Converting from Frontpage 2003 to Dreamweaver

[coyote]

First of all, thank you so very much for all the work you've done creating your helpful website!

Unfortunately, I'm still living in the dark ages using Frontpage 2003 for my 14,000 plus page website. I've known for a long time that I need to move to something else and have pretty much decided to switch to Dreamweaver. I am so grateful that I found your site and the excellent articles.

Although I have never used the Shared Borders because I learned early on they were unreliable, I have used a lot of webbot includes. Having read your article How to replace FrontPage included content webbots with PHP ..., I can already see that I am going to be able to save myself a lot of headaches by converting all those includes to PHP before making the transition from Frontpage to Dreamweaver.

In searching your site, I have one concern that I have not been able to find the answer to, and that is that I have used "Subsites" extensively ... to the tune of over 80 of them. I can't seem to find anywhere how my subsites in Frontpage 2003 would be handled by Dreamweaver. In Frontpage, I think the Frontpage Extensions do something to the folders, changing them from regular folders to ones with the little globes on them. I just want to make sure that if there is anything I need to do before moving over to Dreamweaver to prevent any unwanted consequences.

[SteveW]

The most important safeguard against disaster is to make a backup copy of your entire FP2003 site before you begin, and never delete it. That way, you can freely try out the Dreamweaver changeover. If anything goes wrong, start over with a fresh copy. 

The little globes on your FrontPage folders are an indication that Frontpage has configured them in Windows as "System" folders. In Windows Explorer, if you click View > Choose Details... > and enable the Attributes column, you'll see an "S" in the column.

That classification is a nuisance sometimes (a dir command in Command Prompt by default doesn't show the existence of System folders, and to enter it, you have to know it's there or use dir /as, and if I recall correctly, sometimes search programs aren't allowed to enter System folders to search their files).

If the System classification seems to cause any problems in Dreamweaver, you should be able to remove it using the DOS attrib command, something like

Code:

ATTRIB -S C:\[full path to your website folder]\foldername\

For help, in Command Prompt:

Code:

ATTRIB /?
or
HELP ATTRIB

I've saved the most difficult question for last, as I have no experience at all with FP subsites. After some research, the best sense I can make of it is this:

An FP subsite is a way of managing what other people call subdomains, from within FrontPage. It allows you to access
hxxp://example.com/blog/
as
hxxp://blog.example.com/

When using the FrontPage Extensions (FPE) on the server, they take care of the mapping of incoming requests to the correct subfolder of your website, because you've already configured it in FP.

It appears that the more common, non-FP, way of managing a subdomain is to just publish it as a folder of your main site, and then configure the mapping of example.com/blog/ to blog.example.com in your webhosting control panel.


It looks like you have two options for dealing with your current subsites. If it were me, I'd probably try them both, knowing that I could revert to my backup copies and start over if anything goes wrong. 

Option 1) Don't do anything special in FrontPage prior to importing the site into Dreamweaver.

I suspect Dreamweaver will not know or be able to detect anything about the status of the subfolders as subsites, and all links between your subsites, or between a subsite and the main site may be considered broken because blog.example.com is unknown. That probably can't be resolved until the site(s) are live on the server and the subdomain configuration is fully set up. Even then, Dreamweaver itself will probably always consider the links broken (or at least not recognize them as local links).

I don't know what other problems you might encounter.   


Option 2)

"Convert your subsites to folders" in FrontPage prior to importing the site into Dreamweaver.

FrontPage will give you some warnings about the consequences of doing this. Consider them carefully because they should give important clues about what problems you might encounter. Then go ahead and do it anyway because this is, after all, an experiment to see what problems arise. 

I suspect FrontPage will, as it often does, globally adjust links (and the interlinking, if any, between subsites) so that the sites refer to each other as just pages in separate folders of the same website, not as separate subdomains. It might make other adjustments, too, which hopefully it will have warned you about in advance. 

Each subsite will probably lose its theme and all other FP characteristics that it had that were different from the main site. That is, it's being merged into the main site.


The goals of these experiments would be to discover

a) Which method does not corrupt the site/subsites (or at least corrupts them the least) and makes them easiest to work with in Dreamweaver.

b) Which method works properly on the live server after subdomains are properly configured.

c) Choose the best.

Hopefully, one of the methods will work so well that it is obviously the right one to use.

With either method, if your subsites have FP password protection (enforced by the FPE), they'll lose it, and you'll need to apply new password protection at the server level, such as in cPanel > Password Protect Folders.


As mentioned, I've not done this type of conversion myself, but I hope that is at least accurate enough to help foresee some of the potential issues.

[coyote]

Thank you for your detailed response!

My site started out 12 years ago as 7 little pages, but quickly grew to the point that it is now over 14,000 (all manually created). Back when Frontpage was still supported, as the site grew I began experiencing problems with the navigation. I called Microsoft and they told me I needed to make subsites, which I learned how to do. It solved the navigation problem immediately, because each subsite had it's own navigation structure as if it was a stand-alone site.

The issue that arose was that I could create an internal hyperlink from the top site, to a subsite with the direct reference like <a href="subsite/BlueWidgets.html">; however, I could not create an internal hyperlink from a subsite up to the main site, or to another subsite. So, I quickly learned to just use the full url in ALL my hyperlinks: <a href="hxxp://www.mystite.com/subsite/BlueWidgets.html">. That way I never had to worry that a link would be broken no matter where I used it. So, the site has a lot of a full url hyperlinks.

The main reason for creating the subsites in the first place was the issue with navigation. Frontpage could not handle all the files as one big site. I'm totally clueless as to how the navigation will be when I move to Dreamweaver since I haven't purchased it, and learned how to use it yet. Right now in Frontpage, I just move files where I want them in the Navigation screen. With all these files it would be a nightmare if suddenly the subsites when from being hxxp://example.com/blog/ to hxxp://blog.example.com/ because of all the references on the Internet in the search engines and where other sites have linked to my site.

I guess I should have been more explicit when I asked my question to begin with. Will I be able to keep the subsite navigation? I already know that if I convert the subsites back to folders, I'm going to lose the navigation in the subsite immediately. One of the subsites is over 2000 pages, and I can foresee that subsite alone would be a nightmare to fix if I lose the navigation structure.

I can see where I can save myself a lot of time converting the webbot includes to PHP thanks to your wonderful article. If I could just figure out how Dreamweaver will handle the navigation of the subsites and that I will somehow be able to keep all my urls in tact in the hxxp://example.com/blog/ format, I would feel more confident of getting rid of Frontpage and switching to Dreamweaver. In the alternative, would I be better off switching to Expression Web? Since it is a Microsoft product, would it know better what to do with the subsites?

[coyote]

I just realized, that within each subsite there are literally thousands in some cases of internal hyperlinks in the format <a href="BlueWidgets.html"> that would also be affected by any structural changes.

[SteveW]

I just realized, that within each subsite there are literally thousands in some cases of internal hyperlinks in the format <a href="BlueWidgets.html"> that would also be affected by any structural changes.

But maybe only when you're working on the files in your web design program. On the live server with the subdomains properly set up, I think those links should continue to work as they always have.

I quickly learned to just use the full url in ALL my hyperlinks: <a href="hxxp://www.mystite.com/subsite/BlueWidgets.html">. That way I never had to worry that a link would be broken no matter where I used it. So, the site has a lot of a full url hyperlinks.

I believe that's good, and it makes me think that your best option is #1 above, NOT to convert your subsites to folders in FrontPage. And on second thought, that's especially true because you're not abandoning the subdomain organization.  It's just that from now on the mapping of your subdomains to their folders will be handled by cPanel and Apache on your server rather than by the FrontPage Extensions on your server. So the structure of your sites and the interlinking of their pages shouldn't be changed because, on the live server, that structure and interlinking should continue to function as they always have. 

The only question is whether Dreamweaver or Expression Web will have their own awareness at design time of the domain/subdomain relationships in the way I assume FrontPage always has. 

In the alternative, would I be better off switching to Expression Web? Since it is a Microsoft product, would it know better what to do with the subsites?

Maybe, but Dreamweaver might also have the ability to be aware of subdomains within the site. It just won't call them subsites, and it might handle them differently. Expression Web might deal with them in a more familiar way, but not necessarily better. 
 
If Adobe and Microsoft still offer free trial versions of their programs, I'd suggest getting both and giving each a thorough workout. The last time I was paying any attention to reviews of the two programs (a few years ago), EW was getting very good reviews, and a surprising number of Dreamweaver reviews were more negative than you'd expect based on their longstanding reputation. I think your choice should be based on which you like better based on your own experience with them.

I already know that if I convert the subsites back to folders, I'm going to lose the navigation in the subsite immediately.

When you stop using the FrontPage Extensions, you lose ALL support for the site's FrontPage "Navigation Structure" and everything that depends on it. If you have a lot of FrontPage-generated link bars and buttons, whose generation is based on the nav structure, the job of replacing them with another method could make all the other issues look insignificant by comparison. I wrote a separate article about replacing those; the article where you've been reading about replacing the includes should have a link to it at the top of the page.

When I realized how time consuming replacing my various FP-generated link bars would be, I first wrote the HTML for my own global navigation bar (eventually simplifying it to just plain text links), and added a PHP script to "calculate" a link in the bar that I wanted to keep ("Up" goes different places depending on where you currently are)... and then I reviewed all my other link bars, decided they were useless (especially in view of the work involved), and got rid of almost all of them, except a couple that I kept as examples, converting them to plain HTML as described in my article.

So, if you can manage to part with them, getting rid of features that aren't absolutely necessary can make the going easier.

Right now in Frontpage, I just move files where I want them in the Navigation screen.

Yes, that method won't be available anymore. I'm not sure, but I don't think either DW or EW have any sort of navigation hierarchy database that replaces the functionality of the FP Navigation Structure.

With all these files it would be a nightmare if suddenly the subsites when from being hxxp://example.com/blog/ to hxxp://blog.example.com/ because of all the references on the Internet in the search engines and where other sites have linked to my site.

Did you really mean from hxxp://example.com/blog/ to hxxp://blog.example.com/, or the other way around? The subdomain notation is hxxp://blog.example.com/. If the currently existing references really are to hxxp://example.com/blog/, then they're not really being referenced as subdomains currently.

If none of your references and backlinks actually use the subdomain notation, then it opens the possibility that maybe you don't even need to provide that alternative anymore, especially if you never really wanted it to begin with and your use of it was just to accommodate FrontPage's quirks.

[coyote]

Did you really mean from hxxp://example.com/blog/ to hxxp://blog.example.com/, or the other way around? The subdomain notation is hxxp://blog.example.com/. If the currently existing references really are to hxxp://example.com/blog/, then they're not really being referenced as subdomains currently.

Yes, I really mean that. Currently, the url of the subdomains look like this: hxxp://example.com/blog/ where "blog" is the name of the folder in Frontpage that has the world icon on it. It's as if I have 86 domains because when I work on one, it's like working on a separate website.

I started seriously thinking about changing programs when my host notified me this week that it is going out of business. I've already found a new host that has been wonderful about transferring my site from the old host. The new host has Frontpage Extensions, but while the site is still live on the old host, I'm having to go through each subsite and republish it as a subdomain. On the new host, all the folders are missing the little globe (as well as the navigation structure) until I republish from my computer. This is a tedious task ... I'm on 25 of 86, but also doing other clean up in the process. At one point the Frontpage Extensions failed and had to be reinstalled and I had to go back and republish the subsites I already did. If the Frontpage Extensions fail again, I don't want to have to go through that process over and over again. Another reason I want to change to different software.

I'm thinking that when I decide on a new program, after testing as you suggested, that the solution would be to move each subsite out from under the main site (a separate site folder on my computer), that I could still publish to the identical individual folder at the new host site. But that still leaves me with the navigation problem, because I do use the images the navigation feature in Frontpage Creates.

[SteveW]

the url of the subdomains look like this: hxxp://example.com/blog/ where "blog" is the name of the folder in Frontpage that has the world icon on it. It's as if I have 86 domains because when I work on one, it's like working on a separate website.

In that case, it sounds like the breakup of the sites into 86 subsites only has to do with FrontPage's internal management of them, and has nothing to do with subdomains. That is, it sounds like your publicly accessible site, to the external world, is just one big site with no subdomains.

Since you're forced to change hosts, your top priority would seem to be to get the site up and running correctly at the new host. I certainly wouldn't make any structural changes to the site, or change your web design software, while you're doing that. 

After that is accomplished, the next priority is to make all the necessary changes to the site that will completely eliminate your dependence on the FrontPage Extensions so you can turn them off.

I can't decide whether it's better for you to do that while still using FrontPage, or if it's better to experiment with a new program first. FrontPage could be a hindrance by forcing you to deal with just one of its subsites at a time, when it sounds like the direction this seems to be going is that the site will eventually again be reunited into one big site with no subsites. On the other hand, a new program could be a disaster if it automatically strips out any of your existing FP webbot code immediately upon importing the site into it. That would prevent doing the conversion, since the conversion consists of converting the webbot code to new code.

In some respects, the conversion might best be done using only a text editor such as Notepad++ and no web design software (at least to start with), because at least you can trust a text editor not to make automatic and potentially damaging changes to your code before you get the chance to make the needed changes yourself.

----

You'll need to determine whether my speculation above is correct: to the outside world, a) are you really using subdomains, or b) did FrontPage force you to break the site into 86 "subsites" just because FrontPage couldn't handle a big site properly without your doing that? 

If it's b), then you won't have any "subsites" in your new web design program. It will all be one big website again, and it would probably be best to start thinking of it that way again, as it was before.

Switching to PHP includes will probably be the most straightforward task of the conversion so it's probably a good task to start with.

The FrontPage navigation will need to be converted to something else. If your page hierarchy never changes after it's been set up (if you never rearrange page locations in the FP Navigation pane), you could convert your existing link bars to plain HTML. If identical link bars appear on multiple pages, you could put the code for those in PHP include files, and include them on those pages. You'll still be able to use the same navigation button images that you use now, but the calls to them will be from plain HTML navbar code that you create, not from dynamically generated navbar code produced by FrontPage.

[coyote]

It's so wonderful to have a sounding board about all this! Nobody I know does what I do; being able to discuss this has been such a huge help. I've been thinking about it a lot while I work on the conversion to the new domain, and your comments have been extremely helpful in organizing my thoughts.

What I realized is that to the outside world, I have one huge website. In reality what I have is 86 stand alone websites. This came to me because I also have another small throw away website that I also needed to move from the old host, which had its own hosting package. When I moved to the new site, I was told I could put it under the same package that hosts unlimited sites. So, I had the new host transfer the site to the new package. When they were done, the file for the 2nd website appeared as a folder in my current huge site. This freaked me out at first, and I contacted the host, who moved it to a separate folder telling me that the default is to put all sites under the main folder.

Also, when they initially moved the main site, all the subsites looked like regular folders instead of the ones with the world icons on them. It finally dawned on me that when I published a subsite and the icon changed, in actuality the subsite became a separate stand alone site. Until I actually publish a subsite, it has no themes and no navigation. It is just a folder in the main site. Since I use full urls to redirect to other locations in the overall site, what I'm really doing is sending people from one stand alone site to another.

Yes, I agree with you that first I need to get through the conversion to the new host. But, now I know what I'm facing when I'm ready to move to the new software. Fortunately, some of the subsites are very small (only 6 or 7 pages), while others are as large as 2,000 pages. I will be able to start with the smaller ones where I can't do too much damage, and learn all the processes I'll have to go through.

First and foremost, I'm going to need to learn PHP because that seems like it's going to be the easiest way to strip the parts that are dependent on webbot includes in Frontpage. I'm so happy! It's going to be a lot of work, but now I have a road map. Thank you so much, Steve, for all your help with this!