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[Lightening]

Alright, I'm going to learn how to do this if it kills me.  BUT, I really need some help.

I have filezilla.  I can log in.  I can even USE it cos I did manage to upload a new plug in to a site I'm playing with (still can't get it to my other blog for some reasons..........).

Right now I thought I'd play with changing the text for my comments box.

I know that I need to use the ftp somehow in order to do this.  But how.  Where do I change the text?  Within filezilla somehow or within my blog?

Can someone walk me through this?  I know the only way I'm going to learn is by doing.  But I'm not sure where to start.

Thanks heaps!!!!!   

[guera]

Hi Lightening!

Do you mean an introduction to your comments - like "leave a comment here, this is my comment policy etc" to put above the box where people can put their comment?

I think you can do that through Theme Editor in Wordpress (under the Presentation Tab). You need to work out which php file the comments text is in. In my theme the file is called comments.php

The only hard part is finding where the text is, once you've got it just change the text to whatever you want.

[guera]

I just had a look at the source code on your site and the text is in commentsform. I have a uncustomised version of your theme on my computer but I couldn't find that reference, so I'm not sure if it was something added in during customisation. You could also look in the style.css file where the color, font etc for the comments section (and everything else) is kept. - again once you find the current text you can just replace that.

Hope that helps!

[Lani]

Yup.  No FTP required.  Unless you get a message when you push save that says "If this file were writable you could edit it."  If that happens you need to change the file permissions via FTP.

[Lightening]

I found the text and tried to edit it but it won't let me save it.  It says something along the lines of not being able to find the file or somesuch.

[Lightening]

Here's some more specific information on what I've tried to do and what happens:

Theme Editor
Comments
Attempt to edit text
Click Update File
message says "the requested theme does not exist".

[Sueblimely]

You do not have to ftp theme files to edit them, you can do it directly from the Wordpress Dashboard.  Go go Presentation/Theme Editor/.
At the left hand side you will see a list of files that you can edit.

Make sure you keep a copy of the original file in case of errors. An easy way is to copy and paste the code into Notepad and save it to your hard disk - so that you can put it back if necessary. Use Notepad or an html editor and not something like Word so that the proper code is preserved.

If you want to do it by FTP you just do the opposite to when you upload your plugins - download them to a folder on your hard disk. I normally create a  folder on my hard disk in the same folder I keep Wordpress stuff  and call it "Backups". and download the files to this.

I then do a copy or re-save  the file to make sure I keep a copy of the file I just downloaded e.g: if I  downloaded comments.php today  I would do a copy called  comments-08-01-20.php. Then I  would open  comments.php again in Notepad, or an  html editor and make the alterations I wanted. When I have finished I upload the files using FTP back to the original place, overwriting what is there.

Your theme files are kept in  the folder wp-content/themes/the name of the theme you are using.

Wordpress.org has some instructions - Editing Files

The only file I would always edit online rather than FTP is style.css  - overwriting this by FTP changes my theme back to the default and I have to go in and tell Wordpress to use my theme again.   

Ohh I have just realized I have sometimes been using wink  instead of smile 

Please let me know if this does not make sense and I can try explain it more clearly.

[Sueblimely]

When I started writing my last message you had not had any replies at all!

Not sure about this one but try going into Presentation/Themes and make sure your own theme is selected. Is your site still showing up correctly?

[ShadowKnight]

You do not have to ftp theme files to edit them, you can do it directly from the Wordpress Dashboard.  Go go Presentation/Theme Editor/.
At the left hand side you will see a list of files that you can edit.

Assuming that they have the appropriate file access permissions.  Personally I prefer to edit locally or via my cPanel editor that way there are less files with write permissions on the site, thus less for hackers to exploit/corrupt.

[Sueblimely]

Assuming that they have the appropriate file access permissions.  Personally I prefer to edit locally or via my cPanel editor that way there are less files with write permissions on the site, thus less for hackers to exploit/corrupt.

Good thinking. What file permissions do you use for your files and folders to keep them safe?

[Lightening]

When I started writing my last message you had not had any replies at all!

Not sure about this one but try going into Presentation/Themes and make sure your own theme is selected. Is your site still showing up correctly?

Yes, everything still looks fine.  It won't let me change anything so just goes back to what was already there.

[Sephyroth]

Here's some more specific information on what I've tried to do and what happens:
...
message says "the requested theme does not exist".

For some reason that has happened every time that I've tried to edit files with that particular theme - even the CSS file - through the file editor.

You can try using the File editor which is found under Manage -> Files. It should have the last page you loaded (presumably the comments file) in there, and you should be able to edit it that way.

If that doesn't work, then you'll have to edit the file offline and update the file on the server via FTP.

[Snoskred]

Ok we have found a solution for this one. Lightening you should be able to edit your files in the theme editor now.

The explanation won't make a huge amount of sense, partly because it is pretty crazy.

The filename of the theme on the server has to be identical to the name of the theme within the CSS.

   Theme Name: Freedom - Green & Widgetized

That is how it was in your CSS, and it is now like this in your CSS -

   Theme Name: freedom-green-widgetized

Making that change has made all your files show up in the theme editor.

Nobody knows why, it just is so.. 

[Lightening]

It worked!!!! It worked!!!!  Yippeeee..... (well, at least it's told me it's updated so I'm assuming it worked).

Except, I thought it was going to teach me more about FTP when all along I didn't need to use it.

Don't worry, I'm sure I'll have more questions which DO involve using FTP before long! 

ETA:  How rude!!!  I forgot to say thank you everyone for your help!!!!     So a big THANK YOU.  I really appreciate it!!!   

[Snoskred]

Well FTP is a skill you should learn - it really is the most simple thing.

Look at it this way. You know how you have files on your computer? You can move them around, and copy them, and stuff?

FTP is simply a way of putting files up on the server where your blog is. Then you can move them around on the server, copy them and stuff.

It is truly as simple as that. Once you have filezilla set up and you've used it a few times, you'll be amazed how easy it is.

[ShadowKnight]

I use FireFTP which is a Firefox extension.  Truly is a fine and simple FTP application.

[guera]

Glad you got it working 

I just looked up your question on the wordpress forum and found an answer saying if your theme had an ampersand (&) in it you would get that message. Was just about to add that to the conversation but I see Snoskred has fixed the problem. Anyway, I had no idea why the & would cause problems. 

[Lani]

Yup.  That stinky ampersand was what took me so long to figure out your blogroll page issue.  I kept getting the "theme doesn't exist message" too.  I should have mentioned it, and Snosk, you should probably make sure it's removed from all the designs you've done based on that theme.

[Snoskred]

Yeah that's on my to do list. My blog has the same problem and I haven't bothered to fix it because I prefer using FTP to upload the changes.

It isn't just the ampersand that does it, though - other themes I have worked with which had the name of the theme written differently in the CSS to how the folder was named on the server caused the same problem. Seems like it has to be identical to how the folder is named. It is a very odd thing.