Switching from dreamweaver to frontpage

does this create any problems

[contentmaster]

Hi
i was wondering if it is possible to shift from dreamweaver to frontpage while designing a site....i mean what if some pages of a site are designed in dreamweaver and some are made in fp to be added to the site...will this create any problems...at a later stage...also can a page made in dreamweaver be changed and worked upon in fp?

is it possible to upload a page made in dreamweaver through ws_ftp software......?

[rogerd]

I haven't used FP much in the last few years, but Dreamweaver is far more forgiving of external modifications. I don't know if it's still the case, but older versions of FP used to keep careful track of each file, and using FTP to upload a changed file would often corrupt the site. So, as long as you are going from DW to FP, I wouldn't expect a problem.

[HelenDev]

Switching from dreamweaver to frontpage

Ugh. Why? I could understand if it was the other way around!

[Leosghost]

what a weird thing to ever want to do ..uuuughhh!
all those extra bits and peices of "billcode" ...

you can upload output from DW with anything except FP ..
personally I don't like DW uploads and do so outside of DW with Cute ftp Pro ...
mainly cos you can go remote server switching ..but also the gui is easier on the brain ..

[percentages]

Add this thread to the list of reasons why you should design in raw HTML/scripting language.

I feel like the guy that was given the choice between the ugly hooker and the very ugly hooker! I don't want either of them, I want the all American girl next door that hasn't been laden with this unnecessary baggage :)

[contentmaster]

well...the thing is i work with both fp and dreamweaver..but somehow i am more accustomed to fp...and was wondering what really happens if there is a switch between the two....i guess it shouldnt be a problem but all of you recommend dreamweaver over fp right?

what about a site that has already been designed in fp with over 200 pages?can it be changed into dreamweavr...

[HelenDev]

Front page is more likely to bloat your code with FP-specific oddities. DW writes reasonable html which you should be able to transfer to any other editor without too much hassle. The most versatile code will probably be written by hand.

[rogerd]

For a WYSIWYG HTML editor, I'd also strongly recommend DW over FP. I'd add that that's based on older versions of FP, though - I've heard the newest one can be made to write cleaner code and isn't quite so quirky, but I've seen no reason to go back to FP to find out.

[mattr555]

Frontpage will give you quicker results as long as you dont care how those results are constructed.

In defense of Frontpage, if you are in a corporate environment and your company cant afford a full blown CMS then Frontpage can be an attractive option. It tightly integrates with other MS Office applications and most users who can use Word are able to construct working sites with minimal training.

That said for publically accessable sites which need to be cross browser accessible and fast, Frontpage is very poor. Lots of inline styles, proprietry extentions, java applet navigation and intollerant of markup changes outside the FP environment, creating a css presented standards complient site in FP is often a nightmare.

DW goes a long way to improving things but if you go down the CSS-P route, DW's layout view is near useless and all changes need to be previewed in a browser which kind of makes the whole WYSIWYG thing pointless.

[bill]

Several other members here and I have been making 100% validating, bloat free, cross browser compatible, fast sites in FP for years. FP will construct the results exactly the way I intend them. I'm sure DW would as well. ...but we've been down this road many, many, many times... It's not the tool, it's how you use it.

[DaveLite]

I just moved to FP03 from FP2000 and I love it. If you are happy with FP then by all means make sure you are using FP2003.

If I was looking to take a site from Dreamweaver to FP, I would import the site thru the import wizard in FP. I have done this with a few sites (not specificly from DW) and everything worked fine. A link is a link and content is content.

I see no problem with an imported page being edited. The file doesn't show the specific FP icon in the folder view, but it does allow you to view and edit code on that page.

If you can see the file in the browse window of your FTP client, you should be able to upload it.

[mcg321]

What's better about FP03 compared to 00?

[bill]

FP 2000 was good...back around 2000-2001. FP XP or FP 2002 was an evolutionary step in the right direction bringing cleaner code and better standards compliance. But FP 2003 is a must-have for anyone who uses FrontPage. The interface is outstanding, and it really gives you a lot of control over your site's code that other versions didn't. FP2K really is a dinosaur in comparison.

[DaveLite]

Microsoft has a comparison chart on their FP03 website. I read it a while back but didn't know how much better the interface was until I started using it.

[sidyadav]

yeah, I have to agree - FrontPage 2003 is good...

The design's changed, less font statements/crap, faster, less bugs etc.

- a must have for old FrontPagers :)

Sid

[yaelede]

The very big advantage in FP 2003 is that it doesn't mix up hard-coded asp pages as pre-2003 versions did.

Previous versions completely messed up these pages when I switched to the "design" mode. It's obviously a big step ahead...for me at least, because the "serious" asp pages were made by my professional asp programmer, while creating other static and simple FP-generated asp pages is my task. With FP2003 I can edit all these pages in design view when required.