Upon setting up my website I had intended to use a template(s) for most of all of the pages. However, when I started working on creating titles, page descriptions, and meta information I was unable to modify this information in Dreamweaver MX 2004.

Am I doing something wrong or is there a workaround for my problem?

Also, can I easily attach or link a template to an existing page? Or will doing so wipe out all information in the editable regions?

Thanks,
Wilbury

I place all my titles and meta info in editible regions so they can easily be customized by the page (see below)

<!-- InstanceBeginEditable name="title" -->
<title>Insert Title Here</title>
<!-- InstanceEndEditable -->
<!-- InstanceBeginEditable name="Meta" -->
<meta name="keywords" content=" the recipe doctor, cookbook, recipe, food, restaurant, recipe of the month, new doubleday cookbook, german cookbook, food of portugal, american century cookbook, process this, one dish dinners, quick loaves">
<meta name="description" content="xxx Cooks - Cookbooks, Recipes, Food News, Food and Restaurant reviews">
<!-- InstanceEndEditable -->

Your second question is yes - - Applying a template to an existing page will replace all the editable information - - Not a problem however - - Open the existing page and Save As.... (I do something like this: If the page is Index, I save it as Index1) You can then apply the template to Index, copy the editible info from Index1 into Index, save Index and finally erase Index1..... Done - - two minutes tops.

JohnJ

JohnJ,

Thank you for your help. I was finally able to get around to this project yesterday and everything worked perfectly.

If I were to modify the template in the future by changing the size of the tables (or editable regions), or even add an editable region how would this affect all of the pages that now point to the template? I hope I wouldn't lose information in each of the pages.

Thanks,
Wilbury

Originally Posted by wilbury

If I were to modify the template in the future by changing the size of the tables (or editable regions), or even add an editable region how would this affect all of the pages that now point to the template? I hope I wouldn't lose information in each of the pages.

That's actually the beauty of using templates - information contained within each page is not changed when a template is changed.

I always start the actual build of a new website by deciding how many templates I need. (Obviously you'll probably want something fancy for the home page but perhaps a common runner on the right side of other pages in the site... ) Most of my sites have three or four templates.....

Templates mean that if I have a site with 450 pages (which I do) and four templates - - When I change something in the navigation bar I only have to make the change in the four templates - - Saving the templates then updates all 450 pages for me.... I still have to repost the entire site to the web but I no longer have to open 450 individual pages to make changes (like I did when I took over the site from the previous webmaster).

JohnJ

Hey - - I just noticed that I went from being an extreme talker to a Junior Talker.... Go Figure....

JohnJ,

Thanks again.

Just so I understand correctly, if I split one of the two editable regions to create a third editable region on the right side (of a fixed table width page), the content in the middle would simply be compressed into a smaller cell?

I'm only at 35 pages, but it's easy to see how much time this will save me in the future.

Wilbury

Originally Posted by wilbury

JohnJ,

Thanks again.

Just so I understand correctly, if I split one of the two editable regions to create a third editable region on the right side (of a fixed table width page), the content in the middle would simply be compressed into a smaller cell?

I'm only at 35 pages, but it's easy to see how much time this will save me in the future.

Wilbury

If you make the change to the .dwt file it will result in your text being compressed and will reflect in all the files covered by the template.

Johnj