Going back up</a>

<a href="/path/to/a/new/path/index.html">Going back up then down</a>

But both methods are correct.

Thanks. So if I make new pages, then copy the data over from the old to the new, will my links update?

>> then copy the data over from the old to the new, will my links update?

I don't think so, because the links are wrong to begin with.  If you declare root relative or document relative in the site definition and then fix the links to be consistent with that choice you will be in better shape.  However, copy/paste is NOT the right action.  Instead, doing File | Save As is the proper way.  DW will prompt you to update links and the links should update.  

I forgot another advantage of root-relative links:  you can use a menu with root relative links as an include or library item since the links work no matter where the page is in the folder hierarchy.  This means that all you have to do is maintain ONE menu and simplifies site updates and management tremendously.

Just so I'm understanding this 100%, will I just need to resetup the SPRY since that is the only thing I'm having issues with? Or how would I change each link? Sorry, I've been working on this for a few days and I'm really struggling.

Thanks

Just switch to code view on each page and fix the links.  You can delete the menu and recreate it but I think that's a larger pain than just quickly fixing the links.

Never accept a solution until you have tried, tested, and verify it has resolved your problem.  

It's nice that experts are still assisting you with this closed question but many experts will tell you to start a new question after you accepted a solution and ask more questions.

Regards,
Torrey

To be fair, the accepted solution does work.  He just hasn't applied it properly yet.

I hear yeah, just given the poster a future heads up because I've seen some people get upset and nasty.

I'm like you Jason, always fair and just trying to help.

Regards,
Torrey

I can open another post if needed, but when I add ../ for the about us links, I'm still getting the error. How exactly do I change each link?
Thank you

It's going to depend on what page you are fixing.  The About Us links IN THE ABOUT US pages are correct.  They don't need ../ because they are linking to files at the same level:

<li><a class="MenuBarItemSubmenu" href="../AboutUs.html">About Us</a>
          <ul>
            <li><a href="Who We Are.html">Who We Are</a></li>
            <li><a href="Membership Info.html">Becoming A Member</a></li>
            <li><a href="Virtual Tour.html">Virtual Tour</a></li>
            <li><a href="Staff.html">Staff</a></li>

That's correct.  The AboutUs.html page is one level up.  All other pages are at the same level.

The Ministry pages are incorrect and generally would need a / or ../ in the href attribute.

The About Us links IN THE ABOUT US pages are correct.  They don't need ../ because they are linking to files at the same level:

Are you saying they don't need ../ because they are all in the same directory? Inside of each directory (About us links all in the About directory), are all working okay. But when I try to go from a page from within the About Us to a page in the Ministry, thats where it errors.

This is where I'm still unclear what to fix. Wouldn't I make the same changes sitewide? When I get the 404 error, I just remove the previous directory in the browser and then it goes. A example is -

About Us- Who we are:

http://htlc.pcbydesign.net/About_Us_Pages/Who_We_Are.html

Then if I try to go to Adult Ed. in the Ministries, I get this:

http://htlc.pcbydesign.net/About_Us_Pages/Ministries/Adult_Education.html.

If I take away the previous directory (About_Us_Pages) then it goes just fine. But I don't know how to tell my links not to grab the previous directory.

Sorry if you feel you are repeating yourself, but this has me overthinking it probably.

>> Are you saying they don't need ../ because they are all in the same directory?

Yes. When a target is at the same level as the page with the link, is correct. If the target is ANYWHERE else, you need to add directory indicators. Either the ../ to indicate a higher level or the directoryname/ to indicate a lower level or both. Or use root relative and just have /path/to/page.html for everything.

>> Wouldn't I make the same changes sitewide?

For root relative, yes. For DOCUMENT relative, no. The paths change depending on where the document is.

>> About Us- Who we are: http://htlc.pcbydesign.net/About_Us_Pages/Who_We_Are.html
>> Then if I try to go to Adult Ed. in the Ministries, I get this: http://htlc.pcbydesign.net/About_Us_Pages/Ministries
>> /Adult_Education.html.

Okay, I'm going to switch to ALL CAPS when I want to emphasize. Please don't take it as "shouting"

The reason you get the 404 in the above situation is because the link for Adult_Education looks like this:

<a href="Ministries/Adult_Education.html">

So because you are starting in:

http://htlc.pcbydesign.net/About_Us_Pages/

The <a href="Ministries/Adult_Education.html"> means LOOK ONE LEVEL DOWN FROM WHERE I AM CURRENTLY.

So to be correct, you would need to change the link to:

<a href="../Ministries/Adult_Education.html">

OR

<a href="/Ministries/Adult_Education.html">

The first link says GO BACK UP ONE LEVEL, THEN FIND "Ministries" AND THEN FIND THE PAGE "Adult_Education" IN FOLDER "Ministries"

The second link says I DON'T CARE WHERE I AM STARTING FROM, GO BACK TO THE HIGHEST LEVEL AND THEN FIND "Ministries" AND THEN FIND THE PAGE "Adult_Education" IN FOLDER "Ministries"

Does this make sense yet?

>> Sorry if you feel you are repeating yourself, but this has me overthinking it probably.

No apologies needed. This is a hugely important concept for web designers and you need to understand how to write links correctly. Otherwise you spend hours and hours troubleshooting something that should have been done correctly the first time out. Too many people use Dreamweaver as a crutch not realizing that it is affected by the same garbage-in, garbage-out concept that the rest of software is governed by.

Yes, that is making more sense. I'm going to take another crack at it tomorrow.

Thank you very much!!

I'll post back tomorrow.

Just to clarify one thing -

So to be correct, you would need to change the link to:

<a href="../Ministries/Adult_Education.html">
OR
<a href="/Ministries/Adult_Education.html">

The document relative level would be ../ and the root relative level would be /  

Correct? Just want to make sure I understand this.

Correct