We have a project that previews and functions properly. How do we export the project, re: html, png, jpg, etc files so that they can be uploaded to a server and viewed properly. Thanks in advance for any guidance on how to export a complete project with all of the files.
By going through the Tutorials and learning how to do the basic functions of the app :P
The tutorials are a bit outdated and there are more features in the app than you'll see in them, but the basics are still there and although they may be just a bit different, they are easy to see what to do once you have learned where to find them. Have fun!
Found the problem. Had my head up a "dark place" and wasn't thinking. It would be helpful if the "assets" folder were also moved to the server so the pages could find the images. So, when exporting, need to remind myself to export that folder along with the project's html files. Back to it ...
lol okie doke, didn't know there was a way to not get the assets file even. Guess I will have to look into that too, although I almost always need it since I import everything that can be imported. If you have images in your page, import them so that BSS can easily add them, if you don't then the only other thing you can do is change the location of your images to have Absolute URL's so they won't have to be changed every time you export. The app is set up so that you can import your images, any external CSS you need to use as well as JS at the moment. We're hoping for more options on that hopefully with the next release as they told us a lot of our suggestions will be in the next release.
After building our projects, we export the files - which includes as "assets" folder with all the images, etc. We then take all those files, including the assets folder and upload to our own https server and code it up to function as a progressive web app. We are working on integration of push notifications into that final product now. One thing to note: when you export a project, MOVE the files and the assets folder to another location. The next time you export a different project, it would over-write the previous, thus the need to move the files to preserve them. We chose BSS over Webflow after extensively testing both. WF is very clumsy in many regards and has no export function. Thanks for your responses and interest in helping, even though it was pilot error to begin with - forgetting about the assets folder. Regards.
If you set a different export to folder for each project in the export options you won't need to move the files to another location. I have several projects and Bootstrap Studio exports each one to its unique folder on my hard drive.
I also do what @JohnZeman does. I have a specific directory that holds all my export directories for each of my clients. This way I can make backups in each of the directories before I export, and then always will have the previous files to compare to if needed (or to replace if something isn't right yet). Yes I have to copy the files to the actual client's directory, but this is kind of a good practice for me to be able to keep the backups simple (without having to navigate all the other files and folders in the client directories) as well as making sure nothing is overwritten and lost.
My Steps are as follows:
1. New client? Make an export folder for them in the main BSS exports folder 2. Updating a site? Go to the exports folder before exporting and create a folder ~backups folder and inside that create a new folder with today's date. Move all of the files from the previous exported to that folder. I do this each time I do an export, unless I'm just correcting small things in the current updates that have been exported already for the day, in this case I just let them overwrite. 3. Copy the current exported files to the client's directory and let them overwrite. Keep in mind you won't lose the previous changes as you've backed them up in the Export directory. No need to double backup if you're running backup software that makes regular backups of your computer. 4. Rinse and repeat.
Seems like a bunch of work, but truly only the beginning is and even then it's not much. After you have made all the directories, the only work is making a new backup directory for the date, moving the previously exported files to it and copying and pasting to your client's directory. Takes just seconds once you get in the routine of it.
I know there's a feature for versioning the Assets folder, but I really don't understand what it does so I don't know if that will help you or not either.
To both of you - thanks. My mistake was to save all of the projects into one directory, so when I export, they all do so into that one directory. Will move them to their own individual directories, thus the export will go to the correct respective one. This helpful info from you has been extremely helpful. We have 84 BSS mobile apps that will be built over the next serveral months. Tried Webflow, but that this is way too complicated to do simple things - like an accordian, where you need to do "no display" setting for every tab when you open a new one. Plus, no export feature - must host on their servers and the page/screen limit is 100. Our apps have about 165 screens + other features therein that would not fly in Webflow. So, again, thanks for the great suggestions on project/export management. HB
I'm not quite following your workflow. All of my projects are stored next to each other in one folder and that's fine because that has nothing to do with where my web sites are exported to. Export options for each project defines where the web sites end up.
If all the BSS projects are in the same folder, subsequent exports over-write previous exports, because BSS exports to the same directory as the project. At least that is how my Windows 10 Professional system does it. If the BSS projects are in their own directory, the export is to the respective project directory. FYI - we are not talking about Exporting WEBSITES to the BSS Servers (limit of 5). We are talking about exporting the entire site files to a local computer, then transferred to our own webserver via FTP. We do not use the #####.bss.design as our public access to the websites. They are hosted on our own server. Did that clear it up for you?
Not really. I'm talking about the same thing as you are, exporting to local folders in my computer then uploading them to the server with an FTP client. That's what I do too.
All of my .bsdesign projects are stored here: D:\Mine\Bootstrap Studio\
No subfolders, all project files are in that one folder.
And all of my exported web sites are exported to individual subfolders inside this folder: D:\Mine\Upload\
The latter is set for each project in Export Options. For the most part it doesn't matter where I have my .bsdesign project files.
We are talking basically about the same process, except we are thinking the BSS projects should go with the files in the export plan. You have a difference preference, which is OK, as long as we both get to the same thing. Because we have so many projects, our preference is to put the BSS project into the same folder as the Export target, this consolidating things. The BSS projects are spread over a number of clients, so we have a parent director for each client, then sub-folder for their separate project. Thanks again for the input.
Ah, ok. Now I follow you. I prefer to keep my project files separate from my exports. Good luck and I hope you'll enjoy BSS as much as I do. :)
Yes, all my "project" files (the bss file for your project) are saved in one directory, that doesn't matter as they only "overwrite" if you don't rename them when you do your next updates. I rename my project each time I do new updates so it keeps the previous ones intact and backed up, while allowing me to make changes. This way I don't lose what I have if something goes wrong, etc.
It's only the Export folders that I was talking about. That's where I keep things separated so I can be sure of backups and not overwriting live files. :)