permalink issue(s)

I’ve created a simple theme for my first WP site and I’ve run into a problem. I built the entire site locally, and then transferred the local files over to template files. Everything works perfectly fine EXCEPT for the link in my custom html/css menu bar. I know I can’t just link to the template file so I’ve turned to permalinks. I changed the permalink settings to display the year/month/postname, but when hard-coding the permalink into the template file (ex: https://localhost/mysite/2011/04/about (or contact or blog etc etc)) This is NOT working. I’ve tried various methods but nothing seems to work. I’ve also seen tutorials that mention edits to .htaccess but I don’t know anything about that so I’m anxious about messing with that.

If anyone understands the problem that I’m having, I would deeply appreciate any feedback and help. I’m stuck!

Thank you.