Many of my ‘How To…’ instructions tell you to edit files such as .htaccess or FrontControl.php. This is easy enough to do when you know what I’m talking about but if this makes you stare hopelessly at your computer screen don’t dispare. I’ll tell you exactly how to do this.

Some files can be edited through your BANS Admin. The files that you can edit through your site’s Admin (by going to the template you’ve chosen for that site) are:

• Footer
• Header
• Logo
• Styles.css

Then there are files you may want to edit that you cannot access from your Admin. These files include:

• .htaccess
• /cont/cont.php
• /cont/FrontControl.php
• index.php
• robots.txt
• sitemap.php

You can modify these files through your hosting account’s File Manager but not all of them can be seen (yes, some hosting accounts hide certain files like .htaccess). Plus this is a tedious way to edit files. The better way is to use a FTP.

The FTP I recommend is CoffeeCup Direct FTP. (You can read my review of CoffeeCup Direct FTP at http://www.nichestorestrategies.com/the-best-ftp-ive-used/.)

When you want to edit a file that you can’t access from you Admin you can easily follow these instructions. I have written instructions using CoffeeCup Direct FTP. If you choose to use a different method then the steps will vary from what follows.

My instructions to Edit any File (via CoffeeCup Direct FTP):
Step One
	Open CoffeeCup Direct FTP and navigate to the file you want to modify. For instructional purposes I will show you how to edit .htaccess, which is inside your site’s root folder (where your site’s index.php is located) but you can use these instructions to edit any file on your site:
Step Two
	Right-click on .htaccess and choose, “Edit.” This will open the file in the ‘File Editor’ at the bottom:
	Go down to the bottom where you file is now open for editing. Click anywhere in the document you opened so you can see your mouse blinking in the document. Select the entire document (Windows CTRL+A, Mac CMD+A):
Step Three
	Open Notepad (or equivalent but don’t use a word processing program as it might muck up your code) and paste the code there. If you make a mistake in the following steps you now have your original code to return to.
Step Four
	Make your changes and then click on the ‘Save’ button on the ‘File Editor’ bar to save your changes:
Step Five
	View your site to make sure there are no error messages. If there are you can easily fix them by pasting the original code from your Notepad back to the .htaccess file by following the above steps and then try again.
.

That’s it! It is quite easy to edit any file once you know how to do it.

A word of advice - Any time you edit a document, whether in Admin or via FTP, it is ALWAYS a good idea to make a copy of the code you want to edit before you make any changes. That way you can easily undo any errors you may accidentally create. Mistakes and errors happen to the best of us no matter how careful we are.

Rochelle