Website and Source Code

[karan_thakkar]

hi

i am wondering if any1 can help me
I run a company and the web site is managed externaly by a web management copmany, i would like all (and i mean every last bit) of the info on the web site as in all douctments of the ownership of the web site etc.
and i would also like the whole web site with source codes, however the web managment company say they cannot give me this as there are some out standing payments. BUT how is real owner of the web site and its source codes? i have payed for the making of the website.
i know this is not the right forum to ask this be i really need to know.

[Mike]

The second part of your question Karan, how to obtain the actual source code for your website, if the site is currently on the internet and hasn't been removed, and is a simple one, (no fancy flash or Java) you could try to recreate it on your hard drive by using a site editor, there's a free one that is very good called Nvu, it can be found at:

http://www.nvu.com/

When you've downloaded and installed it, run the program, one of the options on the file menu is File/open web location, paste in here the URL of each of your web pages, if it's a large site with many pages it will take some time, but each page you paste in will be opened within the editor, here it can be saved to your hard drive, make sure you also copy to your drive any images that appear on your site, (right click, save image).

You'll have to check the links as they may be relative to the webspace, and need to be changed using the editor, but it's certainly possible to recreate the entire site on your hard drive, and have it uploaded somewhere else.

You can also completely change the website within Nvu, adding more pages, new links etc, it's well worth downloading the program just to see how web pages are put together.

[jrj]

Is the site still open?

Then just open each page in Internet Explorer and SAVE AS complete webpage.

Later on you can edit or republish the pages with tools like i.e Frontpage. BUT you have to readress the images etc.

If you only look for the HTML codes: Open each page, right click your mouse button, from the menu that opens choose DISPLAY SOURCE. This opens a notebook with all the HTML coding. Save the page.
NB! Some pages/codes ie from an ASP server may have codes before the HTML coding. These codes will not be displayed

Good luck

[karan_thakkar]

yes thanx both of u but the problem lies in legal issues about the ownership of the web site (not talking about the domain)
well now writing this and thinking about it in bits and wit a clear head (where as i was angry b4 at the web management company) i think i would be the rightful owner as i have paied for the making of the website 2 years ago
jus not paied the maintance fee for a month

anyway i will try that program thanx alot

there is also an other issue that the managemnt company claims that it is a 'dinamic' web site (i have no clue wat that means) and i am unable to the web site offline (ofline by which i mean like on a cd/dvd add all the images and pages EVERYTHING) is this true?

[Mike]

You'll also have to look at the copyright issues, if you've had a website designed for you, unless the copyright has been transferred to you, then republishing it in its present form with another company might be unadvisable.

Not too sure what will be meant by dynamic, it's a long time since I did any web designing, there is such a thing as dynamic html (dhtml), but it's pretty basic now, all browsers support it, and presumably all html editors do too.

What may cause problems in trying to get a complete copy of the site is what special techniques have been used in its creation, the usual ones are CSS (cascading style sheets), PHPNuke, mysql, java (Sun microsystems) and flash (Macromedia).

The Nvu editor can display and modify the source code for standard html pages, and also CSS ones, I'm not sure what Frontpage is capable of. It's going to be a matter of try one and see what you get I'm afraid!

[karan_thakkar]

well i dont know about any copyright transfers but at the bottom of the web site it says
© Copyright 2003 - 2004, (my company), London. All Rights Reserved.
so i seem pritty happy about that now lol

anyway i am pritty sure that no matter wat the web site would be able to be displied offline

[Mike]

Funnily enough, I stumbled upon a program this morning that is designed for the very purpose that you need, it's called Webreaper, it will save a complete website to your hard drive completely automatically, you need to go to the options to do this, choose where to save the files to and click on the go button.

The URL for the program (freeware) is:

http://www.webreaper.net/

[mdchachi]

Do you have any information from the past that describes the technology they used to build it? Perhaps in their marketing materials? If it truly is dynamic than you might be stuck. Take trekearth for example. Sure you could copy all the pages but since everything is generated dynamically from a database, you couldn't get a working replica of TE by just copying all the pages.