iweb, appleshare ip, and long filenames

[beachycove]

My daughter has created a website in iWeb, which I would ideally like to run for her from an existing AppleShare IP 6.3 server installation that I have running on an 8600/300 (MacOS 9.1).

I can load and see much of the site when running on this 8600, but I cannot get the whole site to work properly, as a number of the iWeb files have inordinately long filenames (approx 40 characters), and these are not recognized on the 8600. Links to these files are thus broken, images lost, etc. etc. I have uploaded the site using both AppleShare and FTP, with the same results.

The site itself works fine on a X Server box at work that I tested it on, but my daughter's little site does not belong on the office machine. I could get in trouble, and that means it belongs at home on my 8600/300.

As far as I can determine, a stock MacOS 9.1 is limited to 31 characters in a filename. This may be a stupid question, but is there some utility that would allow MacOS9.1 and ASIP 6.3 to recognize these long unix filenames and make that iWeb site usable?

 

[ctmiller]

Hey there, I'm actually running into the same problem on my little web server http://405murdock.homeip.net running AppleShare IP v6.3.2, and using pages from iWeb '09. I'm still cleaning up the site but slowing getting it to work properly. There is a work around, but it takes a little massaging of the html (Don't worry it's too not bad).

Just save the site to a folder on your OS X box as you've been doing. Next, open the TextEdit app and check the prefs on the option under Open and Save for "ignore rich text commands in HTML files" This will keep the html opening as text and NOT try to display and render, allowing you to massage the code. Then, open the webpage HTML file you want to fix.

Now the manual labor portion. Open the folder containing the resource files for the web page. This is the folder used as a repository for backgrounds, images, text, etc. From this folder you'll need to identify the files with too long names such as "image_that_is_just_too_damn_cute_not_use_.jpg". Select the filename, do a COPY, and rename it to something more manageable like "image_baby1.jpg". The idea is to fix the name and substitute the new name throughout the page's HTML.

Now, go back to TextEdit and do a Search and replace of the original filename "image_that_is_just_too_damn_cute_not_use_.jpg" with the OS 9 safe version "image_baby1.jpg". Repeat this with any/all the resource files in that folder. Again, making sure to COPY the original file's name before renaming it. This'll make it easier to do the Find and Replace of the text within the HTML. Once you've gone through the folder and cleaned up the filenames, matched the entry in the HTML code this now render complete and look as it should. You DON'T have to know HTML. I don't, but do know enough to do a find/replace within a text document (which after all is what HTML really is).

Good luck,

-CTM

 

[Dog Cow]

You can do search/replace on the command-line as well, which may be faster.

 

[Cory5412]

What version of iWeb is it? In the first version or so of iWeb this was an extremely huge problem for me, it's one of the reasons I stopped using iWeb.

If the site is fairly small, the best solution is to create it from scratch. If you can upgrade to the latest version of iWeb, I've also heard that '08 and '09 are both far better on the front of having much more reasonable file names.

Another potential solution, which I came to a few years ago, is that rapidweaver http://www.realmacsoftware.com/rapidweaver/ makes much more reasonable filenames.

Another potential solution, if you have access to it, is using Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver templates rock a bit, and while it's more involved than iWeb, it allows a lot more control over file naming.