Can anyone help me with Dreamweaver please

[Ditzy]

Hi,

I've been using Dreamweaver for quite a while but have always used .htm pages which I can preview in my browser by hitting F12.

I'm dabbling in .shtml files and server side includes and if I try to preview these pages I just get a text file with a notepad in the address field.

Please could somebody tell me how to configure the set up to let me preview my page ... I'm not sure whether I should be configuring my computer or the software so I've hit a dead end.

Thanks very much

[matty]

don't know i'm afraid. i'd suggest having a test version of your site, to upload changes to and check before you update the "live" site.

sorry for being not much help!

[Ditzy]

Thanks for taking the time to reply Matty.

I have uploaded part of it to check I'm barking up the right tree with the server side includes so at least I won't end up doing loads of work that needs changing and technically with what I'm doing it shouldn't matter that I can't preview it as it's not affiliate based.

Still if someone can wave a magic wand I'd appreciate it

We know it's possible as I have worked on another computer which does allow you to preview .shtml files but I can't figure out how.

That's one of the things I love about this ... you live and learn.

[essdeekay]

Hi D,

I'm no expert (!) but would you have to be running apache on your local machine for this?

(Just a thought - just starting to read PHP and DW 8 - nice book).

Kind regards

Simon

[Nosmo_King]

You need to be running Apache on your PC if you want to see your Server Side includes working.

One of the easiest ways to do this in install JSAS. (Apache, PHP & MySql). It's free.

If you just want to preview the pages in a Browser... go to: preferences - preview and select 'preview with temporary file'. This will open the page in IE or whatever your browser is BUT WILL NOT show the includes.

[haggul]

If you are running XP Pro you have IIS (or at least it will run it) - so you can preview your sites - I use my desktop to run dev versions of ASP/SQL Server sites this way.

Which version of Dreamweaver - I gave up with previewing a long time ago (mostly because all my sites are dynamic) but I hear latest versions are much better at previewing more kinds of pages.

[Ditzy]

Thanks for all your help ... great stuff

What's the name of the book Si? ... I'm on the verge of dabbling with PHP.

Cheers everyone