Why don´t my actions work in Netscape 4.05?
The latest release of Netscape, version 4.05, contains a known bug which prevents many javascripts from executing locally on your machine. This means that many actions, which use a combination of HTML 4.0 and Javascript, will not work when the site is previewed or published locally. If the site is published to a Web server, the most actions should function normally.

Why don't file assets move with my file?
When a file asset is added, NetObjects Fusion stores the path to the asset rather than the asset itself. When a site file is copied to a new machine, the assets are left in their original locations. To make sure that all the assets come with a site when it is transferred to a new location you must export your site as a template. For more information on templates see the NetObjects Fusion User Guide Chapter 3, Importing and Exporting.

How can I collect all my assets into one place?
To have NetObjects Fusion collect all your file assets into one directory, you must export your site as a template. When the site is exported all assets are copied to the /Assets directory of the template folder. All the assets for the site are now gathered in the same location. For more information on templates see the NetObjects Fusion User Guide Chapter 3, Importing and Exporting.

How can I delete assets?
You can delete any asset by choosing the Delete Asset option in the Edit menu. The only exception to this is link assets. Link assets are deleted when the last instance of a link is deleted, either by deleting the page the last link is on, or deleting the object that last link is associated with. File assets always remain in the list of available assets regardless of whether or not they are currently being used. You can delete all unused assets by choosing Delete All Unused File Assets from the Assets Menu. You can also delete assets which are shown as in use, though warning dialogs inform you that this can leave your pages in an inconsistent state.

What do I do when one browser displays my page differently than another?
Different browsers handle the interpretation of HTML slightly differently. Most problems revolve around variations in table-rendering, font display, browser generated elements, or special tag support. For misplaced or mis-aligned objects the easiest way to start determining where the problem lies is to check the way the browser is interpreting the table structure. You can do this by holding down the shift key while doing a full site or single-page preview. This command tells NetObjects Fusion to generate all the layout tables with a border equal to one. When the pages are viewed in the browser you can see how the tables are distributed. Compare the same page between the browsers. Check to see where the tables are different. Very often the cause is a change in font size, or a browser generated element, such as a form field, which is displayed differently. Added HTML scripts can also cause the table structure to behave in a different fashion. Usually these are very easy to fix by simply adjusting the amount of space allotted for those elements in the layout area in NetObjects Fusion. However, depending on the design of the page, and what is causing the problem, a more complex solution may be required.

Special tag support tends to manifest itself where one browser displays something and another does not display it at all. The important thing to do in this case is consult a reference manual and make sure that the property you have assigned or scripted in is in fact supported by the browser in which you are viewing the site. Sometimes to get a similar effect in multiple browsers several different simultaneous methods may have to be employed. For the most part NetObjects Fusion tries to account for these discrepancies, but as the browsers evolve and new tags are introduced, special tags or variants in interpretation of standard tags can cause display differences.

For assistance in optimizing your layout for changing browser conditions see our User Guide, Chapter 5, Planning Your Site and Chapter 7, Laying Out the Page.

Why do my fonts look different in different browsers?
Each browser and each computer platform display fonts slightly differently. Netscape Navigator uses a more common point-based font display. Microsoft Internet Explorer uses a relative sizing method where fonts are Medium, Small, or Large. Internet Explorer fonts tend to have a slightly larger leading (the distance between lines of text) and kerning (the distance between characters) than the fonts in Navigator.

Fonts are also different on different platforms. Fonts on the Macintosh platform display an apparent three point sizes smaller than the equivalent font on the Windows platform. In other words, 12 pt. Times Roman displayed on a Macintosh takes up approximately the same amount of screen real estate as 9 pt. Times Roman displayed on a Windows machine. To account for the differences in font size, you should view your pages on different machines to see how the changing font sizes affect your layout. To simulate different machines, alter the size of the display font in your browser settings. This will also give you an idea of how a custom font setting on a viewer's machine may affect the overall design.

For assistance in optimizing your layout for changing browser conditions see our User Guide Chapter 5 on Planning Your Site, and Chapter 7, Laying Out the Page.

How can I get my content to be flush against the top and left edges of the browser window?
All browsers, when displaying information in tables, leave a gap at the top and left edges of the browser window. Although the background image still begins at the upper left corner, the page content does not display until a little bit further down and to the right. Different browsers leave a different amount of space.

NetObjects Fusion includes HTML tags to account for these gaps. To set the values for the margins at the top and left of the browser window, choose the Preferences option from the Edit menu and select the Page tab. At the bottom of the preferences is the Backgroudn Image setting. The pixel settings here adjust the position of the background image in NetObjects Fusion to reflect the final position of the content in relation to the image when the page is generated. (The User Guide is incorrect in Chapter 1 where it states that this setting does not affect the HTML generated; NetObjects Fusion includes topmargin, leftmargin, marginheight and marginwidth tags in the BODY which use the pixel values set in the Background Image preferences.)

If you place objects, particularly images, such that they are exactly flush against the upper and left edges in the NetObjects Fusion page area this can cause the browser to display other elements on the page shifted slightly down in their table cells. This is primarily noticible when you have several images which are designed to be flush with each other. To make everything appear correctly, select all elements on the page using ctrl+a (either in the layout or MasterBorder area, depending on which region contains the obejcts) and using the arrow keys, nudge all the selected objects down one pixel and to the right one pixel. The page should now preview and publish correctly.

Why doesn´t the component I placed show up in Preview?
All components are designed to work only when staged or published. The reason for this is because of Java security issues in the latest browsers. These security issues prevent browsers from executing Java applets as local files within the operating system. You must publish your site to view your components.

What should I check if the Forms Handler component isn´t working?
If the Forms Handler component isn´t working, first check to make sure that all the parameters have been specified in the component properties, and that these parameters are correct for the server to which you are publishing. The Forms Handler component offers several options to allow you to configure the settings to match the requirements for a variety of servers. If you aren't sure of your server´s requirements, contact your ISP or server administrator to find out.

The Forms Handler component requires that the permissions for the CGI directory are set to execute, and that the directory into which the data is to be written is set for read and write. For the location on the server where the webdata directory is to be written, you must also have permission to create a directory.

There is a known issue with the shipping version of the Forms Handler which prevents the use of the custom CGI directory parameter when publishing to IIS 4.0. This is being corrected in a later release of the Forms Handler component.

These are the most common problems with Forms Handler. For information on how to configure the Forms Handler component, see our User Guide Chapter 17, Designing and Implementing Forms.

What should I check if the BBS component isn´t working?
If the BBS component isn't working, first check to make sure that all the parameters have been specified in the component properties, and that these parameters are correct for the server to which you are publishing. The BBS component offers several options to allow you to configure the settings to match the requirements for a variety of servers. If you aren't sure of your server's requirements, contact your ISP or server administrator to find out.

The BBS component requires that the permissions for the BBS-CGI directory are set to execute. In addition, the entire BBS directory which contains the various elements used by the component must be set for read and write permissions.

These are the most common problems with the BBS. For more information on how to configure the BBS, see our User Guide Chapter 18, Using NetObjects Fusion Components.

Can the Forms Handler send e-mail?
The Forms Handler component may be configured to send email. For more information see our User Guide Chapter 17, Designing and Implementing Forms.

NOTE: when you configure the Forms Handler component for email, it no longer uses a CGI script. This means that special features such as the Success and Error pages, as well as Required Fields cannot be used. This is incorrectly outlined in the steps for setting up the e-mail option on page 17-16 of the User Guide.

Why do pages look different on the Macintosh platform?
The primary reason that pages or layouts created on the Windows platform no longer look the same when viewed or moved to the Macintosh platform is because of the difference in display font sizes. The Macintosh platform displays equivalent Windows fonts about 3 point sizes smaller. In other words, the amount of screen real-estate that 12 pt. Times Roman uses on a Macintosh screen is about equivalent to the amount of screen real estate that 9 pt. Times Roman uses on a Windows machine. When pages or files created on a Windows machine are viewed on a Macintosh the text appears to “shrink” leaving gaps between objects on the page.

Data publishing is implemented through data objects. A data object is equivalent to a data table, where all field information as well as the record information is stored. Data is displayed in pages in a list format. When a data list is created, a stacked page which displays individual record information is also created. Each row of the list corresponds and is linked to one record in the stacked page.

For more information on data publishing see our User Guide Chapter 20, Data Publishing.

When should I use an internal dataobject?
Internal dataobjects are most useful for small collections of records and ones which will not need updating often or by other users. Typically an internal data object is used for 10-50 records

When should I use an external data object?
External dataobjects are most useful medium to large collection of records and ones which can be updated often or by other users. External data sources are best used for 50-400 records, where the records do not need to be updated very often, or by Web visitors. Once the number of records is much larger than around 400, the format of datalist/stacked pages even filtered, becomes unwieldy for the site visitor as well as for the site developer, who must maintain room on the server for as many pages as there are records. At this point it is often more practical to move to live querying through CGI scripts (Dynamic Data Publishing.)

How can I include images from my external data source?
To include images which are located in an external data source add a field for your images as simple text, for each record enter the full path to the image (e.g. c:\my documents\images\photo.gif). In NetObjects Fusion, create an external data object and link to your data source from within the Page view. Do not display your picture field in your datalist or on your stacked page. Next, switch to the Assets view and select the Data Objects button in the Secondary Control bar. Double-click on the data object that you have just created and double-click on the field that contains the path to the images. Change the field type to an "Image File" and hit OK. Now you can include the image field in your data list or place the field on your stacked page.

How can I do live queries to a database?
You can do live queries to a database using third-party database integration components. There are currently components to help you integrate with a Lotus Domino Database, Netscape LiveWire Server, Microsoft Active Server or Allaire Cold Fusion Server. You can purchase all of these components at one time in the NetObjects Fusion ProPack, or individually from their vendors.

This is additionally an error which can occur during Preview or Publish when running NetObjects Fusion version 3.0 under Windows 98. Make sure that at least 60 MB of drive space is available for virtual memory and that you are not running any other programs or background processes. There seems to be some particular conflicts with Windows 98 and NetObjects Fusion 3.0 with regards to memory management. This issue is currently under investigation.

What should I do if NetObjects Fusion crashes?
There are a number of reasons that a file could crash. Usually the problem is related to a conflict on the system between shared resources, such as memory, disk space or library files. In some cases, under Windows 95, damaged registry entries can also cause a problem. If you expereince or have experienced random crashes while running NetObjects Fusion, try reinstalling the software. If this does not seem to solve the problem, also make sure that NetObjects Fusion is the only program running under the operating system, and test to make sure that it functions correctly under these circumstances.

There are also several common actions which can result in a crash if there is a problem with the site file. These are listed below:

• Crash during compaction
• Crash when opening file
• Crash when accessing a page
• Crash during preview or publish
• Crash while importing a site during the recovery procedure

If you get a crash on compaction of the site, you should immediately revert to your last saved backup. The compaction routine is designed to check your site file for errors. If one is found, this is an indication that some occurrance during the last session was not written correctly to the database, either because of resource conflicts or internal errors.

If you get crashes opening a file, or when attempting to go to a page or preview or publish a certain page, it is usually because that page which is trying to be accessed contains incorrect or damaged information which the program is unable to resolve. In this case either immediately revert to a previously saved backup from before the crash, and or perform the recovery procedure on the problem file following the instructions outlined in the document recover.txt located in the NetObjects Fusion 3.0 directory on your hard drive.

If you get a crash during the recovery procedure, there are two possible scenarios. One is that the crash occurred immediately. If this is the case, the file is most likely damaged such that the import routine does not recognize it as a valid file. Try recovering from previously saved backups if this type of crash occurs. If the crash occurs during the latter part of the import, at around 85% when the file is saving, this file may usually be recovered by opening the newly created file and running through the recovery procedure a second time.

Anytime the file crashes it is wise to revert to a backup from before the crash occurred to prevent any problems which might have resulted from the crash.

What do I do if I receive the Out of Memory Error?
The Out of Memory Error indicates that NetObjects Fusion does not have enough resources to complete the task you have asked of it. You should be prompted to quit the program and retry your action. If you do get this error you might want to try shutting down other concurrently running applications, or check to see that you have enough available memory or free disk space on your machine. Relaunch NetObjects Fusion and try your action again.

What do I do if I receive the error This File Contains an Instability?
The full text of this error is as follows:

• This file contains an instability. If this file was created in an older version of NetObjects Fusion, it is likely that the instability was introduced by that version. Please use recover.txt, located in your /NetObjects Fusion folder, to learn an alternate method of opening this file.

While the text of the error message indicates a possible cause in a previous version of NetObjects Fusion, this error can occur under some conditions (usually after a crash) in the current version as well. Usually the error comes up as a result of a crash and will show up when you open the site. If you see this error message, revert to the backup from before your last save, or perform the recovery procedure as indicated in the error text.

Sometimes this error will again be shown when the import phase of the recovery procedure is completed. This indicates that there is still a problem with the file. In this case you should perform the recovery procedure again, on the file you just imported. In other words, if the original file was file A, and you imported it into new file B, import file B into new file C. This should eliminate the error.

What do I do if I receive the error Damaged Objects Have Been Found and Deleted
There are two dialogs which contain this message. These are:

• Damaged objects have been found in the layout and have been deleted.
• Damaged objects have been found on the page and have been deleted.

If either one of these messages is displayed when accessing a page, this indicates that NetObjects Fusion has detected that one or more objects in that page or layout were incorrectly committed to the database during the last save. When it detects this, it eliminates the incorrect data from the page. You may notice that an item on the page is now missing or not displaying correct information.

If you receive this error repeatedly, it may indicate a more serious problem with the way that the database is being committed to disk. At this point it is a good idea to run through the recovery procedure outlined in the recover.txt document located in the NetObjects Fusion 3.0 directory on your harddrive.

What do I do if I receive a Remote Transfer Error?
The Remote Transfer Results dialog box is shown any time an error is encountered during the transfer of files during publish. Examine the results returned in the edit area to determine where the error may be occuring.

There is one bug related to this error which occurs when the Message Board component is published locally. The text is as follows:

Cannot copy file: bbs\message\
The system cannot find the path specified

There is not any true error associated with this message as the appropriate directory structure is copied to the server at publish time.

If the errors reported seem to relate to old components in a migrated 2.0x file, this is a more complicated problem. Because the architecture of components changed dramatically from version 2.0x to 3.0, most components are not compatible when migrated forward. The first step to take is to make sure that before you migrate a 2.0x site file forward into 3.0, you delete all instances of components from the site. You may re-add them once the file has been imported.

Form elements by themselves will not do anything until you have implemented a script which will perform an operation on the data entered. NetObjects Fusion provides one script in the form of a component, the Forms Handler. The Forms-Handler publishes a Perl5 CGI script to Windows, UNIX or Macintosh servers. This script is designed to write the information submitted through the form to a text file located in the specified directory on your server. The component may also be configured to email the data in the form elements. This latter option does not require the CGI script.

For more information about configuring form elements and forms in NetObjects Fusion 3.0 see our User Guide, Chapter 17, Designing and Implementing Forms.

Is there a form template I can use?
NetObjects Fusion 3.0 includes four types of form templates that you can use as a starting point for your site: Billing Form, Guestbook, Order Form, or Product Support. These templates are pre-designed form pages containing generic or place holder content for typical forms. To insert one of these forms in your site, from Site view, select the File menu and choose Import Template. This gives you the option of selecting from our Page Templates. Select one of these templates and the form is imported as a child page of the currently selected page in Site view. NOTE: The form templates, while they contain submit buttons, are not configured with any CGI scripts. You must supply your own CGI script for the form, or replace the generic submit button with the Forms-Handler component and follow the instructions for configuring the form settings as outlined in our User Guide, Chapter 17, Designing and Implementing Forms.

How can I make all my form elements line up?
There are two ways to ensure that your form elements line up:

First, if your elements are placed independently on the page, you should make sure that all elements which are to be in the same row are aligned at the top. Simply select all the objects in that row by dragging the mouse marquee around them or by shift-clicking on each element. The Align properties appear in the properties sheet. Select the Top icon,. or choose the Align Elements option under the Object menu. This allows you to align selected form elements by the top, ensuring that they can be in the same table row in the HTML. Once the elements are aligned at the top, choose the Rows option for your HTML tables. This ensures that all elements which are aligned to be in the same table row, are actually generated in the same table row.

You can also create your form in a table or within a text box. With your form elements in a table, you can ensure that all elements are in positions which will not change with other changing elements. With a text box, all your form elements are placed in-line just as in a text editor. After placing your form elements in a table cell or text box, select multiple elements. The Align tab in the Forms Properties palette offers several options for alignment in relation to the text.

NOTE: If you are using the Forms Hanlder component, required fields may not be located in a text box or table cell separate from the submit button; the submit button will not recognize them.

For more information about aligning objects and configuring table output see our User Guide, Chapter 7, Laying Out the Page.

How can I make my form elements tab in order in the browser?
Form elements tab in the order in which they appear in the HTML. This means that for elements to tab across horizontally in order, the elements must be properly aligned.

Why aren´t my form elements appearing in the browser when I preview or publish?
If your form elements are not appearing in the browser, or are not appearing correctly, you are probably publishing with the CSS and Layers option selected for this page, or the CSS and Layers option is selected in your Publish settings and your page is currently set to use whatever is set in Publish. Currently, most 4.0x browsers do not display forms correctly when a page is published using CSS and Layers code. If you have a forms page, make sure that the HTML output method for your forms page is set to Regular or Nested Tables. For more information about selecting HTML output methods, see our User Guide, Chapter 7, page 7-8.

What should I check if my form isn´t working?
If you are using your own CGI or Javascript, first check to make sure that you have configured the script in accordance with that script´s documentation or the author of the script. Additionally refer to our User Guide, Chapter 17 to ensure that all the configuration has been done in the correct location in NetObjects Fusion. If the CGI script is to run on a server and it still does not seem to be functioning, contact your server administrator or service provider.

If you are using the Forms-Handler component and have configured all the parameters for the component correctly as outlined in Chapter 17, here are the most common errors which might happen:

Nearly all problems in getting the Forms-Handler to work fall into the following categories: CGI functionality on Web server and Web server directory permissions.

CGI functionality on Web server
Regardless of whether you publish the Perl5 script files (Publish to UNIX) or the binary executables (Publish to Windows), two server requirements must be met regarding CGI in order for the Forms-Handler component to function correctly.

• The server must be able to execute CGI programs (binary executables or text scripts) from any user-defined CGI-bin directory. In particular, the server must be able to directly execute the CGI scripts (programs) placed in the assets/CGI-bin directory.
• The server must be able to execute CGI programs (scripts) that have an extension of .cgi. The default PERL extension is .pl. Some servers expect an extension of .pl5 for Perl5 scripts and an extension of .pl  or .pl4 for Perl4 scripts.

If you aren´t sure how your server is configured for CGI functionality, contact your server administrator or service provider.

Web server directory permissions and virtual directory settings
Web server settings required by the Forms Handler component are no different from other standard scripts with the following exceptions:

• CGI scripts must execute in user-defined CGI-bin directories without any kind of CGI-wrap or proprietary CGI schemes.
• Server recognizes .cgi as an extension of CGI programs (scripts).

If you aren´t sure how the permissions have been configured for your directories, contact your server administrator or service provider.