Well I've answered this a few times on here (webdesigner ng) on a how to do
that .. but not wrote a tutorial yet.
Basically
Setup EW FIRST. This is an essential part.
Backup your site twice- once for backup once for working copy.
First I do maintenance, which means checking all the graphics to see if they
are being used and if not they are removed to a storage web, you use the
hyperlinks view to check they are linked (previously in fp03 the reports
were not always accurate that they were linked or not ... I've not tested ew
on this and prefer to use my old tried and tested method)
I check all the links and fix anything that needs updating removing etc.
Check I need all the files I have remove or delete if needed.
Make a new template .. which has been tried out on different browsers, and
checked with content in it, complete with css file dwt and includes for
menus (my preferred method) also critiqued by several people for feedback.
Ok now i'm ready.
Using the working copy site.
I take the first file in the folder list under the root... and work my way
down .. that way I know exactly where I'm up to.
I open the page (if it had a dwt on before I detach the page)
I use the keyboard Control + A to select All.
Then Remove Formatting - keyboard Control + Shift + Z
(I find this quicker than using the menu since your fingers are all in the
same place)
This will remove quite a bit of the formatting however not all.
Next I select the content with the mouse and right click and press cut.
use the keyboard Control + A to select all and then press delete on the
keyboard.
right click and paste the content back.
Go to code view
I will presume that your going the whole hog and will now be using xhtml
(all you need to know there is that everything should be lower case and the
closing tags have to have a slash and space - do you have to remember to do
this yourself? Hell no!)
Right click in code view and press Apply xml formatting rules - ew will
sort all that out for you.
Here is where you delete any external metas for css files
where you look to see what extra code is left over like inline styles .. you
will need to rely on find and replace, using find and replace in code view
or from the menu is not as intuitive sometimes as using the task pane find
and replace.
Look through several times and you can spot the extra coding left over ...
this includes span lang tags inline styles and font tags.
go back to the design side of the split view
select all with the keyboard and right click and cut.
attach the dwt you made to the page.. which will wipe out anything there
(except the editables you put around your description and keywords and title
right click in the content area and paste...
Now is the time to apply heading tags and to use the compatibility checker
which will help you fix all the problems that may occur.
First go to code view and right click and apply xml formatting rules again
... this usually sorts out a bunch of stuff.
Use icons that will appear at the bottom in the status bar to run through
each problem, make sure you have alts on all your graphics for instance and
blank alts on your presentation graphics (i.e. part of the template for
example corners)
Use f9 to tab through them or use the compatibility task pane to go through
each of them.
You can also use the accessibility task pane and in general your css task
pane... since all styles should be in the external css file you should only
need to keep an on that at the beginning and end)
Look through code view once more to make sure no styles have crept in .. if
they have wipe them from the head and the html....
Finally validate your page with the w3c... sometimes the validator will pick
up on things that the compatibility wont' and vice a versa.
and so on for each page... by doing each page in this way you get a feel for
the overall site and it lets you think about moving things around. If you
need to change file names use a 301 redirect (for seo) new file names should
be written like so my-new-page.htm no uppercase no underscores no spaces.
By having a template that you know validates properly, by having a dwt and a
css file where you know all you have to do is make one change and save ...
anything you need to change will be come so much easier.
I've done this quite a few times and there are other things I use to get
pages looking spanking... but that's basically it above.... the very main
thing to do first is to set up ew though otherwise you will miss out on
helpful features. This post is just a basic outline.
I've started a tutorial series on this at
http://any-expression.com/
I suggest you also read before you start.
http://accessfp.net/frontpage-2003/tutorials/cleaning-up-frontpage-code.htm
This is written for fp03 but carries some other links that will be of use.
FrontPage DWT Ebook (free)
http://frontpage-ebooks.com/dwt-ebook.htm
FrontPage Include Tutorial (again helpful towards ew)
http://anyfrontpage.com/ezine/va/frontpage-includes.htm
but read also
http://any-expression.com/expression-web/tutorials/insert-include-pages.htm
FrontPage and CSS (again helpful towards ew)
http://accessfp.net/frontpage-2003/tutorials/information-about-css.htm
http://accessfp.net/frontpage-2003/tutorials/creating-css.htm
When the site is ready I wipe the orginal OFF the server.... it's too easy
to have files remain.... then I publish in full... remember to recalculate
hyperlinks before publishing.
http://any-expression.com/expression-web/tips/recalculate-hyperlinks.htm
hth Tina
http://expression-web.net - Expression Blog
http://any-expression.com/ - Expression Web Help
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/any-expression/ - Ezine
