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Source Edit in IE7, 8

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by windranger

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Hi,

I had IE 7.0 installed on my PC and I couldn't edit the source file of any html or htm file.
The problem was that whenever I opened the source with notepad (for example of an "index.html" file),
the source was opened in a file called "index[1].txt" instead of "index.txt".
Since the editing I did was actually made in this wierd file, the result was never reflected in the "index.html",
which stayed the same forever!
So, I couldn't edit any html page.

Now I installed IE 8 beta and changed the default editor back to notepad, only to see that it's the same shit.
It opens the source in "index[1].txt" and I can't make any modification in my page because I can't open the "index.txt" file.

Has anybody came across the same bug...?
Any suggestion is welcome.

Thanx.

4 replies

by larryd4

So you are talking about editing an HTML file on a server that you have rights to, correct? Or are you just referring to viewing any source file from a web page your visiting?

by thumbsup2

... because View Source isn't intended to be used to edit live web pages. It's no bug. That is by design. Think about it. Would you want anybody who visits your page have the ability to edit that page live? I think not.

When you view a web page, you're really viewing the temporary copy stored in your browser cache. If you then view source of that page, it's named index[1].txt because it's viewing the first occurrence of a file by that name from within the cache. Each successive copy of a file with the same name will have a unique number.

All you have to do to overcome this is to open the view source window (which opens in Notepad), then do a File -> Save As and save it as index.htm into another location on your hard drive. Then, you do your editing and save the changes normally. After that, all that's left is to figure out how to 'upload' the changes to the host/server. Have you heard of FTP?

There is a correct way to edit web pages and that isn't through View Source. Where is your host/server located? If it's in house and you have access permission to the files, simply File -> Open from within Notepad. If they're stored externally by a hosting company, you need to either have a local duplicate copy of the site, edit, then FTP back to the server, OR, use the server's control panel to edit the files live.

by windranger

Of course, I wasn't trying to edit online pages (which indeed would be saved in the Temp directory).

I was talking about html files saved in a project folder in My Documents!

OK, I can see it's working now that I open with notepad the html file.
IT's somehow inconvenient, it was simpler before when I could open and edit the source from the browser View menu...

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