web export not working

Hey, I’ve just registered DT pro Office end Agent.
I’m using the french"version" and there is an issue with translation of the menu ‘file/import/mail’ that reads in french ‘Fichier/Importer/Envoyer’ …which means send ans is not obvious…
Another issue is that when I try to export to web, I end up in the selected folder with one .css file, and the files I wanted to put on the web but no html pages whatsoever, therefore it’s not a web site I can export. What do I do wrongly ?
The access to the database from the web server built into DT is working.
Thanks

This will be fixed in the near future. The other question I will leave to one of my colleagues.

At the moment the website export doesn’t create a navigation on its own and only rich & plain text documents are converted to HTML pages.

Thanks. This was not crystal clear from the documentation and is definitely an area for a most desirable improvement. It would be useful (and nice) to be able to create a self sustained web site with one click…

This is on our to-do list. In the meantime you could create rich texts containing cross-links to build your own simple navigation.

If the file is not displayed, then a link to download it would be nice. I store some .zip files, as well as .doc files, the rest are .pdf’s and .rtf’s as well as a few images and links to web pages.

Dale

HI,

I’m wondering if this is working for anyone. I’m still using DTP 1.54 and although it seems like I should be able to export part or all of my database as a web site (File>Export>as Website), all I get is a 4kb .css file that is created instantly and is totally blank.

Page 48 of the 1.51 manual says this should “Export[s] the selected items as standalone website that you can upload to your web server and share with your colleagues. In the appearing dialog window, choose the desired template, text encoding, and whether DEVONthink Pro should convert umlauts and accented characters to HTML entities or not.”

I’ve been delaying upgrading to DTP2 because I’m in the middle of some big projects, but how does the web site export work in DTP2?

Christopher

Export as Web site is similar in version 2.0.

I’ve done a number of exports of database content as Web sites. As Christian noted, the trick is to create one or more rich text documents that contain navigational hyperlinks to other files. The rich text documents will be converted to HTML.

I usually name the start rich text document ‘Index’ and place it at the top level of a group, with one or more sub-folders that contain the other files. Now select the contents of that group and choose File> Export> as Website. Of course, create a new folder to hold the Web site.

Wow, I agree with a previous poster. The “export to website” function is far far from intuitive. As currently implemented it’s not really very helpful either (okay, a wee bit helpful, but not for most people). I really did expect DevonThink Pro Office 2 to create the index file with some sort of navigational system. If “I” have to do that (especially through some sort of corny “create your own RTF with links” approach) then I won’t end up using this function.

For some databases it would be incredibly useful to post as a website (or part of a website). As currently implemented this feature is almost useless. Yet it would add quite a bit of functionality and attractiveness to the program. Other software programs (e.g. Curio) do what one would expect: an export of all the documents/content PLUS a decent navigational system for the web.

Rather than wasting my time trying to figure out why this feature doesn’t work (and I did read the Help files—not very enlightening either), it would be best to take it out until implemented right. Or at least be very clear upfront in the documentation about what this feature does, and does not, do.

As Christian noted, there are plans for enhancement of the Web publishing feature in the future.

The current implementation is being used by a number of people, and so should not be removed in the interim.

There’s an example database in the DEVONacademy that illustrates the feature. See devon-technologies.com/suppo … mples.html

Web Publishing Database (88 KB) Share your knowledge! This database shows how you use DEVONthink for organizing notes and stored knowledge in a cross-referenced network of documents, and then how to publish it as a web site (either on the web or on the Intranet using Mac OS X’s built-in web sharing).

Example of a current use: In an academic setting this allows easy publishing and updating of a course syllabus including schedules, reading lists, etc. Source documents can be included in the syllabus.

Bill,

Thanks for the link to the Example Web Publishing database. While it shows me “how to do it,” it’s also convinced me not to go this route for now as it would be MUCH simpler for me to achieve a better/easier result using RapidWeaver at this point. (I realize this may not be the case with many other users however.)

I did read Christian’s note about an enhancement to this feature. But what also caught my attention were two issues: Christian wrote this note almost one year ago, and this does not seem to be an intended feature for 2.0. So, “in the future” means who knows what. One, two, five years? I have no doubt it’s the “intent” to improve this feature, I just doubt this improvement will be implemented in a near-ish future. At some point, however, this will be a great new feature in DTP.

I wasn’t really seriously suggesting that the current web publishing feature be deleted (for exactly the reasons you point out). But I am serious that it would take about 2-to-4 lines of text in the Help documentation to explain that this is a very limited feature as currently implemented and refer people to something like the Example Web Publishing database (as you did here). It’s always very frustrating to a user when some feature neither works intuitively, NOR is explained adequately in the help. Either approach works fine, but the lack of both leads to unnecessary time waste and frustration by the end user.