found the problem.

i had searched our.umbraco, but finally found the answer in the old forum following google search.

in case anyone else has the same issues:

i had put a redirect on the root node to send people to the appropriate home page when accessing the site. this is the problem. i am not sure yet whether it is a bug or a feature, but this caused the problem - very strange if you ask me, but hey i can work round it.

f

Let's call it a "quirk" as it could be argued it's a bug or it's a feature. :)

Your solution is to either clear the 'umbracoRedirect' alias on your root node (the default 'home' page of your site) or else tick the 'skip testing' checkbox when saving your xslt files. 

You see, when you save an xslt file umbraco compiles it to check for any errors. It uses the first node in your content tree (your home page) as the source for $currentPage during this process. If you redirect the home page with an 'umbracoRedirect' property on the home page's document type then the compilation gets all messed up and you can't save the xslt file. When you 'skip testing' the compilation is not done until you use the macro on your site, which makes debugging errors more tedious.

Hope that makes sense of the issue.

cheers,
doug.

there's a redirect plugin available. you can redirect your top node and still save xslt files with testing.

thanks both,

back on track now, so all is good

which package did you end up using? I can't seem to find the one I had used in a previous installation, which I no longer have access to.

i didn't use a package in the end, just moved my homepage to the top level with the rest of the site 'hanging off' it.

this is my first umbaco site, so i figured i would go with the homepage in the structure that works with no package.

there is this one:

http://our.umbraco.org/projects/permanent-redirect

..though i think there was a package i tried which was not in the repository, but on another developers site.

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