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One problem I'm going to have is that I'll have to remove shared borders throughout the site. However, if I work on a page by page basis, removing a single shared border in FP 2003 removes that border from every page on the site. To remove just the one I have to revert to FP 2000.
So I can forget about DWT if I take the Include Page option?
I see the advantage of using DWTs in an environment where a number of people might be separately adding new content to a site but in my case this doesn't apply.
Is there a quick way to replace all shared borders with an Include Page?
If you have FP2003 the Search & Replace function is a lot more powerful. You can do site-wide code replacement quite easily. I haven't tried this with Shared Borders though. If that's not up to the job I'm sure there are plenty of free or low-cost text/HTML editors out there that could handle the job.
Any thoughts on the other point:
"removing a single shared border in FP 2003 removes that border from every page on the site. To remove just the one I have to revert to FP 2000."
Also -
When the SE spider visits a page which has included content does it read all the content of the left navigation bar or does it go straight to the main content of the body text? I ask this to help me decide whether to use text links in the navigation or image links.
This is appealing but as stated previously I have this problem of when removing one border on one page they disappear throughout the site which is annoying and time consuming.
Also, reading around the forums I get the impression that shared borders will not remain an option in future releases of FP so I'd rather move to include content sooner rather than later.
> 8) Shared BordersThings to be aware of when using FrontPage [webmasterworld.com]Never, ever use the Shared Border feature of FP, it should not even be an option. If the user tries to insert a shared border, they should get shocked or something!
The code that FP generates for the msnavigation elements are extremely bloated. I've seen pages that had a text to html ratio of less than 10%. View the source code and get a message saying that the file is too big for Note Pad, wonderful!
The FP Includes function just like any other include and they work without FP server extensions. I've been using them for over 6 years without fail and they perform very well. You just have to know how to use them in conjunction with all the other preferences.
I know that europeforvisitors has several thousand pages that are working just fine with Shared Borders, but he knows what he's doing, and unfortunately he seems to the exception when it comes to Shared Border usage. If you're at the stage in your site development where you could switch to Include Pages, then I'd highly recommend you consider that option. In your initial post it did seem that Shared Borders were the culprit, so unless you're comfortable with the current state of your site you should seriously consider this change.
Keep in mind that whether you use Shared Borders or Include Pages, the important thing is that it's useful to you. If it speeds up your site maintenance and doesn't create invalid or bloated code, then by all means use it.
> When the SE spider visits a page which has included content...
Included content is just plain HTML placed within your page. The spiders will read it in the order that you place it in your page. If you're using a source ordered table-less CSS layout, then you can control the exact order your page content will be read. If you're using a table layout with a left-hand navigation, then you may have to play around with the old table trick [webmasterworld.com] if you want your content to come before the navigation elements.
I have this problem of when removing one border on one page they disappear throughout the site which is annoying and time consuming.
Does that occur even if you choose "For this page only" when removing the border?
When I revert to FP2000 the exact same process works perfectly.
Not so. As long as you have the FP extensions it works fine. In fact, I don't think you even need those - all the DWT does is act like a big include file, so all the stuff is done on your end. The DWT is not even used on the server.
The DWT is not even used on the server.There are references to problems with using DWT on servers with the 2002 extensions or earlier, so I assumed there was some interaction. That's good news then because most of my sites reside on servers without FP extensions of any sort. I'm going to have to find some time to test DWT out.
I did find an article on Microsoft's site that you might be able to use: Convert a Web site from Shared Borders to Dynamic Web Templates [office.microsoft.com]
