FP 2003 - Detaching DWTs

[Malcolm]

Sometime ago and as the result of encouragement by contributors to this
newsgroup I started to use dynamic web templates. I was very satisfied
with and impressed by the their usefulness. Recently I decided to
convert a group of 53 pages with an attached DWT from HTML to CSS. I
had no real need to do so other than like the mountain it's there so
I'll climb it!

I was somewhat taken aback to find that when I detached the DWT each of
the 53 pages was left with the regions brought to the pages by the DWT
and had to be removed manually. In this case the removal of four
regions, two of which are web bots, was needed. All that had occurred
was that non-editable regions became editable. Climbing this mountain
wasn't so much fun after all!

I had expected that detaching the DWT would return each page to what it
had been before attaching it. Am I missing something?

 

[Ronx]

Detaching the DWT does not remove any of the code in the non-editable
regions. The method to remove these is to create a new DWT with the
same editable regions, but otherwise completely blank. Then attach this
to the pages. Finally, detach the DWT, leaving just the editable
content.

 

[Steve Easton]

Unfortunately, that's just the way DWTs work.


--

Steve Easton
Microsoft MVP FrontPage
FP Cleaner
http://www.95isalive.com/fixes/fpclean.htm
Hit Me FP
http://www.95isalive.com/fixes/HitMeFP.htm

 

[Tina Clarke]

Sometime ago and as the result of encouragement by contributors to this
newsgroup I started to use dynamic web templates. I was very satisfied
with and impressed by the their usefulness. Recently I decided to convert
a group of 53 pages with an attached DWT from HTML to CSS. I had no real
need to do so other than like the mountain it's there so I'll climb it!

I was somewhat taken aback to find that when I detached the DWT each of
the 53 pages was left with the regions brought to the pages by the DWT and
had to be removed manually. In this case the removal of four regions, two
of which are web bots, was needed. All that had occurred was that
non-editable regions became editable. Climbing this mountain wasn't so
much fun after all!

I had expected that detaching the DWT would return each page to what it
had been before attaching it. Am I missing something?

Firstly you should have made a backup of your web....

It's perfectly possible to remove the old dwt and put the new one in place
providing you use the same template region labels and still have the dwt
(attached) in place. With some slight varations depending on if your using
includes or not or still using nav bots .... different scenerios.

Tina

Migrating from FrontPage to Expression Web Class
Use Coupon: TCfriends for 10% OFF
Next Class 11th Jan - Sign up now
http://frontpage-to-expression.com/

 

[Malcolm]

Tina - I have back ups of all my work! Why do you suggest otherwise?

The solution offered by Ronx doesn't work for me either on the working
files or copies of back ups. And with the utmost respect I can not
really understand your words:

It's perfectly possible to remove the old dwt and put the new one in
place providing you use the same template region labels and still have
the dwt (attached) in place.

Please clarify what you mean by `and still have the dwt (attached) in
place.' Are you referring to the original DWT and which `place' are you
referring to?

As I understand the process the first step is to detach the original DWT
and then to attach new `blank' DWT but with the same regions empty.
Your words that I have quoted above seem to me to imply that first
detaching the original DWT is incorrect. I have tried without detaching
the original DWT and then had the new DWT's region above and below those
of the original DWT!

BTW - I have found your ebooks very helpful - thank you.

 

[Tina Clarke]

Tina - I have back ups of all my work! Why do you suggest otherwise?

You seemed in a bit of dispair over what had happened with your dwts, so
that made me think you did not have a backup, sorry I got that wrong

The solution offered by Ronx doesn't work for me either on the working
files or copies of back ups. And with the utmost respect I can not really
understand your words:


Please clarify what you mean by `and still have the dwt (attached) in
place.' Are you referring to the original DWT and which `place' are you
referring to?

you said you had removed the dwt ... so I mean if you still had it in place
(ie attached) then it's possible to change the dwt and upgrade the code. If
you have removed it ... then doing it that way ... cannot be done .. you
have to address the problem in another way once you remove it.... Since your
post seemed to indicate you had no backups....

As I understand the process the first step is to detach the original DWT
and then to attach new `blank' DWT but with the same regions empty. Your
words that I have quoted above seem to me to imply that first detaching
the original DWT is incorrect. I have tried without detaching the
original DWT and then had the new DWT's region above and below those of
the original DWT!

BTW - I have found your ebooks very helpful - thank you.

Quote -

"Step 1a - Save a Page from the current .dwt and detach
You only need to follow Step 2b if you are already using Page Includes for
your menu
Step 2a - Observe and record your Template Region Labels
Step 2b - Observe and record your Include Page menu Template Region Label
Step 2c - Enter description and keywords meta tags into your blank page
Step 3 - Copy conversion.dwt html
Step 4 - Clean and modify Pages
Step 5 - Import Web Package (this being some free dwts that Pat has made)
Step 6 - Observe regions in new web package
Step 7 - Inserting content from saved header and footer into web package
..dwt
Step 8 - Paste web package code over current .dwt

This is where all your hard work pays off.

Now you will have a site, with clean pages, clean template, Include Pages
intact if you use them, with selected content from the header and footer
that you might have saved, plus your title and meta's are all intact too.
The fact that you were using dwts to begin with has saved you a great deal
of work."

- End of quote.

The above are the highlights from a procedure I worked out for an ebook.
However as you can imagine I don't want to tout that ebook because it's one
that I sell, equally Pat (my fellow author of the ebook) and I make a very
modest amount from the sale of it ... which helps towards the costs our
domains and hosting and I don't want to put that information into the public
domain... I am just telling you it's possible to do what you want to do and
save yourself some time...

Detaching the dwt first off ... will always leave the old template in place,
by working within the parameters of the dwt it is possible to use it to your
advantage

I hope this helps somewhat... I realised some of the people testing our
ebook were using dwts and thought it would be neat to figure out a way for
them to retain that advantage when they still had code cleaning to do. I'm
sorry this is somewhat of a half answer but at least you know it's
possible

Tina
http://www.expression-web.net - Expression Blog
http://any-expression.com/ - Expression Web Help
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/any-expression/ - Expression Web Ezine