FrontPage and Dreamweaver

Does 'cut and paste' work between both of them?

[ScottM]

I'm not above taking abuse. There is no doubt I'm limited in my HTML capacity, and FrontPage was my first HTML program 7 months ago. I am familiar with it. I've pushed it to the max.

I have decided, based on the comments on this forum to begin my migration over to Dreamweaver. In the meantime, I am learning Dreamweaver and STILL find it difficult to navigate. I have a simple question:

Can you cut and paste the HTML into DreamWeaver and 'tweak' it, and then cut-n-paste back into FrontPage?

I've found this to be a useful way to learn Dreamweaver....but I'm scared to do it. There are several form posts on my website that will be lost if done wrong.

Some insight, please!

By the way....I've spent my entire weekend reading about the portals/canonicals etc. THanks Paynt!

[mivox]

Make a backup copy of the entire website... Then it doesn't matter whether you break it or not, you can always upload the "old" version to fix what went wrong.

[Marshall]

You should be able to cut and paste back and forth. It would the same as transferring HTML from a text document. However, each program MAY stick in its own META tags, such as generator, or change spacing.

[ScottM]

Mivox,

That is a good suggestion for a person who has a DSL or Cable modem service, but I only have a dial-up.

It would take several hours to do that...and that's if my connection doesn't time out.

Man, I hate being in the middle of never-never-land-of-city-that-doesn't-get-the-digital-revolution-and-couldn't-care-less....

I suppose that's about the only way...but dial-up is the worst!

[justa]

Be careful with Front Page. It has a nasty habit of changing your nice clean code into messy Micro$oft code.

I once hand coded a site in notepad and made the mistake of opening a few of the pages in Frontpage, and making changes there. The next time I checked the code my clean code was gone and completely replaced with FP mumbo jumbo.

[Woz]

>Be careful with Front Page.
Which Version?

Scott, I think Mivox is suggesting backing up your local (harddisk) copy of the site before experimenting, not necessarily downloading from your server.

Onya
Woz

[knighty]

Just use ctrl+c and ctrl+v

you can paste stuff into text as HTML or plain text using the edit then paste

[ulstrup]

When copying between programmes (FP, Dreamweaver, Word, etc.) I usually take it through Notepad, this removes any formatting which Front Page inherits from Word, Dreamweaver from FP etc.

If you want to keep some/all formatting, you can't use this method, but often I find it faster to reformat a small text than weeding out excessive code.

[trubbaman]

I just reworked a very large (>900 pages) site in Dreamweaver - it had been created in Front Page 2000. I was able to cut and paste liberally, but I did find that FP put in lots of awful text formatting tags that were very difficult to remove automatically, so beware of that. Otherwise, I encountered very few problems. Using Dreamweaver's 'cleanup HTML' was very useful, too.

[pageoneresults]

You can also use FP's "remove formatting" feature. This will remove all those FP tags everyone is referring to.

Go to the page in question. Open it in normal view. Select all > format > remove formatting. This will remove most, if not all of the MS specific code.

By the way, DW is also guilty of inserting its own mangled coding or at least that was my experience when I had planned to convert. I stuck with FP because I figured out how to make the program produce validated html code without all the junk. It takes a whole five minutes and you can configure FP to do what you want it to do.

tools > page options > html source > reformat using the rules below. Do this while in normal view. Then switch to html view, strip out the two FP meta tags and go to tools > page options > html source > preserve existing formatting.

P.S. You can view the site in my profile and tell me if you see any FP mangling. If you utilize the program correctly, it stands head to head with any other WYSIWYG editor out there!

I should also mention that the use of external style sheets is important if you want lean, clean coding from any html editor.

[trubbaman]

Very true, Pageoneresults. FP is a good program, especially FP2002. You can't go wrong with either one if you pay attention to the little things...

[pageoneresults]

I don't believe it! Someone on this board who actually supports FP, incredible! Watch out, we've been labeled and are now appearing on the FP bashers radar! :)

I haven't made the switch to FP2002 just yet. I participate in a few FP forums and see way too many glitches in the server extensions. I'll stick with FP2000 for now until the major bugs get worked out.

[pageoneresults]

If it were not for the FP webbots tag, I could probably fall under the FP bashers radar and tell everyone that the site was done in Note Pad!

I wouldn't do that, I support the product 100% even though it has its faults if used incorrectly.

[ScottM]

Woz,

I am using 2002...it's my first program and the only one I know pretty well.

I AM having problems with mysterious 'broken links' on every page that has a form. I still don't have a clue where these links are...but they are only on pages that have the 'form'....

Any ideas?

[pageoneresults]

Hello Scott. Are you saving form results to a file in the _private directory that FP creates? If so, is the file showing in that directory?

Can you provide an example of the broken links? I can pretty much tell you what is happening if I see an example, thanks!

[Marshall]

ScottM,

If you're using the site summary off-line, just with the web that's on your disk, not the server, without FP extensions installed on your computer, it will show a form error or broken link. Also, were your forms created in FP or Dreamweaver? Unless you're running a script, the form HAS to be created in FP to utilize the form processing extensions.

[ScottM]

PageOneResults:

<B>EVERY</B> page that has a form has a 'broken link'.

I click on the 'edit page' button and there is no link of that name ON that page.

All the forms work....that's what gets me???

Yes, I'm checking the web-server. The Forms were created in FP2002.

I had some other broken links...they were easy to find...they were highlighted. The FORM ones? Nothing. I even did a 'ctrl F' to look for the link...nothing. The link that FrontPage says is 'broken' doesn't even exist on the page.

I've learned to live with it, but it drives me up a wall why is it doing that??

Are you looking for code examples of the broken links? I can't find the link...much less the code for it!!

None of the forms are going to _private. All are appended to an HTML page (sometimes a different one....till I got smart and put the 'form results inserted here' component on the same page on newer ones. What a breakthrough THAT was!:>)), with an e-mail to me. (Keeps me informed if someone is using foul language.)

Does that help things a little bit?

[Marshall]

ScottM,

Sticky-mail me the URL of a form in question and include the link which it claims exists but doesn't.

[pageoneresults]

I'm going to see what Marshall comes up with. If you'd like, you can sticky mail me with the same info.

[pageoneresults]

Hmmm, I downloaded a copy of the site in your profile to my system. I'll assume this is the site you are discussing.

I ran the link validator in FP and everything seems fine. I'm looking forward to see what Marshall comes up with.

P.S. I using Front Page 2000 and not 2002. There could be some issues with 2002 and that is why I have not upgraded yet.

[ScottM]

Marshall and pageoneresults you have sticky mail

[Marshall]

Scott,

Did you find/solve the problem?

[ScottM]

Marshall,

No, I fixed a couple of issues....the double listings of broken links....but the standard "EVERY page that has a form has a broken link" still exists.