Templates, and large projects, Dreamweaver troubles

[evan]

We started off with Dreamweaver as a tool to organize and manage css, and files -and as a decent but eccentric code editor, not to mention the WYSWYG is usefull.

We got into using templates and as the layouts got complicated -and we had more pages to manage, -but there were alot of cross browser problems with things not being displayed right -it was a mess!

After nightmare of fixing alot of code and hours lost --we decided we hate Dreamweaver's templates for complex layouts - alot of nested <div>s.

we created our own "master pages" and filled them with content as needed.

there has to be a more efficient way to work with bigger projects. After I get done with a big flash project (if ever)

I THINK .asp or .php might be a way to do it. - ie. creating dynamic headers and footers etc.

Any feedback or suugestions -good books or links?
I'm off to the bookstore tonight.

So, if anyone out there works for a large company as opposed to a startup can you give me a lesson in efficiency?

[rangana]

You might find reading PHP's include() useful.

[Medyman]

We started off with Dreamweaver as a tool to organize and manage css, and files -and as a decent but eccentric code editor, not to mention the WYSWYG is usefull.

We got into using templates and as the layouts got complicated -and we had more pages to manage, -but there were alot of cross browser problems with things not being displayed right -it was a mess!

After nightmare of fixing alot of code and hours lost --we decided we hate Dreamweaver's templates for complex layouts - alot of nested <div>s.

we created our own "master pages" and filled them with content as needed.

there has to be a more efficient way to work with bigger projects. After I get done with a big flash project (if ever)

I THINK .asp or .php might be a way to do it. - ie. creating dynamic headers and footers etc.

Any feedback or suugestions -good books or links?
I'm off to the bookstore tonight.

So, if anyone out there works for a large company as opposed to a startup can you give me a lesson in efficiency?

It depends on the project. If it's large enough and is dynamic, you probably want to move to a CMS for the coding at least. Organizing files is really up to you and whatever structure you use to implement.

I 100% wouldn't recommending relying on DW for it.

[Allyria]

I use DW as my coding editor purely because I like the way it colours my code and improves its readability. I also like some of its autocomplete functions because I'm lazy :P

I've recently been editing a small site, only 5 or 6 pages, and when I want to edit the navigation or the header, having to do it on every page sucks. If you're working with large scale projects with lots of pages then I would support Medyman's motion that you move to CMS.

I have a blog using the open-source software Wordpress (don't judge me :P) and I know some people use it to manage larger sites; it's not just used for blogging. It separates each element of a page into its own file, then uses a php function to retrieve and display the file. So, for example, you'd just edit your header file once and the new header would show up on all your pages!

Did I mention it's free? Hurray!

http://wordpress.org/

[Ana72]

You might find reading PHP's include() useful.

As a partial WYSIWYG editor, Dreamweaver allows the user to hide the details of webpages' HTML code, making it easier for less experienced HTML editors to use.This was very interesting! I learned a lot on the specific link you've shared. I also encounter the same hardship in my Dreamweaver Templates that's why I can relate well to this. As we all know, A template is a common structure of a web site that most of your web pages use. Usually web sites follow a standard structure, for e.g. you would have a header, a navigation bar and a footer that is common to all your pages.