06-29-2005, 02:59 AM

I've recently bought a Mac mini primarily to test my web pages developed on a pc. I'm having problems setting up the apache side of things, but I need to answer a more fundamental problem first.

The most basic way to create a web page on my pc is to open Notepad, jot down some html, file/save as test_page.html and save it to the desktop for instance. When I double-click on the page's icon, it opens my browser with the page displayed. Simple right?

If I do this on my new Mac, I get Safari opening and displaying the code that I have written, rather than the html output.

This then forms the basis of my problems with the apache set up. I can find the folder containing the default index page in my home folder, but when I try to save a new page in there, I just get a page showing up the code.

Any help appreciated.

06-29-2005, 04:27 AM

Originally Posted by timboy

I've recently bought a Mac mini primarily to test my web pages developed on a pc. I'm having problems setting up the apache side of things, but I need to answer a more fundamental problem first.

The most basic way to create a web page on my pc is to open Notepad, jot down some html, file/save as test_page.html and save it to the desktop for instance. When I double-click on the page's icon, it opens my browser with the page displayed. Simple right?

If I do this on my new Mac, I get Safari opening and displaying the code that I have written, rather than the html output.

This then forms the basis of my problems with the apache set up. I can find the folder containing the default index page in my home folder, but when I try to save a new page in there, I just get a page showing up the code.

Any help appreciated.

I take it you are using Textedit in Tiger? Panther? When you open Textedit click the Textedit dropdown then perferences. Make sure Plain Text is selected instead of Rich Text. If you are running Tiger this is under the first tab of Perferences called New Document. In the Open and Save tab I also have Ignore rich text commands in HTML files checked. Make sure it saves the extension when saving the file as HTML. That should take care of your problem. I had the same problem a year and a half ago when I first messed with Panther and did my first HTML on the Mac.

06-29-2005, 06:55 AM

Thanks for the reply.

Yes I'm using Textedit in Tiger and I worked out the plain text format issue myself.

I think "Ignore rich text commands in HTML files checked" might well fix things. I'll try it later when I get home. Seemed to me that it would be something simple like this as logically it just didn't make sense.

06-29-2005, 12:30 PM

For doing plain text HTML I like a program called TextWrangler

06-29-2005, 02:05 PM

TextWrangler is a great text editor.

06-30-2005, 03:22 PM

In the Open and Save tab I also have Ignore rich text commands in HTML files checked.

Yeah, this did the trick - thanks.