Hi,
The only documentation I can find about Firebug describes how much fun it is to edit your HTML and CSS experimentally.
What if you have a problem like an errant semicolon you want to remove?
Sure I can remove it experimentally in firebug, but I only get paid if I remove it for real!
Can someone please show me how to get to the actual HTML file containing this unwanted artifact?
Any help appreciated.
If the site is online, you have to go to the actual site files. Firebug is handy for tracing where the problem is.
I know with Chrome you can edit files directly in the browser, but it’s still a developing feature and I assume it only works on local files.
Yes, I understand I have to edit the site files on the server. My question is how do I find the relevant file?
Firefox shows you a multitude of technical options EXCEPT how to find the file which is causing the problem.
I can can nearly always track down a css file using Firebug as it gives you the file name in the css pane, but getting the relevant html file is a different story.
The HTML file is the page you are viewing (often shown in the browser address bar, such as contact.html). If you are using a CMS, or PHP includes or some other server-side technology to piece the page together, Firebug won’t be able to help you with that, as it can only analyse the page as sent to the browser, after the page has been created.
ok so I may as well just view source? is there any other way of finding and deleting the unwanted semicolon?
I’m still not totally sure what the situation is. Certainly you’ll see the semicolon if you view source (that is, in your browser), but still, the only way to remove the offending code is to go to alter the file on the server.
Yes, Firebug won’t help with server-side files except that it can show context.
For example, if you see an error in a tag that has a class=“whatever” you can search the template files for that string and with luck see what variable/function is involved with it’s being dynamically created. - It gets easier with practice.
Thanks Guys,
The issue is, I have an unwanted semicolon http://www.ngurrakujungka.com/home and it’s in the news ticker module under the heading Recent Articles. I can easily identify the containing div in firebug, but don’t know where to start to find the actual file containing the code.
Ah yes, tricky. Firebug won’t be able to help you there. Looks like you are using a CMS that is building the page for you. So you’ll have to dig into the source files to find where that module is being included. Did you insert the code manually, or did the system do it for you?
With a CMS it’s unlikely there is any static file involved in creating the page html. You’ll probably have to debug some server-side program code that is creating the page html “on the fly”.
Hi Argent,
The “Recent Articles” news ticker consists of the first lines of each corresponding article on a separate article page.
The connection will be made by your CMS (Joomla, I see).
- So if your wrong semicolon is for instance in the ticker item “Elite Athletes Visit Nullagine and Jigalong”, then you stop the ticker over there, and click on the link to the complete article page.
- In this case: the page [U]ngurrakujungka.com/23-recent-articles/71-elite-athletes-visit-nullagine-and-jigalong[/U]
- You will see the same wrong semicolon in the text of this article page too!
- What to do? You go in your CMS (admin panel) to this article page, and correct the semicolon over here.
- After confirming to save the correction, the article page is clean now.
- Then I guess you’ve nothing to do more, for the CMS will copy/paste the corrected paragraph into the news ticker automatically.
Simple , if you have the entire site on your computer you just search with dreamweaver for that specific piece of code in the entire folder where the site files are located. DW will open all files containing that code for you to edit. Good luck! ( Ctrl+F in Dreamweaver )