More Dreamweaver MX template woes

[psmurf]

I see lots of messages around where people have problems with Dreamweaver because it thinks what you are trying to edit is in a template (uneditable) region. I have this problem frequently, and sometimes it seems that it is due to missing </td> tags or something like that. But the problem I am having now is driving me insane. My template contains the following:

<td width="655" valign="top" align="center"> <!-- TemplateBeginEditable name="content" -->
<!-- TemplateEndEditable --> </td>

Very simple. I can just insert a table inside that <td> block ... but no, Dreamweaver always adds an extra </td> when I add a table inside this editable region. It then complains about an extra </td> when I validate markup. Well duh, you keep adding it Mr. Dreamweaver... But anyway, I cannot remove this </td> in an external editor because as soon as I open the .html file in dreamweaver it inserts that </td> in again! I am very tempted to just give up entirely on Dreamweaver templates since there seem to be so many annoying bugs. Anyone see behavior like this before?

-AB

[caine]

Welcome to the Boards (WebmasterWorld)

MX is a bag of fun that way. Why not make the template editable region outside the <td></td> area, obviously it comes down to table structure.

Some people seem to get on with the templates very well, when its content based editable regions, but when its entire tables or tables inside tables, say for a constantly different navigation across all pages derived from the template it can be a bit of a nightmare.

I find the templates are good for brouchure site's, for medium-large scale opto-ed sites, pages that even at five directories down, with its brothers and sisters within that structure of the theme, where there are differences in the nav via tables, is a bit of a struggle.

The templates need work, i struggle all the time with them, every time i try to do something new, but usually can overcome it. Had the manuals and the bible, but even with them experimentation was a big neccessary to get things the way i wanted.

[aus_dave]

psmurf, I am working with a template right now which is exactly the same as you describe and am having no problems. I have had my fair share of template-related errors though so I can understand your frustration :).

How do you add the new table, by using the WYSIWYG features or adding the code manually? I have found MX to be a lot better when the editing is done in code view and updated regularly (F5).

I think sometimes a template can get corrupted so you may be able to recreate and reapply a new template to your files and see if that helps.

[psmurf]

Hi aus_dave,

>>
How do you add the new table, by using the WYSIWYG features or adding the code manually? I have found MX to be a lot better when the editing is done in code view and updated regularly (F5).
<<

Now I'm mostly working in code view. I think you're right about the templates getting corrupted, maybe I will try deleting and readding it as you suggest. I wonder if maybe there is a better tool though - someone out there must have written a simple (perl or shell) script that will do the same thing that Dreamweaver is attempting to do with templates - look for special comments to dilineate template and non template regions.