Hi guys,
My website started in 1998, and the first version was created with Cosmo Create on Silicon Graphics.
The website got bigger and bigger, becoming more daunting to ever upgrade it beyond the basic html it initially was made in.
Fast forward to now, and I’ve decided to tackle the problem in sections, where each section basically is a website within a website.
The huge problem I have is how to incorporate 900 separate html pages into one site.
900 pages between January 2004 and 2024 need to be handled in some way. Ben Liebrand "In The Mix" being the ‘main’ page Previous Episode Date Picker being the search tool to go all the way back (in 2 steps) to January 2004.
Should it be in blog format, or is there an even better way to incorporate 20 years, times 52 weeks of track lists in a new format?
I don’t have an answer but I am interested because I have a similar problem.
I started in Netscape, then Adobe Golive, then Freeway and then Sparkle/Sitely.
When I created the site over the years I used folders to organize pages.
I also had various domains which would point to the index pages in each folder.
I don’t want the links to my domains and the pages within them which are all over the Web to be broken.
When I imported my site into Sparkle it retained the folders, but Sparkle doesn’t natively have folders, it has sections.
I click on the down arrow to open the folder…I don’t know what would happen if I clicked on the circled X…I fear it would delete the folder.
So I have limped along with a crazy make-do procedure (described below).
I am really not sure what would happen if I changed the pages within the folders. They were just inherited when I imported the website. I don’t really know how Sitely would work with folders when they technically aren’t a part of the native Sitely architecture.
I really only have one folder where I add a lot of pages and make changes (the permethrin folder).
The crippled way I have been handling this is to have two websites
Have the original imported site where I only make changes in the top level pages (mainly the top level home/index page).
I created a completely separate permethrin site (in Sitely).
Then in the Finder I go into the original imported site and delete the original permethrin folder.
I upload the main site (which does not include the permethrin folder) so the permethrin folder on the server is unaffected.
Separately I upload the contents of the permethrin folder.
This has been “working” but obviously is crazy.
I welcome any suggestions for how I should resolve this.
I am on the verge of changing my whole website to have a taller header so I am open to whatever incredibly labor-intensive work is required.
Perhaps you can simply import your entire website and then go through and group pages into sections.
I imported my website a long time ago so I don’t really recall the procedure, but you could search the forum for instructions. Here is one bit I found: In 2020 Duncan wrote,
"You can use the “Import page” option under the Insert menu. This imports one page at a time.
From the new document template picker you can import a website published on the web. You can also enter a file:// address there, which is a bit tricky to construct.
If you need to import a whole site but from a disk location, I suggest opening the home page from the Finder in Safari, then copy/pasting the file:// address in Safari’s address bar into Sparkle’s new document sheet. This will import the whole site from the disk location."
Having never created a Sitely website with more than 30 pages, it’s difficult for me to answer your question… But for a site of that scale, I’m not sure Sitely is the most suitable choice—especially if you’ll need to update it regularly.
@maxim I’ve already answered some of your previous questions (see: I can have folders but I can't make folders). Folders and sections are not the same thing; it is indeed possible to manually create folders in Sitely. And yes, deleting a section will also delete the pages it contains.
Thanks for the reminder about your previous explanation. I had simply forgotten since then. Mia culpa.
I am restudying what you wrote and, now looking at my top level home page in Sitely, I can see I applied your instructions back in March.
One question. Do you know what happens if I click on the circle with the X in it? If I click on it by accident can I undo that?
I had intended to dig in and reformat my entire site back in March but got distracted with another months long project.
I have been writing a long book in Pages which then has to be exported as ePub (a form of html) which has its own peculiarities vis a vis how it appears and its links perform (or don’t…for instance, it turns out any links to Amazon don’t work on an Apple device…sheesh). It’s amazing how many pitfalls there are in these various projects.
@maxim If you click on the X, Sitely will display a confirmation popup asking if you really want to delete the section. You can undo this action (CMD + Z) or, as a last resort, revert to a previous version of your project (File > Revert To…)
When you have questions or doubts, the best thing to do first is… try it out! In a blank project, of course. Experimenting is really the best way to learn. Personally, I very often find myself wondering if an idea is feasible in Sitely: in that case, I open a new project, do a quick test, and I have my answer within minutes. It’s the best way to learn!
I find that a lot of experimenting can lead to a corrupted file, sometimes a Mac OS or Sitely bug (something that sometimes cannot be recovered from). A thing I do when experimenting or trying something in a project is to make a duplicate of the project (Option-drag the file) and if it goes south on me I delete it and rename the duplicated file back to the original.
Yes, absolutely. That’s why I specified “in a blank project” But you’re right, duplicating the project is a very wise precaution to experiment safely on existing work. My idea of a blank project was more for quick and isolated tests, but your approach is the best one for trying things out on an ongoing project.
Although I appreciate useful tips like anyone else, I do feel that this is straying away from the original topic: How to convert 900 html pages into Sitely
Any suggestions that might be helpful to the original question are appreciated.
This wouldn’t be an easy feat in Sitely… there are so many pages!
I’m thinking the best way to go with this is use the Sitely Blog…
Each blog post would represent a year which is sectioned into months with the weeks and the appropriate content. You can have a sub navigation at the top of the blog post highlighting the months of the year, so when clicked would move the User down the blog page to where they want to be.
Sitely has its own website Search Function widget which you can use.
Because of all your content I would have the search widget placed across all pages.
Remember once you have made the first totally completed Blog Post, you can duplicate it so to minimise the work that will be needed to create all the blog post pages.
Good luck!
