www.wysiwygwebbuilder.com

I thought I had everything worked out, then I tried to get the site looking good for mobiles using break points, and I wrecked it. So, I have re-made the site, completely. It has 2 main pages, an index page (home page) and an about us page (workers, items of interest), called "about". Now that I have remade the website, I cant get to the about pages from the menu. I have set the page in the menu items, but I get a 404 file not found. I can see the page on the right, it finds it for the menu setup, just wont navigate to it. The rest of the menu items work (other parts of the home page), also, when I am on the about p[age, i cant navigate to the main page from "about". I set it up the same as the first website I tried, and that worked, until I killed it, but I cannot seem to get to the page. The about page previews great, in Chrome and Edge, if I preview it by itself.

If I change the pages back to html, it all works great, but go back to .php, and nothing works. From either page. Do I have to go through and remove php and re-install? i only have php for the contact form.

I have enabled 'turn off php in preview in tools, options, publish.

I have cleaned temp files, rechecked php installation, all pages, images etc are in the same folder, so i am damned if I can work it out.

Once again legends, i am in need of your expertise.

When you see the following "404 file not found" its a standard HTML status code telling you that a page or file cannot be seen by the browser and it doesn't on the server.
Check all spelling of images, urls and that you have uploaded all files and on the server.

BaconFries wrote: Fri Aug 21, 2026 6:07 pm When you see the following "404 file not found" its a standard HTML status code telling you that a page or file cannot be seen by the browser and it doesn't on the server.
Check all spelling of images, urls and that you have uploaded all files and on the server.

Does this even count if I am previewing locally on my system. I have done quite a few "saves" to prevent what I did last time, it all works great, jumping between pages, whilst the extension is HTML, once I change back to .php, then nothing in the menu works. I havent uploaded to server yet< i want to make sure all works locally, with the .php ext, then go and try again the break points for mobile, then upload.

I dont understand why it all works in html, but not in php, and that is all I have changed, the page extension.

Does this even count if I am previewing locally on my system. I have done quite a few "saves" to prevent what I did last time, it all works great, jumping between pages, whilst the extension is HTML, once I change back to .php, then nothing in the menu works

Yes it does as previously mentioned you cannot preview pages with the .php extensionn locally unless you are using.the likes of xampp or the softwares own built in server you can read more about it here.
Local Server Preview it will require php to be installed on your PC/Windows to use the likes of MySqli etc

And if you are changing the page extension back and forth you are required to republish all pages or the pages will look for the old links
But you can disable PHP in Tools -> Options -> Publish -> Remove PHP code in preview

BaconFries wrote: Fri Aug 21, 2026 6:52 pm

Does this even count if I am previewing locally on my system. I have done quite a few "saves" to prevent what I did last time, it all works great, jumping between pages, whilst the extension is HTML, once I change back to .php, then nothing in the menu works

Yes it does as previously mentioned you cannot preview pages with the .php extensionn locally unless you are using.the likes of xampp or the softwares own built in server you can read more about it here.
Local Server Preview it will require php to be installed on your PC/Windows to use the likes of MySqli etc

I thankyou for your reply, and I have updated baby web server to point to php.exe. I really appreciate your help, and your understanding.

I am not sure if I am asking too much from this software, or being overly cautious. This is my first website. I have made it, and as html, it works great, love it. The software was great to use. I have a contact form at the botton of the website, initially I had it to where it would use the clients email client. But after watching youtube videos and reading online, PHP is more powerful. You can have success/failure pages, and have more control. I have ONLY my index page as php, about us and the 2 email success/failure pages are html. BUT, what I am having traouble wrapping my brain around, is when I preview, in html, all works. When I change my index back to php, and update menu links, cant get back to index from about us. So I published locally, now index is a purple square icon and nothing opens it.

So, seeing all this, when I publish live on the domain, do i just trust it will all work? If I cant really test because of php locally, and only on hosting site, if it still doesnt work, days wasted doing all of this work, only to end up back where I am now.

It is hard to test when you change a page to php, for the contact form, and nothing works, but works great in html. I want to make sure ALL will work before I upload to server and go live.

You can’t preview PHP directly in your local browser. PHP code must first be processed by a web server.
This isn’t a limitation of the software, it’s simply how PHP works. PHP is a server-side scripting language, so your browser cannot execute or render PHP code on its own.

If you want to test a website that uses PHP, you’ll need to either publish it to a web server or run a local web server on your computer.

If you only want to check the HTML layout and styling, you can preview those files locally in your browser.

It is hard to test when you change a page to php, for the contact form, and nothing works, but works great in html. I want to make sure ALL will work before I upload to server and go live.

If you can't or won't go down the local server route, then you can create a test folder on your server and publish the entire site there. That's what I tend to do if I have any concerns.

Generally, though, I only use the .php suffix for pages containing .php elements, like forms. The rest stay as .html. What is critical is that you upload the whole site when changes have been made to page suffixes, otherwise menus and other links stop working.

.[/quote]

If you can't or won't go down the local server route, then you can create a test folder on your server and publish the entire site there. That's what I tend to do if I have any concerns.

Generally, though, I only use the .php suffix for pages containing .php elements, like forms. The rest stay as .html. What is critical is that you upload the whole site when changes have been made to page suffixes, otherwise menus and other links stop working.
[/quote]

I did publish to a local folder on my system, then tried to open it, but as the index is in .php, nothing would open it. Can I use the baby server in the software to check it, and see if it works. I updated a link on the baby server to point to the php I have installed. Just didnt know I could use the baby server to check it.

I will have top research to see how to use the baby server to open it. I have since taken out the form, so now whole site runs off of html. I was over it, spent too many hours trying to figure it out. As it is my first website, I wanted to see the whole thing working before uploading.

Just disappointing that when I changed the extension to php, ALL menu's stopped working, even after changing the links in the menu. But, I suppose it is a learning curve.

Thanks for the advice.

You've got your QUOTE tags wrong in that post!

I was talking about a test folder on your server, not locally.

Just disappointing that when I changed the extension to php, ALL menu's stopped working, even after changing the links in the menu. But, I suppose it is a learning curve.

This would not happen as long as you published everything after you made the changes.

Just disappointing that when I changed the extension to php, ALL menu's stopped working, even after changing the links in the menu.

Please understand that you cannot preview PHP locally, even if you change the link in the menus.
PHP only works on a server.

This has nothing to do with the software.

- you cannot use PHP functionality locally, unless you have a local server that processes the code.
- you can preview the HTML layout locally.
- links only work if they refer to existing pages.