Images are blank

[KarenB]

Please pardon me if this has been asked before. I did a search on the topic but didn't find the exact answer I needed, so I'll ask here. I've designed part of my webpage layout and did a couple of updates to see how it looks. Basically it consist of a background, two menus, a logo, and keentags. The menus and logo are .png's (to allow transperant backgrounds). However, though these show up correctly offline, they don't show up as they should on the page. Have a look:

http://vita.comicgenesis.com/d/20070403.html

Even my .jpg background has been exchanged by a background color I assume is one I set as default.

When uploading the page, I replaced it with the dailytemplate.html. I didn't know where to put the images, so I've just thrown them into the same folder as the html, which I assume is my problem. When trying to view one of my images in a seperate window, it says: The requested URL /d/Martybck2.png was not found on this server.

So I'm guessing the images need to be in the /d/ folder? If so, how do I make the images go there? If not, where must they go? I understand that one should keep to the workspace folder, and messing around with the public folder is a bad idea.

Please help.

[Kirb]

Images for your site (not including the comics themselves, of course) go in the workspace -> images folder.

Only .html files of your archives go in /d/, which is completely automated. Pleeease don't touch that folder unless you know what you're doing.

Go through your raw html code again, and make sure you're inputting the images correctly.


Also, I'm assuming when you replaced the old dailytemplate.html, you
replaced the one in the workshop folder before updating?

[KarenB]

Also, I'm assuming when you replaced the old dailytemplate.html, you
replaced the one in the workshop folder before updating?

Yes, I only touched the one in workspace. I've read that we're advised not to touch the Public folder.

Thanks for your help, I'll follow your suggestions now. ^^

[Dr Neo Lao]

Quick tips:

Your comics all go in the workspace/comics folder.
Your templates go in the workspace folder.
Your extra pages go in the workspace/webpages folder.
Your graphics can go in the public_html/images folder.

If you have an index.html file in the workspace folder it causes the server to not upgrade your comic. If you put the templates anywhere in the public_html section then they won't be used.

On to specific things with your comic:

1: The background image is linked to your computer, in the "Karen's Crap" folder on your D drive.

2: You can't use an iFrame in the <title> tag, only raw text. (The title is what's displayed at the very top of the browser, not at the top of the page.) Edit: Looks like you've acidentally put the ***advertisment*** tag in the title on your templates - I think you wanted to put ***comic_name*** instead...

3: Once you have images in the public_html/imaes folder, you link to them like this:

Code: Select all

<img src="/images/name.png">

plus any other tags you want to add (such as border, width, etc)

4: Instead of putting <p align="center"> on every line, just put <center> at the top of the page.

5: At this point I'm going to assume that you are using a html editor rather than doing the code yourself. If you want assistance with the code, just ask!

[Dr Neo Lao]

(sorry for the double post) Try these:

dailytemplate.html and indextemplate.html (right click and save as).

All you need to do is upload the image files to the public_html/images folder and you should be good to go. If you require more help, or change something on these, just ask.

[KarenB]

Thanks for all the pointers Neo. Yes, I'm not really coding it myself - I'm using Frontpage 2003. I've put all my text and images in seperate layers so they are easier to move around, I hope that won't be a problem when I try and upload everything again.

1) I figured I'd have to change that at some point. I'll do that once I got the other images working.

2) I admit I've no idea what iFrame is. And yeah, I need to change the names of the pages. I'm taking baby-steps towards that.

3) Will look into that right away.

4) Thanks for the tip. I know Frontpage generates a lot of unnecessary code, and I'm afraid I'll have to live with it until I become more code savvy (or my code savvy boyfriend can come over and have a look ). But I'll attempt to weed out those the best I can.

5) I'll see how it goes and then I'll be back here if I need further assistance.
Thanks once again. ^^

EDIT:

I changed my html code like you said, so they no longer direct to my offline folders. However, I discovered that the images were already in my Public/Images folder. For some reason the page is still looking for the images in the /d/ folder, and of course doesn't find them there.

Lil' help please. ^^;

Oh, and I know the todays_comics keentag is wrong. I'll fix it along with the rest.

[Dr Neo Lao]

EDIT: the tone of this post may read a little heavy-handed or serious. Please do not be offended or upset, I just wrote things out as I saw them and tend to be a little harsh in the way I write...

Change:

<body background="backgroundtest.jpg" bgcolor="#2C6DD3">

to

<body background="/images/backgroundtest.jpg" bgcolor="#2C6DD3">

Actually, all your image links should be src="/images/name.jpg" (or gif or png), except the comic which uses a keentag anyway.

You've set (or Frontpage has) all your div's to absolute positions, but failed to declare a size for the page. That means that as the browser window is re-sized (or someone is using a lower resolution monitor) that the images will overlap.

You have the ad at the bottom instead of at the top - that's a big no-no. You should have the ***advertisment*** tag as the very first thing after the <body> tag.

Your div's have id tags, but your not using a style sheet or a CSS file.

I would strongly advise you against using FrontPage (or any other wysiwyg html editor) for the simple reason that you can't really see what it's doing. If you want to maintain your comic yourself, then I'd recommend doing the code by hand in NotePad, even if it is rather simple.

The two main reasons for this are that you will have much greater control over the site and you will learn a whole lot more that way. You can build a pretty nifty site with just three tags - table, image and anchor.

If you don't want to learn html and focus on the comic (which is totally understandable, and I'd recomend that even more) then either get someone there (such as your boyfriend) to do the code for you or ask for help from here.

In case you didn't see it, in the post above yours I linked to some templates that I made which are re-builds of your original code - looks the same and functions the same. Feel free to use them if you wish (or just download them and have a look and compare the code to the stuff FrontPage vomits up). I'd be more than happy to help you.

[KarenB]

Thanks for your reply Neo. Now it's obvious what I did wrong. The site is of course looking for the images in the same directory as the pages, because I didn't specify the correct directory. Thanks a bunch for that one.

I've tried to get the advertisment right, but it doesn't quite work out for me for some reason. I have the code at the top, but for some reason it won't show. I don't really know why.

If you don't want to learn html and focus on the comic (which is totally understandable, and I'd recomend that even more) then either get someone there (such as your boyfriend) to do the code for you or ask for help from here.

As much as I'd like to learn html, you're right, I'd rather focus what little time I have to do all this on my comic. I'll continue playing around with it until I can get my boyfriend over to take a look. Hopefully I'll still be able to pick up enough over time, so I can run the site myself.

And about your templates, I saw them and I appreciate you making them for me very much. I'll take a better look at them and maybe to try implement them somehow as well - I've already made many changes to my original layout, and I've yet to see if my own pages work.

I'm really happy for all this support, and I appreciate you taking the time. Maybe you'll take a peak at my site after I get the images working and tell me what you think. I could use your opinion, especially about changes to the code.

[Dr Neo Lao]

I've tried to get the advertisment right, but it doesn't quite work out ... I have the code at the top, but for some reason it won't show.

Don't put the raw code in, just use the ***advertisement*** keentag and let the server do the rest.

Good luck wrestling with the code - it's infinitely better to have a person actually in the room with you (even better when it's your special friend - don't get distracted! ). It also feels so good when you can get it to work and sit back and think "I did that!"

Yeah, if you have bugs or want tweaks, feel free to ask - there's usually someone around who's willing to help out. Or even if you just want to show it off - but that may be better suited to TTT for tweaks or Comic Pitching after you have 20 comics up.

In the words of Eek the Cat - It never hurts to help!

[KarenB]

Allright, it's beginning to look like something. http://vita.comicgenesis.com

By suggestion of a more html-savvy family member, I arranged everything in tables, and now the page is more consistent. I got the images working too, even the background one. The advertisment tag still needs some fixing - I don't understand why it shows up as a keentag, and not as...well, an ad of some sort.

I also noticed that there's a small link to CG below each comic page, is that normal?

There's a lot of space between the top of my 'comic page background' and the beginning of the comic page itself. I want to eliminate that somehow.

Well, at least it's going forward.

[Geekblather]

Up at the top the advertisement shows up as ***advertisement*
It looks like the last two little stars just got deleted in the editing process. Changing it to ***advertisement*** should fix it.

[Black Sparrow]

add an "e" after the "s" as well.

I don't know about the space after the comic page background thing. Could you tell us what you mean?

I notice that there is an extra ad just above your comic page. Did you write that in? If not, then both that, and the tiny "hosted on cg" link may have been added by the updater. This happens when someoneuses iframes, or the like... which is especially weird, since you're not.

[Dr Neo Lao]

More tips:

Your background image is a 1500 by 2000 pixel 74Kb image. Since it looks like the effect that you are going for is Fade from top to bottom then you could do the same thing with a single image that's 1500px high but only 30px wide. The image will repeat and fill up the space, so you don't need to create a huge image to cover the entire screen.

The ad seems to be working now, but it's still in the wrong place. You need to put it after the <body> tag, not before. At the moment you have it sitting between the </head> and the <body>.

...noticed that there's a small link to CG below each comic page...

There is meant to be a "Hosted by CG" message and a link to CG at the bottom of every page on your site. I see that one (yes, that's normal) but I don't see any other links to CG.

...There's a lot of space between the top of my 'comic page background' and the beginning of the comic page itself...

Do you mean the light blue area that surrounds your comic? That's a combination of the specified width of the table and the extra spacer codes that FrontPage put in. They look like this:

Code: Select all

<p align="center">&nbsp;</p>

There's one above and one below your comic. Eliminate them and that should get rid of the problem.

If that's not the area that you're talking about, can you upload an image showing the area you want to alter?

(If you don't already know - just press the "Print Screen" button {should be on your keyboard, usually near the F keys or the insert / delete / home / etc buttons} go to MS paint or something and select edit -> paste, add some simple arrows pointing out the offending part and then upload the image to photobucket or something... )

[KarenB]

I fixed the border around the comic thing (it's the right size now) and also the ad. As soon as I get back from school, I'll put it in the right place.

Thanks for the tip on the background, I'll check that out too.

Phew, hopefully I can start adding some links soon.