Blank edit page causes
Filters at school or at work
PBworks is a very complex site, and the editor uses many advanced browser functions that may conflict with a school or business's internet filter. Before contacting support about the issue, it's best to contact your local network administrator about the problem. Here's a link you can refer them to, which contains a lot of useful information about the service:
Guide for Network Administrators
HTML and Javascript
When adding experimental Javascript, HTML, or CSS to your pages, you may encounter a slight problem. You may have saved something on your page that interferes with the editor, and prevents it from loading. This can come from a variety of causes, but commonly, it's caused by some improper HTML or Javascript on the page itself.
A quick way to test to see if this is the case, is to try to enter edit mode on another page. If you can edit other pages, then the problem is most likely due to some content on the page itself interfering with the browser, and not your internet connection.
Also, if this does happen on every page, follow the steps below and revert the "SideBar" page of your workspace back to the oldest version. Even if the problem does not clear after reverting the SideBar page, it is helpful to revert this page to a state with no customized HTML or Javascript, to eliminate that possibility.
To recover the editor after adding something that blocks the editor, follow these steps.
- Click the Page History icon in the corner of the affected page.
If the link is not there, you can manually build the link yourself. Just put this phrase between the URL of your workspace and the page you want to revert.
FindPage?RevisionsFor=
So, if you wanted to find the page revisions for the FrontPage of this workspace, this would be the link:
http://usermanual.pbworks.com/FindPage?RevisionsFor=FrontPage
In the example above, the URL of the workspace is in blue, and the page name is in red. By manually changing these values, you can find the Page Revision list of any page in your workspace.
- Once you've found the page revision list for the page you need, you'll see a list of links which hold a date and time. Clicking on any of these links will show you what the page looked like when it was saved at that specific time.
The first link on the list will be the current version of the page. Since that version doesn't allow the editor to load, we'll want to access the version of the page that did, so click on the second link in the list.
- After clicking on the second link, you'll see the previous version of the page (one version back). At the top of the page, there will be a bar, which will hold a link to revert to this version. Click on the link to revert to this version.
- Check to see if reverting the page to this previous version has helped in bringing the editor back. If not, you may need to revert to an even older version. Please note, that as you revert the page, the revision list will grow longer (since each reversion counts as a revision). So, if you do need to revert back further, you'll have to select a date which is earlier than the one you selected previously.
Embedding the page into another website
Embedding the PBworks editor into another website (like Blackboard), using an IFRAME, will cause the editor not to load properly. You can still embed your workspace into another page to view it, but editing is a very complex operation, and it is not possible to edit a page while embedded. If this is the cause of your problem, please try going to the PBworks URL, and editing the page with the regular PBworks.com URL.
Domain forwarding mask
A premium feature of workspaces is the ability to have a custom domain. The Custom Domain feature is not intended for editors of the site, but only for anonymous viewers. The reason for this is that the secure log in and viewing of pages does not work properly when using the custom domain.
If your site has a custom domain for anonymous viewers of your pages, then you should only use the PBworks.com domain for editing.
Click here for more information about setting up a Custom Domain
Contact Support
If the problem of the editor appearing blank persists, even after reverting the FrontPage and the SideBar to the very first version and verifying that you are editing on PBworks.com or a properly set up custom domain, please contact support immediately through the "Help" link on your workspace. Here's a list of things you should tell Support, so we can fully address the problem:
- What browser, and what version of web browser are you using?
- Does the editor fail to load on every page, or just specific pages?
- If you're using Firefox, what add-ons are you using?
- Are you connecting to PBworks through a work or school-owned internet connection? Can you try accessing from home and see if the problem comes up?
The answers to these questions will be vital to determining what is wrong with the editor on your pages.
My Right Panel disappeared
Sometimes, you might want to expand your workspace's main content area to better view a spreadsheet, image, or table. You can effectively accomplish this by hiding the Right Panel.
By clicking on this triangle, you'll be able to hide and reveal the right panel of your workspace.
If you've hidden the right panel, and you would like it to come back, click the triangle again so that all the content in the right panel comes back.
Please keep in mind that this is just a personal preference, and the right panel is still shown by default for your users. If you are the administrator of a premium workspace, you can set the default state to be hidden. Click here for more information.
I just deleted some important content from a page
Don't worry! You can take your workspace back in time to an earlier state by clicking on the Page History link (look for the clock icon on the right side of your page).
Click here for information on reverting a page or file to a previous state
Content doesn't appear in the View mode
This issue can occur after content containing HTML code (such as text from MS Word or the Web) has been pasted into your workspace page, because the pasted HTML can interfere with your workspace's own HTML. Reverting the page version to a previous revision using the "Page History" link is one quick solution. Copying all the content in Edit mode and pasting it into Notepad (or another Plain Text Editor) to strip the text of any HTML before reinserting it back into the workspace page is another way to resolve this issue.
Pasting Safely
When you want to add content from an external source to your workspace, sometimes pasting is an easy way to do this, but please be aware that there's a safe way to paste information. Pasting text, tables, or other information from MS Word, Excel, or other websites can insert a significant amount of HTML code that can interfere with your workspace page's code and cause undesired effects.
Pasting Text
To safely paste text into your workspace page, please first paste the text into Notepad (for Windows), TextEdit (for Macs, need to choose plain-text format setting) or another plain-text editor and then copy the plain text and paste that into your workspace. Running text through the plain text editor strips the information of any formatting or other HTML that can upset the proper functioning of your workspace page.
I'm having trouble uploading a file with a long name
If you're unsuccessful in uploading a file with a long name, please try renaming the file to contain fewer characters and then try to upload the file again.
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