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N
Non-profit angel
Participant
April 2, 2021
Answered

Dreamweaver V 12.0 website transferred over to Dreamweaver V 21.1, with new landing page

  • April 2, 2021
  • 3 replies
  • 517 views

I am the only one in our small non-profit organization that has ever worked on our website over the past 20+ years.

And I am in a quandary about how to keep the bulk of our hundreds of thousands of pages on our old website which I created in DW12 and transfer it over to DW21.1 on the cloud, while also having a new opening page that will then link to all our other web pages, without changing the previous home page link, or deleting it.

I configured our new DW21.1 with our server settings and pointing to our website files and that works. I created the new opening page already with DW21.1 with a responsive design and will eventually change other pages on the website as well. However, for now how do I use the new opening page (sometimes called a landing page) without overwriting our old home page which we want to keep, and keep all the links from inside the site which point back to it?

Sorry, this all sounds pretty confusing.

Anyone out there willing to help me out?

Thank you all.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Nancy OShea

A website can have only ONE domain name home page (aka index.html or index.php or index.aspx).  Decide which home page you want to use and name it index.  Rename your old home page to old_index so you'll have it if you decide to resurrect it later. 

 

IMO, your old site should be rebuilt on a CMS platform (think WordPress) ASAP so other people can help you maintain it.  If you don't rebuild now, the NGO site cannot continue because nobody in their right mind will take on a 90 ton gorilla. 

 

Good luck!

 

3 replies

N
Non-profit angelAuthor
Participant
April 9, 2021

Dear All,

Thank you very much for your insights and advice. I have fixed the index page issue and have now decided to use the Dreamweaver 21.1 only when making responsive pages and then opening them in the older version to add to our website one at a time. This seems to be working perfectly. I believe and have read that the newer version is somewhat buggy and causing many others problems as well.

Thank you all again. I will be transitioning over to responsive for many parts of our voluminous website and archiving many others.

Nancy OShea
Community Expert
Nancy OSheaCommunity Expert
Community Expert
April 9, 2021

1. If you're switching between old and new products, keep in mind that old X/HTML code is not compatible with HTML5.   So be sure to validate code often and fix reported errors.

https://validator.w3.org/

 

2. Don't put too much stock into complaints you read on forums.  I have NO problems using DW 2021 on my Win10 workstation.  The people who cry most about "bugs" are often inexperienced users or they're fighting with a wonky computer set-up and need to contact technical support for assistance. 

 

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert
N
Non-profit angelAuthor
Participant
April 9, 2021

Thank you Nancy. Very good advice and a link that will certainly come in handy. I am aware of the old vs. new problems, but did not have that validator link. I really enjoy the new version of DW and will be using it more -- and eventually will transfer everything over using that platform. It will take me some time. I wear about a dozen or so hats in this tiny non-profit org.

Take care --

Nancy OShea
Community Expert
Nancy OSheaCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
April 2, 2021

A website can have only ONE domain name home page (aka index.html or index.php or index.aspx).  Decide which home page you want to use and name it index.  Rename your old home page to old_index so you'll have it if you decide to resurrect it later. 

 

IMO, your old site should be rebuilt on a CMS platform (think WordPress) ASAP so other people can help you maintain it.  If you don't rebuild now, the NGO site cannot continue because nobody in their right mind will take on a 90 ton gorilla. 

 

Good luck!

 

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert
N
Non-profit angelAuthor
Participant
April 2, 2021

Thank you for your advice Nancy. I sincerely appreciate it. Yes, I will not live forever and anyone who follows me will definitely not appreciate the hassle. I have worked with a CMS platform and do not really like those -- even though they tend to be somewhat easier to manage. Our site is very complicated. Take care.

BenPleysier
Community Expert
BenPleysierCommunity Expert
Community Expert
April 2, 2021
quote

And I am in a quandary about how to keep the bulk of our hundreds of thousands of pages on our old website


By @Non-profit angel

 

Lordy lordy, what a disaster.

 

quote

for now how do I use the new opening page (sometimes called a landing page) without overwriting our old home page which we want to keep, and keep all the links from inside the site which point back to it?


By @Non-profit angel

 

This could be achieved using .htaccess, but this is not advisable, mainly because it is a bandaid solution. The best way is to name the new landing page index.html and to rename the old landing page.to a fitting name like home.html. You will then need to include home.html to the navigation.

 

Best of luck and patience.

 

Edit: You are better off creating a dynamically driven site with a templating system like Twig or EJS. I tend to use the latter.

Wappler is the DMXzone-made Dreamweaver replacement and includes the best of their powerful extensions, as well as much more!
    N
    Non-profit angelAuthor
    Participant
    April 2, 2021

    Thank you very much for your insights and advice. Yes, you said it -- a disaster. I am not tending toward the bandaid approach. I tried a similar technique and did not like the outcome. I also briefly looked at EJS and will look at Twig as well. The other suggestions outside the Adobe community have been to start over from scratch. I have a few ideas up my sleeve as well. And yes, Bing. Take care & thank you again.

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