Need Help Publishing To The Web Using Dreamweaver 8

[Todd W. White]

Hi folks!

I need to know how to publish my website that I created in Dreamweaver8 to the web.

* My template is done.
* All text and images are done.
* I've entered my FTP info - tested and working.

Everything's ready to go - it's just that DW8 saves the pages as .dwt, and, if I am correct, these need to be converted to something viewable by a browser (I'm using Firefox).

How do I do this?

Thanks for your help!

- Todd

[fischerm]

Its been a while since I've used dreamweaver templates. I recall creating a tempalte (dwt) and then creating a new page that uses that template. I think you can also take an existing page, and apply a template to it. Once you have your pages using the template, its those pages that make up your site and get uploaded, not the .dwt files. I don't think there's any need to upload the dwt files unless you happen to want to store them on your webhost.

[Todd W. White]

...Well, if I read their "tutorial" correctly, you're supposed to be able to turn the template into a usable format for the web, but they're pretty vague about how to do it.

Any ideas out there?

[emurphy1]

You need to create a document based on the template. A "document" is Dreamweaver speak for a new page. First you define which regions are editable in a template and then you create a document based on the template.

The idea with Dreamweaver teamplates is you can create a standard "header" or "footer" that is applied to all web pages in your site. Then if you need to change the "footer" you just edit the template and it gets applied to all your pages at once.

I found the "Managing Templates" chapter in the Dreamweaver 8 Help useful.

If you are at the University of Arizona you might also want to attend an OSCR Dreamweaver workshop (http://www.oscr.arizona.edu/workshops?view=74).

[Todd W. White]

I'm beginning to understand "Dreamweaver-ese" - why can't people just think like normal people and quit inventing whole new sets of lingo we have to learn in order to use their products ? :P

I'll work on it and let you know how it comes out.

THANKS!

[rlbailey]

Hi Todd,
I use Macromedia/Adobe DW 8 professionally. From experience, I'd like to warn you about using templates. For creating a new website, they're great to work with. But, as soon as you discover that you need to make changes to that template... forget it. Modifying templates is fine in DW but cascading those changes to child pages is quirky and can be horrifying for a large website.
Take caution when using templates and try finish those up first before creating a more than a fistfull of child pages.
Post a link to your completed website, I'd like to see what other developers are accomplishing with the software.

[zavala]

Hi Todd,
I'd like to warn you about using templates.

I'd like to second rBailey's warning. I quickly stopped using templates and went to library items for banners and such. Having said that, library items have their downsides too. So learning to use css is where I have set my sights. DW 9 has helped me to get started.