Text Editor won’t sync with my FTP account, help?

[fermionfieldtheory]

Hi all, I’m working on building a website with WordPress.

I’m using SiteGround for hosting and also created an FTP account with their service.

I’m using Sublime as my text editor. I installed the SFTP plugin to Sublime this morning and followed a few online tutorials.

The hostname, username, password and port number are correct (double-checked on that). I think the problem is what I input for the remote path.

Sublime gives me a message that connecting to the FTP server was successful. But then it tries to validate the remote folder and fails.

I thought the issue was that I used a relative instead of absolute path (it was /mywebsitedomain/public_html/ before).

I used some php script to find the absolute path and got this: /home/customer/www/mywebsitedomain/public_html/

I thought that was my ticket and (big sigh) I still got a failure message.

Being totally new to web development, I’m sure it’s probably some small thing I’m doing wrong.

Any help would be majorly appreciated! Thank you in advance :)

[not2easy]

Hi fermionfieldtheory and welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com]

I apologize if I am guessing wrong about where your installation progress is at this point, but FTP comes after the installation usually.

Your WP site would usually be installed at "example.com/public_html" the entire account path you describe is not usually part of the "host" for FTP - but these things can vary.

The best source for the right answer would be to contact your host. If your WordPress installation is not yet complete it is not normally installed via FTP because it will require the creation of a database account that needs to exist before the installation. Most hosts offer various installation tools (often within your domain's ControlPanel if you have CP) to walk you through the installation so you can name the database account and have the password integrated into your configuration setup.

BTW - we use "example.com" when discussing domain URLs because it is a name that exists for that purpose and cannot be owned.

I hope this is helpful, but not really knowing the stage of your progress I am not sure it is any help at all.

[fermionfieldtheory]

Hi not2easy,

Thanks so much for your reply. I really appreciate it!

I believe WP is installed at this point. I was able to install WP via the cPanel in Siteground a couple days ago (before I began working in Sublime). When I googled my site, it shows the blank WP theme I added.

I was able to make an FTP account in SG after that.

I’ll probably message SG like you said to see if they have any ideas.

I’m realizing I may be in over my head, since this is my first website. I may install Elementor and build my site pages with their plugin instead.

Do you have any tips for how to work my way up to bigger projects? I took an online course in basic HTML and CSS a while ago— I got super into it! But I’m trying to build my skillset, so I can make more creative sites in the future. Any advice you have would be amazing!

And thanks for letting me know about “example.com” —I’ll use that in the future.

Hope you’re having a great day! :)

[not2easy]

WP builds its own pages, Elementor has been known to interfere with some other plugins so I would add that as a last resort.

To avoid rebuilding the wheel, first take a look at learning how to best use WP because it does not work the same as simple HTML/CSS sites. The content you create is shown in multiple contexts, and setting it up without understanding that can lead to stumbling and trying to undo mistakes.

Our WordPress forum may have some helpful discussions for you: [webmasterworld.com...]

My main suggestion would be to learn from WP directly: [learn.wordpress.org...] Another suggestion is to learn from some of the older, well known plugin developers such as Yoast. Whether you use Yoast's plugin or not, they do some great explaining of the details that confound common sense. Those are top quality free resources that only cost you a bit of your time.

For example - Why not index all versions of your pages? When you submit all URLs to be indexed you are submitting duplicate content. You need to plan ahead on what to emphasize and what to minimize. Learn about using canonical meta tags to avoid those problems. Learn about hardening WP because it is such a popular platform for starting, it is also a favorite target of the bad guys. There are things you can change to increase your chances of success and survival and most of that information is found at the WP learning site.

I hope your day is just right as well!

[NickMNS]

Do you have any tips for how to work my way up to bigger projects?...
But I’m trying to build my skillset, so I can make more creative sites in the future

Don't waste your time with WordPress. WordPress, it is made for blogs and basic e-commerce website where as simple static design pattern is sufficient.

Judging from your handle "Fermi on field theory" I'm willing to guess that you are a pretty smart person and have a good capacity to learn.

If by "creative site" you mean to create an interactive tool, such as graphs or calculators, you are going to want to learn Javascript for the front-end coding (eg: what is on the users computer), and more specifically take a look at frameworks such React, Vue or Angular. For the server side, I stay away from PHP (what is used to build WordPress) I prefer Python as it is far more versatile, and has a wide array of libraries for mathematical models, stats, machine learning, image processing, data processing etc... and if, as your name suggests, you do come from a physics background you likely already have experience with Python. (Look into Flask, or Quart for creating web-apps). Other server side programming languages to consider are Javascript, specifically Node.js or Rust.

If you are interested in creating graphs and visualizations you will want to check d3.js.

[lucy24]

<tangent>

Text Editor won’t sync with my FTP account

When I got a new computer and moved up to current releases of every bit of software I’ve ever used, it was a nasty shock to find that {FTP program} wouldn’t work with {text editor A} to make live edits. On the suggestion of {person in charge of FTP program} I tried with {text editor B} and it works swimmingly. Something to do with security settings in the new OS that {text editor A} isn’t compatible with.

Response inspired by the topic title, which ended up having little to do with the underlying question.
</tangent>

[not2easy]

@lucy24 - I followed that path myself not long ago and entirely by error. I thought I was upgrading to High Sierra when I got devastated by Catalina. :( Nothing worked, everything was broken...

I do agree with NickMNS here. WP is not the best thing for everyone and every purpose. My responses were not as broad as his because it appeared you had made that decision. By all means, if it is not a final decision, keep looking because there are more creative solutions. I did not know whether the decision was hard coded or not.

I run a few WP sites that fit well on that platform, and I am comfortable with editing my themes and css. I have a few other handspun sites in HTML and CSS. I have nowhere near NickMNS' (or many others around here) background in the disciplines he mentions. I can say that you should not settle until you find what works for your vision of what you want to create. ;)