Sunrise Waterfall is the grouping of very useful and important tools into one easy-to-use package.
It is a website builder, Markdown Editor and documentation constructor all in one easy package.
If you don't want to have to learn code, or you don't want to have any hassle when creating the shiny documentation or website to accompany your fantastic new service or product, then Sunrise Waterfall is for you.
Sunrise is your one click program for all things website.
It's an all thrills, no code program to get everyone out on the web.
Technology is the stepping stone into the future.
Let us help you join it.
In order to get the most out of this documentation it is best to familiarise yourself with a couple of key terms.
These are by no means complicated nor required, they will simply aid you in getting the most from our guide.
that's it.
That's all you need to know!
Unlike other products and services, we do not require you to offer any thanks, credits or links to this tool or to our website in your own projects.
It is appreciated when it happens, but is in no way a requirement of use.
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The items in the main menu are almost self-explanatory, but we've documented them here for you just in case.
You can navigate through the items in all of our menus using your arrow keys and then use enter to click on your chosen one.
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For the purposes of this program, a project is a collection of pages that form a website which you can work on.
The program offers two types of projects:
More often than not the phrase, "projects", simply refers to web projects.
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Projects are usually stored in your documents folder, in a folder called "Websites being built."
If you are using the portable version of the program, the projects will be stored in a folder of the same name in the same directory as the program.
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Sunrise Waterfall comes fully integrated with the Wordpress API, allowing you to create and manage your WordPress blog directly from within Sunrise and without having to interact with Wordpress in any form directly.
Through Sunrise you can:
For Sunrise to be able to talk to your WordPress blog you will need to be running wordpress version 4.7 or higher.
Additionally, if you are hosting your blog yourself, you may need the applications password plugin installed, however this does come ready packaged into modern installations.
If you meet the requirements all you need to do is follow the steps in the program which are:
If your connection suddenly stops working, try deleting the wordpress.info file from the folder of the project and reauthorising.
Once connected to wordpress, your project menu will change.
Instead of having connect to wordpress, you will now instead have two new items:
Download or delete a post: As the name suggests you use this to download posts for editing, or delete old posts you no longer want. Once downloaded, Wordpress posts appear as standard pages from within Sunrise but with some extra buttons for you to play with.
Manage media library: This allows you to upload, view and delete items from your media library. this is all very self explanatory so I won't go into too much detail. Up and down arrow keys to navigate lists, tab to navigate the upload screen and enter to bring up the menu for viewing or deleting.
Once the project is connected to Wordpress, there will be a new checkbox in the new page screen called "this is going to be a Wordpress Post." check this box to ensure that you have the extra buttons that you will want for your new post.
Other than that though, new posts are treated like regular pages within Sunrise Waterfall and can be edited in the same way, see the below sections for more information.
When connected to a Wordpress blog and editing a Wordpress post, the page screen has a few extra buttons for you to use.
Press tab to navigate to them (remember the first tab will get you to the insert button, or if you've not got to that section yet... Surprise! the first tab gets you to the insert button, tab past that.)
the other buttons are as follows:
FTP stands for file transfer protocol and SFTp stands for secure file transfer protocol.
Now you know a random fact for the next pub quiz!
Aside from that though, SFTp is a way of sending files from your computer up onto your web server.
To be able to do this, you need an FTP client.
Sunrise Waterfall comes built in with a simple FTP client, though for anything more than the basics it is recommended you use an external, third party client.
That all being said, the FTP client in Sunrise will serve the purpose of upload!
First, you will need the following information before we begin:
Note: Sunrise Waterfall can save your FTP details for you so that next time you click connect, they are automatically filled out. this is an optional feature and is not enabled by default. To enable it, check the box before the connect button.
Further, passwords are not stored for security reasons and therefore must be entered each time.
After connecting you will be put in a file list showing the files currently on your server, including directories.
You navigate this with your arrow keys, pressing enter to go into a directory and backspace to go back one level.
You can also click the two dots ("..") at the top to go back one level.
If you press the applications key on a file, you can:
By pressing tab you can navigate to the following:
Where necessary, Sunrise Waterfall will export pages before it uploads them, but be aware if the export fails for some reason (sunrise will tell you about this) it may upload the broken page.
This screen is the real backbone of Sunrise waterfall and it is from here you'll do all of your heavy lifting.
Upon creating your new page, or upon opening one you're already working on, you are placed into the elements screen.
At first this will be an empty list with one item:
"Save and go back."
Does what you'd expect, really.
As you add elements, they will appear in this list.
To add an element, either press tab to get to the insert button, or simply press Control I.
If you have a list of elements like so:
heading,
paragraph,
Heading 2.
If you wanted to insert another element before the paragraph, simply arrow to the paragraph and press control I.
To move elements, hold down alt and press the up and down arrow keys to move it in the respective direction.
to edit an already added element, press enter on it.
This screen has two menus, one of which you access by pressing alt, the other by pressing your applications key.
By pressing alt you can:
From the context menu you can:
Presets are code snippets which you may want to be the same on several pages, but don't want to have to keep adding them over and over again.
Some examples of when presets might be used are:
Links can go to three places:
1. External: this would be for instance, a website. Make sure when you paste this to include the http of your link. For instance: http://nathantech.net.
2. Other pages: These would be other pages of the project. For these, simply enter their name followed by .html, for example: "Contact.html"
3. Internal. If you wanted to make a link that would jump you to a certain heading, you could do this by entering a number sign in front of the ID. What is the ID I hear you ask?
An ID is an attribute which is given to most tags in HTML. Don't worry! Sunrise Waterfall can handle it for you.
All you need to do is find the element in your page view, press your applications key and voila.
Then you can refer to this ID from within your links.
Say you set the ID of a heading to top. You would link to this by entering #top in the target field of your link.
Not sure what an element is for?
Simply tab across while in the insert list and press the "element information" button!
Find below a list of elements you can use in this program.
The following are also elements you can use that are very self explanitory:
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A mail Form is exactly what it sounds like.
It is a form that your users fill out that will generate an email sent to you.
Some example uses of mail forms are:
Mail Forms have two parts:
Sunrise Waterfall will handle making both of these for you with no coding required.
1. You can not test a contact form on your local machine. This is because PHP is designed to be run on a server and while there are windows based solutions for this, the setup can be a little bit complicated and is beyond this document at the current time.
2. When running this on a server, the server must have support for:
*php,
*the mail function of php.
Most servers do have this enabled by default but if you are unsure, ask your service provider.
The following is a list of the elements and what they are for the contact form.
From the first screen you have entered, that which shows a list of form elements, an add button and a save button you can edit the form.
You can:
1. Press delete to delete an element.
2. Press alt and up arrow to shift an element up.
3. Press alt and down arrow to shift an element down.
When you click save Sunrise Waterfall will ask you to fill out a couple of questions:
1. Your email address. This should be the address you want the results sent to.
2. The email that the form should come from. This is usually something like noreply@yourdomain.com.
3. A success message. This is the message that will be displayed to your user when they have filled out the form correctly and it has been sent. you can put HTML code in this if you wish.
The PHP code will be put into a file that has a number followed by .php, for instance:
"123456.php"
You can view these in a simple text editor like notepad.
I have done my best to add comments to the PHP script so that you can understand what it does.
I hope it helps.
Often, good documentation is what can make or break a product or service.
For developers, who have spent weeks, or more often than not months, working hard on something though it can be extremely tiresome and draining to organise said information, especially if you want it to be available in multiple formats!
The first thing you will want to do, and perhaps most obvious, is open up a new project from the main menu. This time though, you need to open it as a documentation project.
This being done you will be placed in the root.
The root is the top level of your document. you can organise your documentation into sections, or simply leave it as one large page.
Sections are exactly what they sound like.
They break down your documentation into smaller chunks.
Take this documentation for instance. This is the documentation builder section of the manual.
In that regard, when you create sections it tells the builder that those sections should be pages of their own if exported into HTML.
In text version, sections are denoted by two plus signs which allows for easy navigation.
once you have your new project open in front of you, you now want to begin building it out with information.
In this regard there are a couple of things you can add.
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Links can go to three places:
1. External: this would be for instance, a website. Make sure when you paste this to include the http of your link. For instance: http://nathantech.net.
2. Other pages: These would be other pages of the project, such as the sections. for these, simply enter the name of the section followed by .html, for example: "program description.html".
3. Internal. If you wanted to make a link that would jump you to a certain heading, you could do this by entering a number sign in front of the ID. What is the ID I hear you ask? Notice how, in the builder, before each item there is a number in brackets, such as this?
(1) heading: Hello.
In this example, the ID is 1.
To link to this heading, you would type: #1
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Find below the full keystroke list, not including those spoken of above.
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If you wish to link to a section of your documentation you should assume that your section is a new HTML file. So if you had a section called "The Main Menu" then in the link target you should put: "The Main Menu.html".
The program will automatically adjust these to point to internal sections when it outputs to single html documents.
Since 3.4, Sunrise has changed the button interface into a more menu based approach.
Access the menu by pressing your alt key.
There are two menus:
File: This contains functions to run the link checker, save, import a prewritten text files and close the builder.
Export: This allows you to export your project to the various formats the builder allows which are:
Markdown is a plain text formatting syntax aimed at making writing for the internet easier. The philosophy behind Markdown is that plain text documents should be readable without tags mussing everything up, but there should still be ways to add text modifiers like lists, bold, italics, etc. It is an alternative to WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editors, which use rich text that later gets converted to proper HTML.
It’s possible you’ve encountered Markdown without realizing it. Facebook chat, Skype, and Reddit all let you use different flavors of Markdown to format your messages.
Source:
https://www.ultraedit.com/company/blog/community/what-is-markdown-why-use-it.html
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The Markdown Editor of Sunrise Waterfall was built with the aim of being able to provide you a live view of your document as you edit it.
the Markdown Editor is made up of two screens:
Screen 1 is the editor itself. This functions much like a normal text editor. It is a single text box into which you can write your wanted text.
Screen 2 is the viewing screen. This screen has a large viewer section and a single back button.
Screen 2 shows you how your document will look once a web browser shows it.
If you are having trouble focusing the web view, press tab a couple of times and it will refocus properly.
The keystroke list has been kept delibertaely simple for this screen:
When you have built your website, you will want to export it.
To make it so other people can see it, you will need a web server or web host.
A web server is a server where your website sits. Web servers are usually part of normal servers, such as a VPS or Dedicated server. A web server is your responsibility to maintain including installing appropriate packages.
A web host is a web server that is managed by a different company. It is usually classed as a web hosting package. It means all you have to do is upload your content and you're ready to go.
Uploading is most commonly done through either FTP or SFTP. there are lots of clients out there to achieve this and giving specs on each is a little beyond the purpose of this documentation.
Sunrise Waterfall does come built in with a basic FTP client, see the above sections.
*Do you host websites for people?
No. As of the writing of this documentation, we do not offer web hosting services. Sorry about that.
*Can I make mail forms or contact forms with this website builder?
You sure can. Just use our handy built in form maker!
*How do I make a mailto link, what even is it?
A mailto link is a link that will open a users email client and address an email to you. In the edit box marked as "Where does this link point to" enter something like: mailto:yourname@yourdomain.com and it will create a mailto link.
*Will you set up a web server for me?
Setting up a web server is one of those things I'm happy to do if paid, but really don't have the time to do otherwise. Sorry about that.
*where do I go to get free web hosting?
That's a little beyond the documentation here and for legal reasons we can't really recommend one service over another. that being said, google is a fantastic resource, ask google that question.
*What is a domain name?
A domain name is a web address, such as "nathantech.net" that points to your website.
*Why should I have a domain name?
It makes you appear more authentic and more professional.
Further, "nathantech.net" is easier to remember than "yourdomain.host'sdomain.tld"
*What does tld stand for?
TLD stands for top level domain, in other words, ".com" ".net", ".org" ETC.
*I have a question, but am nervous to ask. What should I do?
Don't be frightened. I don't bite! Well, only on full moons. Just drop me an email. If I can't answer your question, or your question is a bit more in depth than a free conversation, I'll point you at something useful!
*Is the builder html5 compatible?
It sure is!
*can I imbed code into the paragraphs?
Absolutely!
*Can I imbed code into the plain text?
For sure!
*Can I imbed code into other elements?
You can put code in any element you like, just be aware the program does not error check it in any way!
*My web page has an incorrect title. Why?
Do you have more than one title element? That is probably why.
*my links are broken, what's wrong with them?
First, if you are using a web URL in your link, for example if you are wanting to send your user to nathantech.net, make sure and write: "http://nathantech.net" and not "nathantech.net"
If you write "nathantech.net" the website thinks you want to go to a file.
Next, make sure your link is pointing to something valid.
Make sure you have typed the file names correctly and included .html. Don't write "index", write "index.html".
Finally, don't include the number symbol[#]. This creates a jump to link, which is beyond this FAQ.
If in doubt, run our built in link verifier.
*When I upload my website, and go to my web address, my stuff is not showing. Why?
This can be for many reasons, but here are a few steps to check:
1. do you have an index.html? Index.html should be your home page and must be called index.html
2. Is your website uploaded in the right directory?
*Did you write the documentation using Sunrise Waterfall?
I sure did!
*What is an encoding?
Put simply, in the context of this program, the encoding is the way to tell the program what language to expect.
*What encoding should I use?
For the most part, UTF-8, the default, is fine. If you find characters are not coming out as you expect though, try one of the others. If you want to know exactly what you should use, do a quick google.
*How do I change the encoding?
Simply click the change encoding item of the main menu.
*What is a meta tag?
Metadata is data (information) about data. The tag provides metadata about the HTML document. Metadata will not be displayed on the page, but will be machine parsable.
Reference: https://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_meta.asp
*Why isn't my mail form working?
Does your server support the sending of mails?
If your server is self hosted, you'll need a mail program, such as postfix, to be able to send the mails out from the server.
If it is not, check with your hosting provider to find out if you can.
Want to get in touch?
Fantastic!
drop us an email:
https://nathantech.net/contact.php
Thank you to you, the user, for using the program and also for your suggestions on ways it can be improved.
Also thanks to David Keatts for feedback and suggestions.
Last updated: July 16th 2021.
Nathan Tech.
It's not disability.
It's ability!