Please Help With New Page Update Strategy

message from Didcot84 on 15 Jul 2004

Hello there

My colleague and I are currently reviewing the way that we update our website,
www.ja.net. At the moment we have several templates which contain everything
except for the main body of the page, which is obviously editable and blank.
Each different template has a different navigation bar.

However, lately we have been having many problems when updating templates. We
are updating the templates locally, and then applying them to all pages on the
site that use that template, but the pages are not being updated. And even
when this method was working, it was an extremely slow and cumbersome solution.

We would much appreciate it if somebody could point out a better and simpler
way of updating pages for a large site. Would it be better to simply make the
navigation bars as library items? But then we would still have to bring all
pages down from the remote to the local site that use that library item when
performing an update.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated

Thank You

Daniel

~Angela, TMM replied to Didcot84 on 15 Jul 2004

Hello Daniel,

Which version of Dreamweaver are you using? (I didn't see any template
markup on your site.)

Could you use a specific server model such as ASP or ColdFusion? (I see only
.htm pages. Are you willing to switch to a dynamically driven menu
solution?)

The first thing that comes to mind is making use of server-side includes.
How you approach this can vary based on server model, which depends on what
your host offers. (It also depends on if you're willing to change your files
from .htm to .asp, .cfm or other appropriate file extension. If you're doing
your own hosting, you could set .htm to be parsed.)

The second idea that comes to mind is nested templates. (Requires
Dreamweaver MX or MX 2004) Lastly, includes and nested templates or template
parameters can be used in conjunction. (Also requires Dreamweaver MX or MX
2004)

Finally, part of the problem is the flyout menus you are using are more
difficult to manage because they're all done in script. You may wish to
consider a different solution. (I'm sure others will chime in on this.)

There's certainly a lot of ways that your issue can be approached. Let me
know if you would like more details about any of the possible solutions I
mentioned and I'll try to elaborate.

Hope this helps!
~Angela

Murray *TMM* replied to ~Angela, TMM on 15 Jul 2004

I sure wouldn't use nested templates here. It seems to me you could build
the site from a single template - tell me if I am wrong?

And I definitely wouldn't use those menus.

Read this about them - http://apptools.com/rants/jsmenu.php

Something is definitely wrong. Applying templates to pages is not the best
approach. When you change a template file, and then save it, all dependent
files SHOULD be automatically updated.

Tell me - are you both editing from the same remote local site? Something
is happening to corrupt your site cache and that's a likely cause.

How large? If it's more than about 100 pages, then you should not even
consider Templates or Library items - it's definitely server-side includes.
Even on smaller sites, SSI is the answer to many problems.

~Angela, TMM replied to Murray *TMM* on 16 Jul 2004

Hi Daniel,

In the interim, I would probably go with nested templates. I would have it
set up so the master template contains the header and footer. There would be
a nested template for each section that has that left-hand navigation. So if
you make a modification to something common in all site pages, it is in the
master template.

If you have changes to only one section of the site, you'd only have to
update all pages in that section after updating the nested template.

Make sense? I know nested templates are a bit scary at first. I've only
recently started using them myself. Once you get started with nested
templates and things start to make sense, it should feel worth it. It's
getting it all set up that's the hard part (if you've never done it).
Maintaining the site is much easier.

Hope that helps and good luck!
~Angela

Murray *TMM* replied to ~Angela, TMM on 19 Jul 2004

Why use nested templates when you can use a non-nested layout?

Archived message: Please Help With New Page Update Strategy (Macromedia Dreamweaver Web Design)