Looking for alternative to DWTs

[Noor M]

Hi everyone,

I represent the non-profit religious organization Mission of Maitreya, www.maitreya.org. Our website is full of problems (we know this), and I am currently in the process of trying to learn about html, Expression Web 3, web development, etc. from the ground up, so I can eventually start the site again from scratch and try to make it standards-compliant, error-free, etc. However, for now, we have one major problem I am looking for answers with.

We use a single template for nearly all of our pages (over 2000). It has a header, footer, sidebars, a javascript menu, etc. We are currently using .dwt files (two or three of them to account for minor differences in style) across our whole site for this template. What we have noticed is that whenever we try to make changes to the .dwt files, and then re-save them, it messes up the whole site in lots of wierd ways (the CSS files become unattached to pages, formatting changes, etc.). I'm sure at least some of this has to do with other problems on our site, but I have heard of other people having the same problems with .dwt files. It's also a hassle and time-consuming to re-save them over so many pages every time we make a change.

I looked into alternatives to .dwt files, and found something called Master Pages, which look good, except as I understand it you can only use Master Pages with .aspx pages, and it doesn't seem logical to convert our whole website to .aspx pages. Therefore, I am looking for another alternative, or a better way to use .dwt files or Master Pages. What are my options? Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[Noor M]

Hi,

Posted this a while ago, no responses, but we're still looking for an answer to the question. Hoping someone can help out. Thanks.

[JunkMale]

Go Smarty Template Engine for rapid site development.

Using URL rewriting in the server will allow you to keep the .dwt format and use an alternative underlying technology like PHP.

[Noor M]

Sounds complicated, but exactly what I'm looking for. Thanks for the input, I will add it to the list of possibilities.

Still open to other possibilities/ideas, if there are any. Thanks.

[ryanbutler]

Simple, user server side includes. Stick your repeating content in server side includes and reference those in your pages. As a result, a simple change, is changed in one place and it's done.

[onlinetraining]

The problem with your template might stem from the fact that is has been edited/changed outside Dreamweaver. Another possibility may be because that path to your CSS stylesheet may be incorrect. Feel free to send me your Dreamweaver template along with one of the web page built from that template so I can give you a hand.