Hi,
I'm not too familiar with VSD, I'm helping a friend who's having some difficulties. She says that she has the latest version/build of VSD.

Problem being, she has linked objects to pdf files (using "Link" from the menu) and choosing the pdf file on her hard drive (I have verified and the files actually exist on her hard drive). When you hove over the link in VSD it shows the URL to the pdf (http://www.domainname.com/files/Download/abc123.pdf), but when she re-sync's the website, a message pops up about VSD not being able to locate the local file and the upload/re-sync is aborted by VSD.

She says this is something that has plagued her for quite a long time, but she could never figure out why. Sometimes the pdf files all upload and the links work, other times she gets the error message when uploading/re-syncing and she is never able to get all the links working on that page again. Her only resolution has been to completely rebuild the page from scratch, Link the pdfs, re-sync the website and then (providing she doesn't change anything on the page) the links once again work. As soon as she makes a change to anything on the page (even text not associated with the links) the links may or may not work again.

Once the upload/re-sync is completed (after it fails), several of the file links on the page are directed to "www.domainname.com/files/Download". Of course, clicking on the links gets a 403 forbidden (directory browsing is disabled on the hosting)

Any thoughts or ideas that I can help her overcome this issue?
Thanks,
Tim

I just verified, and this does work.

In VSD create a button, widget or text that you wish to link your PDF to. With this object selected, click the link button at the top of the page. Select the option 'Document' and browse to your pdf file on your computer.

Quick note: some browsers do not like spaces in file names. Check for this and get rid of any spaces.

Publish your web site.

I just did this on a test site, and it works great. Let me know if you need more help.

Thanks Gunsmoke, I'll be visiting tomorrow and see what we can work out.

I watched her do it as I explained and it didn't work... I'll have to pay closer attention and see what's up.

Thanks

I tried this today but it *sort of* didn't work...

She had been doing it exactly as you explained (click on Link, Document, browse...), and some of the pdf files were uploaded when we re-sync'd, however after a while we got an error message stating that a file could not be found (on the LOCAL computer). BUT, the file is there and I was looking at it.

I've read lot's about VSD having issues with spaces in names. Is there a problem with an included file being saved on the local computer in a directory with a space in it?

The local file (for example) is:
C:\User\Website Pages\Files To Use On The Web\abc123.pdf
It is being published to
http://www.domainname.com/files/Download/abc123.pdf

The weird part is that there are 10 pdfs in the folder on her local drive, some of them will upload, but them some of them give the "File cannot be found" error, and we are given the option to Browse for the file. We browse to the file (as indicated above) and click OK. Click on Re-sync and the file might (or might not) be uploaded, sometimes the same error message is presented again on the same file (the one we just Browsed for).

Gunsmoke, you or anyone else have thoughts or ideas??
Thanks again, Tim

I would put them all in a directory with no spaces and try it. It may not be the problem, just good practice. The only other thing I can think of is that you keep mentioning 're-syncing' the web site. I don't actually do that. I make my changes and re-publish the web site. Only the files that have changed will be published. Don't really know if that makes a difference, but it works for me.

There is no reason I can think of why 'some' will upload and not others. The only other thing I could suggest is to link to the pdf's like any other file on the server and upload them separately using an FTP program. Probably not the best way, but . . .

Have you used the "Add files" tool in the past to try and add these pdf's

Thanks Gunsmoke, I'll try your suggestion.

Eric, should there be a difference between using the "Add Files" and just Linking them to a Document? i.e. Does VSD handle the files different whether "Add Files" or Linking?

Thanks, Tim

My thinking is if you used the "Add files" tool to build the same structure VSD is going to fail if you use the standard method.

Eric, ahh, now I see what you are saying, a question - not a suggestion... The answer's No, she's always used only the Link > Document method to add these pdfs.

Well, she's going to try renaming the folder with the source pdfs to one without spaces. Then, all the pdfs will be relinked throughout the site. Re-sync/Publish and we'll see what happens.

Gunsmoke, coming back to your comment about re-syncing. She always uses re-sync instead of Publish. She says the site is quite small and re-syncing is fine, but should we be "Publishing" every update and fix instead of re-syncing?

Thanks, Tim

Remove spaces is good. Resyncing is fine but not necessary. Let us know how it turns out.