Should they have been opened and saved to my laptop differently prior to using the FTP?
Yes!
I don't know why you use the ... dots instead of the full filename, but it seems you are uploading a zip file containing the template.
A template isn't a coat of paint. It isn't some kind of skin you just add to an existing website.
You open the zip files, and you have your new page - except it has none of your content. You then edit a copy of that page to add your content. When you are happy with it, you upload it, and start on the next copy to create the next page. (Obviously, I'm assuming you are smart enough to keep an extra copy)
It looks like you uploaded the ZIP file that I linked to. It wasn't necessary to upload the ZIP file. Bravenet doesn't provide on-line UnZip. But it's not a big deal, you can just delete it from your site.
Corwings
(Obviously, I'm assuming you are smart enough to keep an extra copy)
When you UnZip a ZIP file the original does not get deleted, unless you forcably delete it. It is always around so you can extract an new copy of whatever file you might need. In fact, ZIP files are a nice way of backing up your local design folders. Should you accidentially delete an important file, you can extract a fresh copy from your latest backup ZIP file.
Anyway, the ZIP file I provided contains a group of files. If you unzip it on your PC, it should create a folder named "BN_Template_588". Inside that folder should be a ZIP file named "bntemplate588.zip. That's just the original template as downloaded from Bravenet. You should also find one folder named "images588", a couple of HTML files. The "images588" folder contains all the images and CSS files for the HTML files.
Code:
index.html ................ Original HTML file from the template
index_stage_1.html ........ HTML file for stage one testing
index_stage_2.html ........ HTML file for stage two testing
RecommendedWords.html ..... Your original HTML file
bntemplate588.zip ......... The original template zip file downloaded from Bravenet
The "images588" folder contains all the usual images and style sheet that are part of the template. I won't list them all because you already have most of them. The only real important ones have "stage_1" or "stage_2" as part of their file names. The listing below gives a brief description of the important file in the "imaged588" folder. The only ones you really need have "stage_2" as part of their name. The others were for intermediate tests.
Code:
default.css .............. Original Template Style Sheet
default_stage_1.css ...... Modified Style Sheet for Stage 1 testing
default_stage_2.css ...... Modified Style Sheet for Stage 2 testing
bgcontainer.gif .......... Original Template background image
bgcontainer_stage_1.gif .. Modified background image for Stage 1 testing
bgcontainer_stage_2.gif .. Modified background image for Stage 1 testing
header.jpg ............... Original header image
header_left.jpg .......... Cropped header image, left side
header_center.jpg ........ Cropped header image, center
header_right.jpg ......... Cropped header image, right side
header_stage_1.jpg ....... Header image for Stage 1 testing
header_stage_2.jpg ....... Wider Header image for Stage 2 testing
