Can't Edit Page in NVU

[cindi]

NVU is telling me my web pages "cannot be edited for some reason". Why is it doing that? I moved my pages from my hosting account to my computer via FTP Commander and now I can't do anything with them.

I am stuck with them now because I copied over the ones I had on my computer with the ones from my hosting site.

Cindi

[Nancy]

;DI Have the same problem, every time I move my webpage to my computer it puts that box up.

You get around it by working in the source code. Sometimes it will let you make changes in the normal mode but not often.

Once you make a change, save it to your computer as your index as you should not have the problem again.

Nancy ;D

[Tom "CloudHand"]

I have never had that problem.

Does NVU give you any indication as to why it cannot make changes to the file?

The only thing that I can think of that may be causing this is the permissions on the file are being set to "read only" during the transfer.

You can test this by using windows explorer and right clicking on the file after you transfer it. Select "properties" from the pop-up menu and see if "read only" is selected. If it is, then uncheck the box and save the file.

If the file is not "read only", then there is no reason why NVU should complain about making changes to it.

I would try transferring the file using a different method and see if you still have the same problem. Like I just recommended to Tammy in another thread, get rid of FTP Commander and try a better program. I highly recommend SmartFTP. It has a free 30 day trial and is well worth the small fee to purchase a license after the 30 days expires.

If you are looking for a totally free solution, then my recommendation would be to use FileZilla. I used to use that before I discovered SmartFTP.

Tom

[cindi]

Nancy,

I tried what you said and it did not work.

Tom,
The read only is not checked so that is not the problem. I will try another ftp and see what happens.

NVU does not tell me why I can't make changes.

Cindi

[cindi]

Tom,

I tried FileZilla and it still won't let me. The problem is probably originating from my hosting account. I will check into it. Thanks for trying to solve the problem.

Cindi

[troyzone]

Hi Cindi,

That is a strange problem...like Tom, my first thought was that the files you were transferring were having the Read Only attribute set for some reason during the transfer from your web hosting account to your own computer. This usually happens when copying files from a CD (which is a read-only form of media) to a computer's hard drive.

If the Read Only attribute were set in this case though, you would not likely be able to change the file at all, via the Source code tab, Notepad instead of NVU, or otherwise, until you unchecked the Read Only attribute via right-click on the file / Properties, as Tom mentioned.

One other thing I can think of that could possibly cause this issue, other than a bug in NVU itself, is a file permissions issue. Assuming you are using Windows XP or Vista, your computer's hard drive may be formatted with either the FAT32 file system or the NTFS file system.

You can check the file system type by opening Windows Explorer (holding the Windows key and pressing E is the quickest way to do this, and is one of my favorite keyboard shortcuts), then find the root of your C drive (if that's the drive your files are saved on) and right-click on it, then choose Properties. It should say in the General tab of the window that pops up what file system is on that drive.

If the file system is FAT32, then file permissions are not an issue since the FAT32 file system does not support setting permissions on files and folders. If the file system is NTFS however, then you can try right-clicking on your index.html file / Properties / Security tab and make sure that your currently logged on user account has Full Control permissions checked for that file. If the Everyone group has Full Control that will work fine too.

While you're in the Security properties page, you can also click the Advanced button at the bottom and go to the Owner tab. This will show who the current "owner" of the file is. If you were the one who had created the file, either previously or during the FTP transfer, then you *should* be the owner of the file, which by definition gives you Full Control over the file in any case.

All of this is probably moot, as I would think that your currently logged on user account is most likely the owner of the file, but it doesn't hurt to be aware of the file & folder NTFS file system feature and to check your permissions just in case. If you don't have permission to the file then you may not even be able to view its security properties.

In any case, if you can transfer the file to your computer, then open it in Notepad and make a simple edit and save it successfully, the problem may not be with file attributes or permissions...it may have something to do with NVU itself.

One other thing I just thought of that may be the cause of your issue...FTP clients usually have an option to transfer files in either binary or ASCII mode (there may be an automatic setting as well that *should* auto-detect the right setting to use). I believe that readable text files such as .html files should be transferred in ASCII mode...other files like images or .exe files should be transferred in binary mode.

If you transfer your index.html file in the wrong mode then there may be unrecognized characters introduced inside the file that NVU isn't recognizing. Make sure you're transferring your index.html file in ASCII mode. I'm not familiar with the FTP client that you use so I don't know where exactly the setting is for this, but knowing what to look for you should be able to find it in the properties for your FTP connection or someplace similar.

Hope this helps.

Troy

[Nancy]

;DJust putting my two cents even though I am not a html guru.

I have had this problem with NVU since I started using it. At first I would redo my website, but then I found if I made the changes in the source code, after a while you can make changes the usual way. It still gives me the message every time I open my site in NVU, but you are able to make changes.

I have tried Cindi's site, with her permission, by downloading it and seeing what it is doing, It will display that message almost every time it is loaded, but changes can be made.

I posted several months ago on NVU's forum about this problem and no one there could give me an answer as to why this does it. I have accepted it as a glitch of NVU, one of many, and learned to work around it.

Nancy ;D

[cindi]

Thank you Nancy for the help. My NVU will still not let me make changes to the CSS code. I will take everyone's advice and work on it today.

I can make changes in Coffee Cup and on my host, but not NVU. I just like using NVU (Komposer) because it is faster and I have more control. If worse comes to worse, I will just have to use one of my other editors.

Cindi

[cindi]

Well, I figured out the problem. I put banners from Amazon.com on five pages (book recommendations) and those pages couldn't be edited after I did that. I took Amazon off, and there wasn't a problem editing.

I want to thank everyone for their help.

CIndi