[WEB400] Dreamweaver

["Jon Paris" <Jon.Paris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 >> I'm curious if you saw a downside.  We have had a great deal of success
utilizing templates across our web sites.

I did find a problem when I attempted to do what Joe is planning and add the
templates later.  When you apply a template to an existing page, you have to
select an editable region to hold the page's content.  That is OK for the
main part of the page if you could select that, but everything gets dumped
in there.  If (as I was) you are trying to avoid frames and so have your own
navigation bar etc. it ends up a right mess!!  I ended up editing the
original pages to remove all but the main content and then allowing that to
drop into the body of the template.  I now realize I could probably have
hand-coded the tags that Dreamweaver uses, and have it do it for me, but
either way it is not fast.  My advice to anyone starting out is to use
Templates from the outset.

One template related problem I have had.  If you get an error in the
editable portion it can be the very devil to persuade it that you have
corrected the problem.  Not only that, but if you save the page, the section
in error is not included, but I see no warning messages or anything.
Several times today I ended up cutting the HTML from one page and pasting it
into another new one because that was the only way to convince it that the
errors had been corrected.  Like Joe I am new to the product, so if anyone
knows how to cure this (or indeed have it tell me what it thinks is wrong!)
I'd love to hear it.

Overall though I love it.  The ability to check links and the simplicity of
the FTP interface are a breeze.  The site manager, link checker, etc. etc.
are great.

Before anyone asks why I'm not using WebSphere Studio, well have tried
working with it in the past got on OK with it.  The current version however
is so danged slow that even on my 600+Mhz PII laptop with 192Mb I can't live
with it.  In some cases it was taking two or three seconds to "see" a
keystroke - I couldn't wait that long.  It was faster to install Dreamweaver
and learn to use it!!  I suspect there is a problem with my version of
Studio but I haven't the time to sort it out.

Jon Paris
Partner400