On Moving a Site to CC2018

[JoyceOdell]

Yes, yes, I know that CC2019 is the current version, but my copy of Classroom in a Book is for 2018, so I'm going to hold off until I have the site rebuilt and *then* I'll upgrade. And hope that I can still find my tools.

Background info; some five years ago I had to move an ancient GoLive site into Dreamweaver. At that point the current version was CS6. I redesigned and rebuilt the site and have been maintaining it using CS6 since then.

It works, it isn't broken, and when I finally downloaded and installed CC (in 2016 I think, maybe 2017) I opened it up and couldn't find anything I was used to so I gave that up as a bad job. I don't like it when people mess with my tools.

Well, my next computer is going to be running Mojave and I'm not sure that CS6 is going to run on it. I remember getting one of those snotty alert messages telling me that "The program is not optimized for your Mac" the first time I launched it after I upgraded to High Sierra. It does run, however.

So. First question: has anyone upgraded to Mojave and tried to run Dreamweaver CS6 on it? Did it get the snotty alert message and run anyway, or did it refuse to launch?

Regardless, it's fairly obvious that a five year old site is probably in need of a rebuild *anyway*. So, my second question relates to how much of the original build can I expect to be able to port over and how much means I'm going to have to start over yet again?

In GoLive everything was built in tables, nested inside other tables, ad infinitum. I was just as glad to get rid of that.  In Dreamweaver CS6 my sidebars, with the flyouts for submenus were built with Spry Assets. Looking in the index of the 2018 Classroom in a Book, I see no listing for Spry Assets whatsoever.

Will they still work in CC 2018? Can I open up the site, update the pages, save them, and still have my flyouts and submenus? Is there a new way of building sidebars with flyouts and submenus. I don't mind learning a different way of doing it, so long as I can still have what I want in my own site.

I don't care if flyers with submenus isn't trendy any more. It's not a commercial site, it's been online since 2002, and some level of continuity is a Good Thing. Plus, those submenus save an awful lot of clicking. And I am NOT building this site to be read on smartphones. The content which is the whole point of the site won't display properly on a smartphone anyway.

So. Anyone have any idea whether what I want in my site is still possible?

[ALsp]

Hi Joyce,

Dreamweaver is not software in the sense you probably think it is. It's a web authoring environment. The "tools" that come with Dreamweaver have historically been either bad or horrible. Spry, for instance was very bad. Adobe "graduated" to Fluid Grids, which was horrible, and JQuery widgets in CS6. jQuery widgets are hit and miss. CC (2018 and 2019) puts its eggs in the Bootstrap basket, which is a horrendously huge basket of code.

So, you're kind of stuck. Your best solution would be to code the site yourself, because if you use Bootstrap I can absolutely guarantee that you will be totally lost.

Your best option is to stick with CS6 by either sacrificing updating OS X or by installing Windows 10 in a Virtual Machine (Windows 10 will likely be able to run CS6 for at least another decade).

And you should seriously consider investing in some quality page-building extensions.

If not, tables are always an option based on your stated requirements.

[JoyceOdell]

*sigh* It sounds like web development will get moved to the legacy machine that's still running Snow Leopard. CS6 runs just fine in Snow Leopard.

Well, it certainly won't hurt me to go through the tutorials and see what is viable in CC 2018. Eventually I'm going to need to do another redesign/rebuild. But I'm not looking forward to having to invent a whole new navigation system for a site with over 350 pages spread across a half-dozen or so different collections. The flyouts were a beautifully simple and attractive solution. But of course they are sub-optimal on smartphones (like I care about what will run on a smartphone).

But, it certainly sounds rather like I'm on a fool's errand, since it sounds like I'm not going to be able to *use* 2018 to do what I want.

[ALsp]

Hi Joyce,

1. I don't think you got the main point.
2. If a site has 2 pages or 200, there are methods for managing repeating content(like menus).
3. Check the menus on this page on your computer, then on your phone (or simply make your browser window as narrow as a phone)

Maxi Menu Magic

[JoyceOdell]

ALsp:

Ah. Going outside to a plugin to get my menus back is a perfectly acceptable trade-off. I've bookmarked  that Project 7 site and will be considering what their product does for the inevitable redesign. (Whenever it happens.) For now will might be more reasonable to move my web development/maintenance to the legacy computer until I actually *have* a redesigned/rebuilt site to upload.

It doesn't look like their plugin will take my current menu design as it stands, but so long as I'll be redesigning anyway...

Nancy O'Shea:

Huh. I was learning Spry menus from the Classroom in a Book for CS6 in the spring of 2013. I would have expected the instructor to have mentioned that we were being taught obsolete tech. Oh well. We learned it. I was very glad to. It served my purpose *quite* well. But if it's that far out of date I'll need to be aware of when it stops working online as the browsers stop supporting it.

Apart from the snotty alert message the first time I launched CS6 after upgrading to High Sierra, the program has run without issue. But the computer didn't ship with High Sierra. And, yeah, I remember that bit about programs that run, while their installers won't. Ran into that back with the upgrade to Mac Classic System 7 going on 30 years ago.

And as for the site; while I'm sure that everything you have to say is accepted current practice, since the whole point of the site is to display letter-sized (landscape-oriented) .pdfs my audience is already kind of self-selected. And it doesn't allow for smartphones. There's a lot of other stuff there as well, but I suspect that nobody who goes there does so unless they are following a link in a discussion somewhere else. It's a personal hobbyist "brag site", so commercial considerations are not its top priority.

(And now that it doesn't even have a functioning hit counter to track visits, even the amount of traffic it gets isn't much of a consideration.)  

Ah, well. A redesign/rebuild is in the cards eventually. But I think I'm going to have to step back and read the Classroom in a Book and get a clearer idea of what is possible *now* before I start laying things out in Photoshop and deciding what goes where.

[ALsp]

Hi Joyce,

Just an FYI in case you opt to use one of our menu tools. Both Adaptive Menu Magic and Maxi Menus have converters. So, if you your menu is a Spry menu, or any list-based menu, you simply place your cursor inside the existing menu and open our interface. You will be asked if you would like to convert your menu. If you accept, we will convert every one of your existing menu items and links to our menu.

[Nancy OShea]

JoyceOdell  wrote

Well, my next computer is going to be running Mojave and I'm not sure that CS6 is going to run on it.

Legacy Creative Suite installers won't work on Sierra or High Sierra without workarounds and JAVA SE 6 Runtime.  You can try the same on Mojave but I cannot guarantee results.

Installing Creative Suite on macOS 10.12 (Sierra)

Ideally, you should run legacy software on a virtual machine with an older, compatible OS.   CS6 is compatible with Mavericks and El Capitan.

In Dreamweaver CS6 my sidebars, with the flyouts for submenus were built with Spry Assets. Looking in the index of the 2018 Classroom in a Book, I see no listing for Spry Assets whatsoever.

Forget about Spry.  It was discontinued in 2012 because it outlived its usefulness.  If you're using Spry, you should replace it with something modern.

Regardless, it's fairly obvious that a five year old site is probably in need of a rebuild *anyway*. So, my second question relates to how much of the original build can I expect to be able to port over and how much means I'm going to have to start over yet again?

Since the mobile age began,  humans have developed less attention span than a goldfish but we make snap decisions, often unconsciously, about Brand X based on our 1st impressions of their website.

• How visually appealing is it?
• How easy is it to understand & navigate?
• What emotions are evoked by its use of fonts and colors?
• How quickly can I find the content I'm looking for?
• Is it optimized to perform well on whatever device/browser I'm using?

Websites and their  Brand Xs have about 7 seconds to make a good 1st impression with people.

Like it or not,  a site that isn't doing all it can to be responsive on desktops, laptops, tablets and (yes) smartphones is not getting a lot of love from users or search engines.   Run your site through the tests below to see where your site can be improved.    If your site is failing in more than a few areas, it's probably time to rebuild from scratch.

• Mobile-Friendly Test - Google Search Console
• Nibbler - Test any website