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Problem with templates

CromeYellow

1:42 pm on Jul 31, 2003 (gmt 0)

Hi all
This might be something totally off the wall, but I thought I'd post in case anyone had seen it before...

I am having a very weird problem with templates in dreamweaver.

I have a template that is controlling about 50 pages on my site that is behaving oddly.

Every time I update the template and so update the pages that rely on it, certain elements on the reliant pages duplicate themselves.

So, for example, I get 2 nav bars, one under the other. When I update again, I end up with 3 - adding one more each time.

Has anyone seen anything like this before, and can anyone help?

Many thanks

bunltd

2:24 pm on Jul 31, 2003 (gmt 0)

Sounds like you applied the template to the already templated page and didn't tell DW what to do with the stuff already on the page, it will simply wrap the current html into the template taking everything it finds in the body tag and putting it inside the template you're applying. Usually it asks you what you want to do with the various bits of the page and you assign an editable region for the stuff or discard it.

After you've applied a template you should be able to do Modify > Templates > Update Pages intead of applying the template again.

Hope this helps.

LisaB

CromeYellow

2:56 pm on Jul 31, 2003 (gmt 0)

Hi LisaB

Thanks for your reply.

The extra elements are appearing inside an editable area.

I'm updating by just clicking 'Yes' when Dreamweaver asks me if I want to update after altering the template.

Don't know if this shines any light?

bunltd

3:35 pm on Jul 31, 2003 (gmt 0)

Are the editable regions nested weird? I had that happen once and it duplicated things - I had to manually edit the code for the template, then re-update - lovely fun, not.

LisaB

CromeYellow

4:19 pm on Jul 31, 2003 (gmt 0)

I don't think so, but this is what the area looks like. This code is inside a <td></td>

<a href="http://www.URL.com" title="TITLE" class="CLASS">WORDS</a> <span class="CLASS">> <a href="#" class="CLASS">WORDS</a> > </span><span class="CLASS">WORDS</span>

bunltd

4:25 pm on Jul 31, 2003 (gmt 0)

Any odd comment tags inside that editable region? Sometimes that can choke it - and DW can add comments to table rows/cells...

LisaB

dragonlady7

4:42 pm on Jul 31, 2003 (gmt 0)

I've had terrible trouble with nested templates, and the borders of editable regions moving on their own, which results in reduplication of certain things with almost no way to fix it-- since it doesn't appear in the template, only in the sub-pages, I can't remove it from them, and if I remove it from the template then it's not in the properly-working pages at all... etc., etc., until you want to pull your hair out and start over in Notepad, balder and wiser.
It's a huge convenience to have templates at all, but when they go wrong it is a pain in the! like you wouldn't believe.

I upgraded to DW 6.1 on the advice of some in this forum to try and resolve template issues. I can't say whether it helped or not, but I have noticed that the first time I edit the code in the code view of a page, when I click back to the design view it says "You have changed content that is outside of an editable region. When you next save the template, these changes will be overwritten" or something to that effect. It means nothing; I simply click to apply the changes anyway, and nothing comes of it. But it's bl**dy annoying, I can tell you. Nobody has had any insights into how to fix this. So if anyone recommends upgrading to 6.1, be aware that I've had those issues.

CromeYellow

7:16 pm on Jul 31, 2003 (gmt 0)

LisaB - no I don't think so. Sounds like dragonlady has had the same experience - I reckon I'm going to have to detach all the reliant pages from the template and edit one at a time, or using the sitewide Find/Replace.

Thanks for your help both.

dragonlady7

8:10 pm on Jul 31, 2003 (gmt 0)

Sometimes messing around with it can avoid the necessity of having to detach it from the template. Try detaching/reattaching; try detaching, editing, reattaching, etc. and see how each of those works.

bunltd

8:15 pm on Jul 31, 2003 (gmt 0)

I've had similar things happen, just not lately - (thank goodness) hope you get it worked out - DW is great, but when it messes up it's very annoying.

LisaB

CromeYellow

3:20 pm on Aug 1, 2003 (gmt 0)

Just noticed something...

There are 2 types of editable tags in the template:

and

Can't tell yet whether this causing the problems, but thought I would flag it in case anyone spotted a problem. I can't tell from the Dreamweaver help what the difference in the tags means.