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Fred Brack
Inspiring
May 23, 2021
Answered

Converting From MS Expression Web with DWTs to Dreamweaver

  • May 23, 2021
  • 1 reply
  • 2531 views

I need to move from MS Expression Web to Dreamweaver to get updated security in publishing.  My #1 question is how to support the Expression Web "Dynamic Web Template" (.dwt) capability.  I understand that Dreamweaver has a similar capability ironically (perhaps) abbreviated DWT; but what specifically do I have to do to my HTML files to get the Dreamweaver DWT support to work so that I can have common headers and footers?  Thanks.

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer B i r n o u

    depending on your template page (the one from Expression) you could try to replace all the comment proper to Expression, stuff like

    <!-- #BeginEditable "doctitle" -->
<title>Page Title Here</title>
<!-- #EndEditable -->

    by something proper to Dreamweaver template and son on...

     

    Dreamweaver template use more or less the same type of comment, look, for example the one used for editable region is

     

    <!-- TemplateBeginEditable name="page_contenu" -->


<!-- TemplateEndEditable -->

     

    then create a brand new template in Dreamweaver and copy paste the result of all your changes...

    the problem then will be to reapply the template (the dreamweaver one) to all the supposed childs pages... one by one, because as far as I know, there is no way to batch this process...

     

    anyway, that would be just to give you time to build a brand new web site, but being able to modify and update your current web site in between

    1 reply

    Nancy OShea
    Community Expert
    Nancy OSheaCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    May 23, 2021

    A MS DWT from Expression Web will probably not work the same way in Dreamweaver.  But to be honest, I've never tried it, nor would I want to.

     

    Best advice, build a new site from scratch.  There's nothing worth salvaging because the web has changed too much.  Expression Web and Front Page before it used MS's proprietary code and extensions that only worked with those apps and specially equipped servers.  I'm fairly certain every reputable web host has decommissioned those servers by now.  It's time for a fresh start.

     

    Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert
    F
    Fred BrackAuthor
    Inspiring
    May 23, 2021

    Thanks, Nancy; but at least for me, Expression Web is not using any server-side functions.  I didn't know it had any (FrontPage certainly did though).  With Expression Web, the DWT capability is implemented at the client computer, and then you republish affected files.  I was hoping that I can somehow just put my DWT in the Dreamweaver Templates folder and perhaps do a global modification on the existing DWT headers (which are slightly different between the two products) in the HTML files and go from there.  While Dreamweaver's DTW function is clearly much richer than Expression Web's, the basics seem similar at first glance.  With 200 web pages in the site, I'm trying to find the simplest way possible to convert!

    F
    Fred BrackAuthor
    Inspiring
    May 24, 2021

    depending on your template page (the one from Expression) you could try to replace all the comment proper to Expression, stuff like

    <!-- #BeginEditable "doctitle" -->
<title>Page Title Here</title>
<!-- #EndEditable -->

    by something proper to Dreamweaver template and son on...

     

    Dreamweaver template use more or less the same type of comment, look, for example the one used for editable region is

     

    <!-- TemplateBeginEditable name="page_contenu" -->


<!-- TemplateEndEditable -->

     

    then create a brand new template in Dreamweaver and copy paste the result of all your changes...

    the problem then will be to reapply the template (the dreamweaver one) to all the supposed childs pages... one by one, because as far as I know, there is no way to batch this process...

     

    anyway, that would be just to give you time to build a brand new web site, but being able to modify and update your current web site in between


    My first pass at doing what you suggest has worked well!  I created a new template in Dreamweaver (which caused the Template directory to be created), pasted my Expression Web template over the Dreamweaver base one, changed the "#" in #BeginEditable and #EndEditable to "Template," added "name=" in front of the Begin names, and saved this new template under the same name I used in Expression Web.  Then I opened one of my HTML files and did a Tools/Templates/Apply Template to Page, pointing to my Dreamweaver template, and all worked as hoped for!  Fortunately, I only had a basic template structure, so there was nothing else to convert.  Too bad Dreamweaver doesn't have a "convert and apply" option to do this automatically, because now I have to Apply Template manually to all my pages!

     

    You are the second person who suggested building "a brand new website."  I'm wondering why both of you suggested this?  I'm quite content with the format and operation of my existing site, so is there a specific reason beyond applying the new template that I should alter my site?  I do look forward to exploring web designer options with Dreamweaver, but I'm not inclined at this point to make alterations beyond this one change. 

     

    Thank you for your help.

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