Converting from hand-coded HTML to Wordpress

[bakerboy]

I'm converting a large hand-coded HTML web site to Wordpress using XAMPP offline to get it all done before I upload to the web. I'm bringing in sections of code to WP and making the code look like Wordpress HTML

I'm was having a devil of a time getting the pages to display properly. None of the paragraph breaks worked, the spacing wasn't working, the fonts didn't display, ,... Just a lot of problems.

I looked at the http://localhost/htdocs and found that the folders containing my pages show that the pages are Firefox pages. All the HTML that I am bringing over is set up to display in Internet Explorer, which may explain the problems I'm having.

Is there a way to get rid of Firefox and have the pages displayed as they would display in IE? In other words, how can I get my site to be a Wordpress site undere IE?

I have avoided Firefox because it doesn't display properly for most of the users I have, who are not sophisticated computer people.

Thanks

[Takster]

I just built a website from scratch using wordpres and bbpress that's pretty complex, so I'll chime in...

You looked in your folders and seen the files are firefox. I'm taking you mean your computers file association for a .html or .php file are set to open as default with firefox browser on your computer. You cannot code a page just for firefox. Well you can, just use valid CSS, that should break IE (bad joke).

Is this page of yours built with CSS in mind? you need to look into that. Wrapping something old in something new will give you problems.

You need to post some of the code from your theme, or pm me.
my wordpress based sites
www.imgxtc.com
tak79.com

[Radzio]

@bakerboy:
You have avoided Firefox? omg
You should follow Firefox, Opera and Safari/Chrome standards not IE ones.

it doesn't display properly

IE doesn't display properly, FF does it well.

IE8 supports most of the standards that other browsers do so there should be no problems.

EDIT: @Takster: it would be better if he posted it here.

[bakerboy]

All my HTML code validates as Strict and it's all done using a CSS Stylesheet. If I bring the code over, it should work properly, but it doesn't. Examples are

Paragraph breaks don't happen as they should. I have to resort to   to get the breaks.
Instead of paragraph breaks, I frequently get little square boxes in the spaces where the break should be.
Neither ordered nor unordered lists display properly -- the ordered lists don't show the numbers and the unordered don't show bullets and it all squishes together.
The font stack doesn't work properly -- it skips to the last font and don't use any of the others, even though I have used the other fonts in sites before.

The result is that I have to spend quite a bit of time playing with the code to get the page to display properly, even though I am using code that has validated and worked for quite a while as HTML/CSS.

My problem is that the default browser that my XAMPP installation uses is Firefox, which displays differently than IE. I don't want to get into the IE vs FF discussion right now, all I want to do is make my XAMPP/WP installation use IE as the default browser. I didn't see where there is an option in XAMPP to use IE instead of FF as the native browser during testing, so I may be out of luck.

The site is http://www.artisanbreadbaking.com.

Thanks.

[Radzio]

What you are talking about is system-wide option. You must make IE as default application for handling URLs. The simplest way is to go to IE setting and click the button to make IE the default browser.

[bakerboy]

That's what has me confused. I have IE as my default browser and still get the files in the folder with a type of Firefox Document. Somewhere there is some switch that I haven't configured correctly.

When I bring a page in, it sets the file type as Firefox Document, even though I never declare that as my intention and the file is a straight HTML page.

I don't understand where the decision to have a filetype of Firefox Document is being made.

[Radzio]

You must use that button I told you about. If html's default app is Firefox then IE isn't default browser. It can't be simpler than that.

[bakerboy]

Internet Explorere IS my default browser. The entry on Tools => Programs says so. When I bring up Google, it shows that it is running IE.

I even deleted one of the pages, emptied the trash and recreated the page, using code from a Validated Strict page. The page shows up in the listing on htdocs with a file type of Firefox Document and the page still displays as a mess.

I'm going to have to forget about using XAMPP to convert the web site unless I can figure this out, which seems like a long shot right now.

[JonB]

ahhh -

Methinks this has little to do with the browser issue, and much to do with what WordPress is and how it works.

WordPress totally relies on template pages and stylesheets, so moving from a markup-embedded HTML static page to WordPress is quite a leap. Whether you want to build a page-oriented WordPress site or a blog-style one (post-driven) the most important thing to grok is that HTML is a vehicle here, not an end-in-itself.

BTW, if you can't get XAMPP to work, there is always WAMP - which has less features, and is less-configurable, but it still has Apache, MySQL and PHP.

My best advice is to drown yourself in the WordPress Codex, where all is explained. It might be the best online documentation of any system or product. The first thing to grok is how WordPress builds a page or post. Its all streamlined, structured PHP code, you won't see any direct page elements, rather calls to functions that expose places to insert 'parts'.

The approach to take with WordPress is to use the work of others, and learn one of the template framework families like Sandbox or Thematic, which you can then extend with your own child themes -- building your own page templates around the WordPress core structure. Its rather Zen-like.

Good Luck

[Radzio]

Internet Explorere IS my default browser. The entry on Tools => Programs says so. When I bring up Google, it shows that it is running IE.

I even deleted one of the pages, emptied the trash and recreated the page, using code from a Validated Strict page. The page shows up in the listing on htdocs with a file type of Firefox Document and the page still displays as a mess.

I'm going to have to forget about using XAMPP to convert the web site unless I can figure this out, which seems like a long shot right now.

You can always click it RMB and open properties when there is a button to set the default app to open specific extension.