How do I chose a paid responsive template for my old html site?

[curious321]

I've got a decade old 180 page+ html website that based on a dreamweaver template & I want to buy a responsive dreamweaver theme for it.

I'm using dreamweaver CS3.

It's mainly text & tables with few graphics, no database, no special programming. I've tried searching for a guide on how to chose a responsive or mobile theme but can't find one. I.e., what questions should I ask or consider before choosing a paid dreamweaver responsive theme besides the look?

I.e., do I need to worry about updates? new devices that come out in a year? what i shouldn't have in the theme? Given google penalizes slow sites how can I find out how fast the theme is before I buy it? how hard will it be to customize? how difficult will it be to get my current site content in it? Other questions I should ask?

I'm not a coder, but I can tweak a bit of html code, but I can't create a theme from scratch so I want one that's pretty user friendly.

thanks

[incrediBILL]

While I noticed that this has been posted in a few other forums, I'll go ahead and bite, but take note any link drops to template sites will be deleted.

I'm not sure why picking a template would be hard, you simply pick something you like and make sure it doesn't use obsolete things like Flash headers and it's HTML 5.

[Leosghost]

IIRC dreamweaverCS3 "live view" as opposed to "code view" is pretty awfull at rendering responsive sites ( template or otherwise ) ..even CS6 wasn't too good , all kinds of things out of place..When adobe went to "rent it in the cloud" for all their stuff, I didn't follow them, maybe the cloudy version of DW is better at rendering responsive sites in "live view" ?..

Agree with Bill :) just make sure it is HTML5 and isn't flash ..there are a huge number of free templates out there..

[tangor]

If the site has been up for 10 years and is still getting hits, what is the need to update the templates, paid or free? In most cases, these days, if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

[curious321]

Thanks.

I hate flash. Not sure what flash headers look like. Do I just check the source code on the theme's demo site and look for the word flash? Other keywords? Yes I'm looking for html 5.

I know what I want in design, what I don't know is, what I don't know to look to avoid or must have in a theme other than responsive and html 5.

And manually moving 180 pages one by one will be a massive time suck, so don't want to do it for a bunch of themes, ideally just one. may used paid theme.

I need to update template to responsive b/c googles penalty for those who aren't mobile friendly

[tangor]

Given some of the parameters listed, there is another option:

Hire a skilled consultant who can modify your existing theme (usually done via search and replace). Just be sure to get a firm contract price for thee site conversion to RWD, and you keep all work product for fee agreed.

Unless your site is dynamic, and inserts into a template, each page will have to touched to make changes/transfer to the new design. This is also a good time to truly separate layout and formatting (with the latter in CSS) and really reduce page weight.

Just something to think about.

[incrediBILL]

If the site has been up for 10 years and is still getting hits, what is the need to update the templates

Because Google is forcing everyone to become mobile friendly if you want to rank on mobile results. Based on the fact that tablets and smart phones are high volume of visitors these days not being "mobile-friendly" will get your site tanked in the mobile rankings and as more people move away from desktops, it's going to be a mission critical problem.

Lots of ancient sites that don't switch to RWD or something, will just fall by the wayside.

It's natural selection for the web, darwinism of sorts, and RWD is survival of the fittest.

[rainborick]

And even desktop and laptop environments have changed significantly in the last 10 years. So a fixed-width design or a site filled with smaller, low-resolution images isn't going to give many users a satisfying experience anymore. I'd call such a site "broken" even if its marginally accessible to conventional devices.

[curious321]

Hi Tangor, I don't want to hire someone for this but you're right, I ideally want to clean up the code. Dreamweaver has a clean up html command, I'll use that and possibly play around with putting some into bbedit than maybe stripping some more than putting it in new theme.

I'm aware I should have done this years ago & why, it's just a ton of time to do so.

[incrediBILL]

I doubt just cleaning up HTML is going to cut it for a mobile-friendly site.

First, have you installed the HTML5 pack for your DreamWeaver?
If not, do not use it to touch your code because it doesn't know what to do.

Look into Twitter Bootstrap templates for Dream Weaver which will give you a completely mobile-friendly site that works on desktop, tablet and smart phone all in one shot. I've built multiple sites using it and there's a lot of preexisting templates, even for DreamWeaver,WordPress, etc. It's very dominant in the mobile friendly arena because it's very comprehensive.

I took quick look in Google and there's lots of sites with Bootstrap templates for DW and how-to guides for using them with DW so the answer to your problem of getting a mobile-friendly site looks pretty easy, it's all laid out for you, just download one you like and follow their guide for using it with DW.

Would appear to be a slam dunk as others are doing it with ease it seems.

Hope that helps.

[curious321]

oh no, it won't. I am going to install one of the bootstrap based themes that are responsive. I'm talking about cleaning up some of the html before installing the theme.

thanks for the tip about the html 5 pack, had to hunt around to find it for cs3, for some strange reason it's not on adobe's website anymore, it's available if anyone needs it

good to hear it will be an easy process. Looking forward to finally getting it done.

[edited by: incrediBILL at 2:11 pm (utc) on Jul 20, 2015]
[edit reason] link drop removed [/edit]