Dreamweaver - Import site from Netobjects

Author

Import site from Netobjects

redchris

2005-09-05, 7:27 pm

I have been a netobjects user for years and I have website totaling over 240
pages. It is clumsy and unyeildly- having gone thru countless upgrade with
netobject versions.
I need to clean it up and start with a program that can handle this sort of
size.
I was successful in importing it into DWMX.
I am a newbie.
I would like to apply a new look, ( template, CSS?) to the whole site.
I can't seem to find the procedure to do to this easily. I get snippets of
converting one page, or apply CSS, But I want to clean up pages, see the "
new look" and apply better nav.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
Chris

Tim G

2005-09-05, 7:27 pm

"redchris" <spam@redchris.com> wrote in message
news:dffp4g$9kn$1@forums.macromedia.com...
>I have been a netobjects user for years and I have website totaling over
>240 pages. It is clumsy and unyeildly- having gone thru countless upgrade
>with netobject versions.
> I need to clean it up and start with a program that can handle this sort
> of size.
> I was successful in importing it into DWMX.
> I am a newbie.
> I would like to apply a new look, ( template, CSS?) to the whole site.
> I can't seem to find the procedure to do to this easily. I get snippets of
> converting one page, or apply CSS, But I want to clean up pages, see the "
> new look" and apply better nav.
> Any suggestions?

Hate to tell you this... but I wouldn't attempt to convert the site as such.
I used NetObjects. It's not the worst code in the world, but you would just
have too much to fix. I would suggest designing your new look/template
independently, and then copy and pasting the unformatted text into fresh
pages built from that template.

The thing with DW, as opposed to NetObjects, is that it gives you room to
use HTML and CSS skills. But at the same time, that freedom means that you
pretty much must prepare yourself to learn HTML and CSS.

Now, that said, what you want to do is learn the best way to deal with a
large site. Anything with 240 pages, you *definitely* want to learn how to
use Server Side Includes (SSI). And CSS will also save you a lot of
headaches.

Here are a few SSI tutorials:

http://www.tdscripts.com/ssi.html

http://www.dwfaq.com/tutorials/dynamic/SSIs.asp

http://www.dwfaq.com/tutorials/dynamic/SSIs.asp

With SSI, you can upload one file that all of your pages will link to. This
is great for consistent navigation, as well as for any other common
elements. The nice thing is, if you need to add or subtract something in
your navigation, you won't have to reupload 240 files, just one.

At any rate, with a site that size, definitely lean as hard as you can on
SSI. Personally, I use Dreamweaver templates to "hold things together," and
use SSI wherever I can.

As for workflow: I usually build the first page (which will be my template)
to my satisfaction using only HTML and CSS. Once I have the page to where
I'm happy with it, then I take the elements I want in SSI, cut them and
paste them into new files to be included. (This won't make sense to you
until you read the SSI tutorials.)

HTH.

tim
--
Tim Gallant
Pactum Web Services: http://www.pactumgroup.com
Tutorials: http://www.pactumgroup.com/tutorials/

Murray *TMM*

2005-09-05, 7:27 pm

Chris:

I completely agree with Tim. You'd be much better off copying and pasting
content from your NOF pages into new pages created in DW. By the way,
Michael Evangelista is a recent convert from NOF, and he hangs around here
frequently - although I haven't seen him today. He may have some guiding
words for you tomorrow.

--
Murray --- ICQ 71997575
Team Macromedia Volunteer for Dreamweaver
(If you *MUST* email me, don't LAUGH when you do so!)
==================
http://www.dreamweavermx-templates.com - Template Triage!
http://www.projectseven.com/go - DW FAQs, Tutorials & Resources
http://www.dwfaq.com - DW FAQs, Tutorials & Resources
http://www.macromedia.com/support/search/ - Macromedia (MM) Technotes
==================

"redchris" <spam@redchris.com> wrote in message
news:dffp4g$9kn$1@forums.macromedia.com...
>I have been a netobjects user for years and I have website totaling over
>240 pages. It is clumsy and unyeildly- having gone thru countless upgrade
>with netobject versions.
> I need to clean it up and start with a program that can handle this sort
> of size.
> I was successful in importing it into DWMX.
> I am a newbie.
> I would like to apply a new look, ( template, CSS?) to the whole site.
> I can't seem to find the procedure to do to this easily. I get snippets of
> converting one page, or apply CSS, But I want to clean up pages, see the "
> new look" and apply better nav.
> Any suggestions?
> Thanks
> Chris
>
>

Michael Evangelista

2005-09-05, 7:30 pm

Hi Chris -

I can't tell you what you 'should' do, but here is my philosophy-so-far...

Sites I built in NOF (and there are lots of them), I plan to leave in NOF,
and continue to use version 7.5 or 8 to update them as needed. New sites are
all being done in Dreamweaver, unless the scope or frequency of the updates
warrants a total switch. The few sites I have migrated from NOF to DW came
in really really ugly with lots of extra tables and split cells - and I
ended up either rebuilding them or deciding just to leave them in Fusion
format.

However, most of my sites are fairly small, and this is not such a big deal.
Importing an entire site of the size you mention into DW from NOF would, in
my view, be way more work to clean up and fix than just rebuilding the site
altogether via copy/paste.

If you use a css-based layout, you will be miles ahead of Fusion's 'master
borders' functionality, and be able to make sweeping changes to the new site
with a few clicks in your css file.

Best of luck - and feel free to contact me at the link below for any
NOF-->DW questions.

--
Michael Evangelista
Evangelista Design / Evangelista Consulting, inc.
www.evangelista-web.com
Custom Small Business Website Solutions

"redchris" <spam@redchris.com> wrote in message
news:dffp4g$9kn$1@forums.macromedia.com...
>I have been a netobjects user for years and I have website totaling over
>240 pages. It is clumsy and unyeildly- having gone thru countless upgrade
>with netobject versions.
> I need to clean it up and start with a program that can handle this sort
> of size.
> I was successful in importing it into DWMX.
> I am a newbie.
> I would like to apply a new look, ( template, CSS?) to the whole site.
> I can't seem to find the procedure to do to this easily. I get snippets of
> converting one page, or apply CSS, But I want to clean up pages, see the "
> new look" and apply better nav.
> Any suggestions?
> Thanks
> Chris
>
>

Murray *TMM*

2005-09-05, 7:31 pm

I'm glad you picked up on this, Michael!

--
Murray --- ICQ 71997575
Team Macromedia Volunteer for Dreamweaver
(If you *MUST* email me, don't LAUGH when you do so!)
==================
http://www.dreamweavermx-templates.com - Template Triage!
http://www.projectseven.com/go - DW FAQs, Tutorials & Resources
http://www.dwfaq.com - DW FAQs, Tutorials & Resources
http://www.macromedia.com/support/search/ - Macromedia (MM) Technotes
==================

"Michael Evangelista" <contact_me_online_@evangelista-web.com> wrote in
message news:dfggvr$7mg$1@forums.macromedia.com...
> Hi Chris -
>
> I can't tell you what you 'should' do, but here is my philosophy-so-far...
>

Michael Evangelista

2005-09-05, 7:31 pm

any time.

--
Michael Evangelista
Evangelista Design / Evangelista Consulting, inc.
www.evangelista-web.com
Custom Small Business Website Solutions

"Murray *TMM*" <forums@HAHAgreat-web-sights.com> wrote in message
news:dfhauj$cbo$1@forums.macromedia.com...
> I'm glad you picked up on this, Michael!
>
> --
> Murray --- ICQ 71997575
> Team Macromedia Volunteer for Dreamweaver
> (If you *MUST* email me, don't LAUGH when you do so!)
> ==================
> http://www.dreamweavermx-templates.com - Template Triage!
> http://www.projectseven.com/go - DW FAQs, Tutorials & Resources
> http://www.dwfaq.com - DW FAQs, Tutorials & Resources
> http://www.macromedia.com/support/search/ - Macromedia (MM) Technotes
> ==================
>
> "Michael Evangelista" <contact_me_online_@evangelista-web.com> wrote in
> message news:dfggvr$7mg$1@forums.macromedia.com...
>
>