[WEB4LIB] Re: Converting FrontPage 2000 to DreamWeaver 3

[glen.davies at cce.ac.nz]

Hi

I've just opened up some FrontPage web pages in Dreamweaver 
and  they display fine, even without running them through tidy first. 

What won't convert to Dreamweaver is the FrontPage site 
management functionality. There are comments scattered through 
FrontPage HTML such as <!--webbot bot="PurpleText" -->, <!--
mstheme-->, <!--msnavigation--> which enable it to make site wide 
changes such as changes in navigation bars, theme changes, etc. 
and this won't transfer to Dreamweaver. You certainly wouldn't have 
to start from scratch, you could do what Thomas suggested to 
clean up the html and then start working with it in Dreamweaver, 
you just won't have the same ability to make site wide changes 
that you had in FrontPage.

If you wanted that functionality in Dreamweaver you could recreate 
your pages using Dreamweaver's templates, which I wouldn't 
actually recommend as you again lock yourself into a proprietary 
format (lots of comments like <!-- #BeginEditable "doctitle" --> get 
scattered throughout the html). You can achieve the same thing, 
that is the ability to easily make site wide changes, with server 
side includes and style sheets which will transfer much easier 
between site management packages.

Regards
Glen

On 27 Sep 00, at 12:24, Thomas Dowling wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <jpurce at dwp.ci.la.ca.us>
> To: "Multiple recipients of list" <web4lib at webjunction.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2000 2:45 PM
> Subject: [WEB4LIB] Converting FrontPage 2000 to DreamWeaver 3
> 
> 
> > Our new director wants us to redesign our web page using DreamWeaver 3.
> Our old
> > pages were done in FrontPage 2000, and our IT person says she's going to
> have to
> > redo them from scratch. FrontPage uses proprietary codes for graphics
> (buttons,
> > navigation bars, etc.) which DreamWeaver can't recognize. She called
> DreamWeaver
> > tech support, and they claimed it wouldn't work.
> >
> > Have any of you tried converting FrontPage to DreamWeaver? Would it be
> easier
> > just to start over?
> >
> 
> This sounds just a little silly.  FP generates HTML, no?  And DreamWeaver
> is capable of importing HTML, yes?  What exactly is "proprietary code for
> graphics"?
> 
> If DW really cannot open a file generated by FP, try this:
> 
>   lynx -dump -source http://URL/of/FPfile.html | tidy > cleanfile.html
> 
> Lynx from http://lynx.browser.org/ and Tidy from
> http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett/tidy/
> 
> I'll be immensely suprised if Tidy can't turn FP output into something
> sensible enough for DW to open.
> 
> 
> Thomas Dowling
> OhioLINK - Ohio Library and Information Network
> tdowling at ohiolink.edu
>