Dropbox discontinuing HTML rendering / Public Folder

I’ve created a second tutorial on how to use GitHub pages instead of dropbox.com. This one uses the GitHub Desktop instead of the Terminal interface, so some people might find it a little easier if they are comfortable with a command line interface. Please check it out at:

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Nice tutorial! I just tweeted out the video so hopefully more folks will check it out.

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Very frustrated, bummed. Spent veey long time trying to do something new by building a magazine on Tumult’s timeline.
Deep into the project, new version became incompstible with my Yosemite osx.
I powered thru with sheer will, when changing a comma to a period can take minutes to render.
Then, near to launch, no more Dropbox upload option for final design edits.
I have a pro account, and really feel Dropbox needs to take better care of loyal users.
*At the very least, provide workable previous versions for older Macs.

  • And help us with a solution for uploading now.
    The years of work are looking like a wrong choice, and tho’ the reports we read indicate TH didn’t see thus coming, some indication must have been there. It’s like still paying for cable when neither the box or provider work.
    Seriously? Please provide prompt response.

I’ve been using Hype for … oh golly, since version 1.0. I’ve never seen it flat-out incompatible with any OSX. What ‘changing a comma to a period’ has to do with anything at all is utterly beyond my capacity to grasp.

Dropbox’s decision is completely beyond the control of Tumult. Dropbox owns their servers and their bandwidth. How they choose to use their servers and their bandwidth is their decision, not anyone else’s.

The discontinuing of HTML rendering by Dropbox was announced six months ago now, so it’s not exactly breaking news any more. That you didn’t take measures, in September of 2016, to factor in the repercussions of a decision that was utterly beyond Tumult’s ability to control is the fault neither of Tumult, nor of Dropbox.

There are myriad relatively inexpensive FTP apps (such as Flow) or, of course, the free built-in FTP program available in the OSX terminal window, that can provide you with fast, reliable file transfer service to any test folder you care to name in any web server you own or have administrative access to. It doesn’t take even half a day to set something like that up, let alone half a year.

I understand you’re frustrated, but the source of your frustrations is not owned by anyone at Tumult, and is only somewhat nominally owned by Dropbox.

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I understand the frustration

Hype edits the project also if you don't edit contents.
This mean that is a good thing if you save more than one verison of your work. Hype works in this way and the software development is linked to the Appstore and the most recent version of OSX.

in all my important works I made a backup also of the software to avoid problems and every time I must open an old prokect I edit a copy. Another good solution is the template instead the project for the backup.

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Can you better describe the problem you are encountering? Tumult Hype is compatible on 10.8+ and later, and we haven't dropped support. The only known issue that was a recent regression for was in exporting Animated GIFs and we are working to get a release out soon to address this (Workarounds here).

As for Dropbox, we are also deeply saddened by this, as we considered it the quickest way for users to get content online. It is a reality of relying on 3rd party services that some will get shut down. Hype had Dropbox upload since v1.0 and 6 years was a pretty good run. The removal of this feature has been known and communicated long in advance by Dropbox to their users. We talked with them about it as well, and I believe this in part kept it operational longer than they had planned.

As for uploading, there are many different solutions. Free ones would be GitHub pages (which @darren_pearson kindly made video tutorials for) and NeoCities is another option. There are cheap hosts like NearlyFreeSpeech and many other web hosts available. We have long had video tutorials on uploading via FTP.

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Pro User here.
Can someone kindly provide step-by-step instructions for uploading a Hype site to MacHighway?
I am having trouble transferring an updated index. file to Machighway using Cyberduck, (with files including most recent/updated changes to content.)
Since Dropbox not longer supports us, my changes don’t register in my Dropbox index file, correct?
If anyone is using MacHighway to host their site, if you have ideas, it would be most appreciated.

I do not use Cyberduck but this should be just a straight copy and replace, I would suggest not to do a merge.

I assume in cyberduck you have a view that shows you local files and one that shows you machighway public html area.

Just copy from you local too the public html area.

With Hype exports you would need to update the whole export which includes the resource folder not just the index file.

Also make sure you are using the new’ish machighway servers and not the old ones.

I had an issue where they did not tell me they had switched servers to new ones so I was uploading to the old ones ok but not seeing the changes happen when going to the site in a browser. Really bloody annoyed when I found out why my updates where not being seen.

I do not have the details to hand but emailing them and asking if you are using the right ones…

Any way that’s as much as I can suggest as you have not mentioned any specific problems you are having

I use Cyberduck & Fetch - both work the same way - basically a Mac folder interface… drag and drop etc. Have had no problems - I like each program. Cyberduck seems to work with more kinds of FTP sever set-ups.

I tried several FTP software but now I use TRANSMIT
..and CODA for editing

@michelangelo

Have always used Coda :wink:

Let me know if you need any clips? or modes?

I use Transmit and have for, I think, about 8 years. No issues.

Guys,
I think we need @latestproject to tells us what the actual problem is they are having with updating … :wink:

probably yes but I'm not sure, I used coda only for the editing online

Jim,
Thanks for your imput.
Dragging and dropping which folders into Cyberduck? Are you including an index file, and from where?
I know it’s tedious, but your set-by-step (Hype to Duck to live url))would be super helpful.

Hi LP!

I drag the files & folders that I created for the web site from my hard disk into Cyberduck’s window. In Fig.1 below, the location on the FTP server which I am dropping files & folders is the “public_html” folder which is inside the “root” folder for the site.

In Fig.2, which is showing the contents of the “public_html” folder, I dragged the “graphics” folder containing (surprise!) the graphics & images for my web site. An HTML page called “greywaterinfo.html” and the “home.html” page were also in the drag group. That’s it - we’re done.

A note on the name “home.html” - this is the default name my server likes to use instead of “index.html”. I originally named my file “index.html” but I changed its name to “home.html” when I uploaded this page. Since I did not reference “index.html” anywhere in my code there was no issue with this name change.

If “index.html” was important to my code I would have had a bare bones page named “home.html” that simply did a redirect to the “index.html” page in the “meta” tag in the “Document Header” of the “home.html” page… something like (this is off the top of my head, please research further for accuracy):

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;url-http://index.html" />

The “0” in "content="0; " just above indicates an immediate switch to the “index.html” page (i.e. “0” seconds), the “home.html” page is not displayed to the viewer.

Fig.1 - The root folder ("/") containing the “public_html” folder


**Fig.2 - Inside the "public_html" folder**
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Mark,

Since we’ve lost Dropbox support, I’ve been making revisions to a Hype site and need to update these revisions to a live link. Simple, it would seem.

Folder on desktop contains html and Hype resources. I want to load them to a server /provider and need procedure to see it through to live link.

Is Google Drive also an option?

Thanks Much.

LP:

Here’s a very basic description of what a Web server does, because this might help clarify what’s going on with a Web server, and what you need to do to get a file to work correctly on one.

These are very general notes. You will have to apply intelligence to use them in your specific circumstance.


All web servers behave in an almost identical fashion. When a URL is entered in a browser (such as www.tumult.com), the browser initiates a connection to the server and looks for a file there called ‘index.htm’.

Forward-slashes following the main URL (www.tumult.com/hype/) indicate directories or folders on the server hosting the website. So if you were able to browse the Tumult server, you would see a folder there called ‘hype’, within which would be another ‘index.htm’ file. (Among other things, such as images, which load in the ‘index.htm’ file when the browser displays it.)

When you’re attempting to upload a file to a Web server and you want it to load automatically in a browser when the site is accessed, the file needs to be called ‘index.htm’.


To prepare your Hype project for upload, you’d have something like this on your hard drive (exported directly from Hype to your hard disk):

[Folder] my_project
[File inside folder] index.htm
[Folder inside folder] index.hyperesources

That’s not how it will look when Hype first exports it. What you’ll see instead is something more like this:

[Folder] my_project
[File inside folder] my_project.htm
[Folder inside folder] my_project.hyperesources

As you might guess, you’ll have to rename at least one item: The my_project.htm file. Rename it to index.htm.

If your domain is called ‘mydomain.net’, and you upload the folder called ‘my_folder’ to it, the way people would access it in a browser would be to enter mydomain.net/my_folder/. The browser would then automatically locate the ‘index.htm’ file (your Hype project) and display it.


Programs such as Cyberduck allow you to browse Web servers (that you have authorized access to!) in a way similar to how you look at files and folders on your computer. Usually, but NOT always, the Web content is contained on the Web server in a folder named ‘public’.

So to upload your ‘my_folder’ folder through Cyberduck, you would:

  1. Connect to the Web server through Cyberduck.
  2. Open the ‘public’ folder on the Web server.
  3. Upload ‘my_folder’ into the ‘public’ folder.

From that moment on, the ‘index.htm’ file contained in ‘my_folder’ will be accessible to anyone who goes to mydomain.net/my_folder/.


Google Drive does not render HTML either, so it’s no more an option than Dropbox is.


I cannot underscore enough the necessity of your learning the barest minimums about how the internet actually works, if you intend to do any productive work on the internet at all. Take some time to read books or take courses on HTTP and how it works. Do the same for FTP. Learn the basics of HTML, at least to the extent that you know what tags are, what a hyperlink looks like, and how external files are referenced.

You don’t necessarily need to know how every single aspect of each internet protocol does what it’s doing, but you should be able to at least understand the difference between HTTP and FTP, and the different things you can and can’t do with them. Get to know the protocols and what they’re doing on the back end, so you don’t find yourself in the situation of needing to do something that really isn’t particularly difficult, but not having enough familiarity to get started with it.

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Just a small aside,

The index file can more commonly have the extension of .html

Also before renaming you Hype html file you should make sure you understand the layout of your site.

you may not need to rename them all and may only need to rename the top level ones.

But there are also reasons to have each directory on the site contain a index.html or index.htm file. Which prevents people accessing the parent directory in the browser and files you do not want viewed.

The problem here is a general one related to website managment.

Do as @warrenaosuggests and read up, the internet itself provides many sites with information on what to do and how things work.

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It only needs to have the name of “index” if the Hype project is output as a site. Even then, a Hype site can have a menu that points to other Hype-generated pages. The only kind of sites that I ever output straight from Hype are simple three or four page starter sites with a handful of cool-looking animations and a preformatted Hype slide show product tour. I do this for our dealers who don’t have a site and don’t have much marketing sense. If I can talk these guys into paying for hosting on GoDaddy or elsewhere by offering them a free starter site that focuses on our products, they make more money, so we make more money.

For any serious sites, I use a proper web development app and insert Hype content.