What good are DWT's?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ultimist
  • Start date Start date
U

Ultimist

Ok, maybe I'm missing something, but it seems that Dynamic Web Templates
are completely useless.

For one, when you want to attach a template to an html page, you can
only paste the WHOLE PAGE into ONE editable region of the template.

So, what good is setting up multiple editable regions if you can only
paste EVERYTHING into one of them? The user then has to go in and cut
and paste things into the proper regions. Excuse me, but this is no
different than cut and paste always was. So what's the point of DWT?

Maybe I'm misconstruing the use of DWT's... I'm looking for a way to
import different elements from a page.. such as info in specific cells
of a table, into a different page completely... i.e. different colors,
layout, etc...

For example, if i have a table of 3 simple rows (3 cells total). there
is no text formatting or color formatting to this simple page. Just 3
simple rows in a table. The first row has a photo. The second and
third rows contain simple, unformatted text.

I'd like to know if there is a way that I can import the contents of
each of these three "regions" into a new page with a different layout,
text colors, etc, and have the imported data (such as text)
automatically take on the colors and properties of table cells in the
new page.

For example, perhaps the new page has a table with a cell for the photo
to the left of two cells meant for text. I'd like to import the photo
from row 1 of the old document into the left cell of the new table, and
then I'd like to import each of the two text fields into the 2 text
fields next to the photo in the new document, and have the text take on
the colors, bold, italic, etc, that are assigned to the new cells.

Is this possible, or am I only dreaming. I was hoping this was what
DWT's were for, but evidently not...

Is this possible? Or am I only dreaming?
 
Does anyone know if it is possible? to import fields or even comm
delimited fieds into a web page?

Ul


-
Ultimis
 
A DWT is used to apply a fixed layout (with boilerplate text, CSS,
JavaScript, navigation etc.) to NEW pages before they get any unique
content of their own. DWTs can also do the same to old pages, after
the existing boilerplate and navigation has been removed. A DWT
cannot redesign an old page, only add bits round it.

In your example of the page with the unformatted table, attaching a
DWT will not change the layout of the table, but CSS embedded in the
<head> of the DWT can format the table cells, add borders to the table
or cells or both. The DWT cannot re-arrange the cells.
 
A DWT is an entire page with editable regions and non-editable. You wouldn't
paste a DWT into a portion of another page, but you would use the DWT as a
template for an entire page. If you want to paste something like a table
into a portion of a page, then an include page would be better, but you
cannot edit the included portion on the new page. You could also just insert
the original page containing the table, and then you could edit the inserted
table on the new page.

The advantage of a DWT is that if you make a change to a non-editable region
of the original DWT, that change will appear on all pages based on the DWT.

Hope this helps.

Wally S
 
Two for the price of one. But with DWT, any part of the page can be shared,
not just the border. I actually don't use them, but I have played around
with them, and I can see where they could be useful. But I understand from
the Wisewoman website that the FP extensions have not caught up with DWTs.
In other words, if someone edits directly on the site, he can edit the
supposedly non-editable regions on a page that was formatted with a DWT, and
changes to the non-editable regions on the original DWT will not be
reflected in the dependent pages on the site, so I guess for now, their
usefulness is limited to local-side work.

Wally S

Andrew Murray said:
Seems to be a combination of include pages and shared borders.....

Wally S said:
A DWT is an entire page with editable regions and non-editable. You
wouldn't
paste a DWT into a portion of another page, but you would use the DWT as a
template for an entire page. If you want to paste something like a table
into a portion of a page, then an include page would be better, but you
cannot edit the included portion on the new page. You could also just
insert
the original page containing the table, and then you could edit the
inserted
table on the new page.

The advantage of a DWT is that if you make a change to a non-editable
region
of the original DWT, that change will appear on all pages based on the
DWT.

Hope this helps.

Wally S

Ultimist said:
Ok, maybe I'm missing something, but it seems that Dynamic Web Templates
are completely useless.

For one, when you want to attach a template to an html page, you can
only paste the WHOLE PAGE into ONE editable region of the template.

So, what good is setting up multiple editable regions if you can only
paste EVERYTHING into one of them? The user then has to go in and cut
and paste things into the proper regions. Excuse me, but this is no
different than cut and paste always was. So what's the point of DWT?

Maybe I'm misconstruing the use of DWT's... I'm looking for a way to
import different elements from a page.. such as info in specific cells
of a table, into a different page completely... i.e. different colors,
layout, etc...

For example, if i have a table of 3 simple rows (3 cells total). there
is no text formatting or color formatting to this simple page. Just 3
simple rows in a table. The first row has a photo. The second and
third rows contain simple, unformatted text.

I'd like to know if there is a way that I can import the contents of
each of these three "regions" into a new page with a different layout,
text colors, etc, and have the imported data (such as text)
automatically take on the colors and properties of table cells in the
new page.

For example, perhaps the new page has a table with a cell for the photo
to the left of two cells meant for text. I'd like to import the photo
from row 1 of the old document into the left cell of the new table, and
then I'd like to import each of the two text fields into the 2 text
fields next to the photo in the new document, and have the text take on
the colors, bold, italic, etc, that are assigned to the new cells.

Is this possible, or am I only dreaming. I was hoping this was what
DWT's were for, but evidently not...

Is this possible? Or am I only dreaming?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Oops. I meant the mvp.wiserways website

Wally S

Wally S said:
Two for the price of one. But with DWT, any part of the page can be shared,
not just the border. I actually don't use them, but I have played around
with them, and I can see where they could be useful. But I understand from
the Wisewoman website that the FP extensions have not caught up with DWTs.
In other words, if someone edits directly on the site, he can edit the
supposedly non-editable regions on a page that was formatted with a DWT, and
changes to the non-editable regions on the original DWT will not be
reflected in the dependent pages on the site, so I guess for now, their
usefulness is limited to local-side work.

Wally S

as
Click to expand...
 
In other words, if someone edits directly on the site, he can edit
the
supposedly non-editable regions on a page that was formatted with a
DWT, and
changes to the non-editable regions on the original DWT will not be
reflected in the dependent pages on the site, so I guess for now,
their
Click to expand...

Not quite correct. You cannot edit areas that are non-editable, even
on a server based web, and you can update attached pages provided
those pages are open when the DWT is saved (or individually). In my
site there are 35 pages attached to a DWT, I edit this on a server
without problems - including updates to the DWT itself. However
navigation is written in FPincludes which update on all pages, and the
rest of the DWT is rarely touched.
 
Only if using FP2003, prior versions of FP will not honor the non-editable regions.

--
==============================================
Thomas A. Rowe (Microsoft MVP - FrontPage)
==============================================
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a Service Pack or security update, please contact
Microsoft Product Support Services:
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==============================================

Ronx said:
In other words, if someone edits directly on the site, he can edit the
supposedly non-editable regions on a page that was formatted with a DWT, and
changes to the non-editable regions on the original DWT will not be
reflected in the dependent pages on the site, so I guess for now, their
Click to expand...

Not quite correct. You cannot edit areas that are non-editable, even on a server based web, and
you can update attached pages provided those pages are open when the DWT is saved (or
individually). In my site there are 35 pages attached to a DWT, I edit this on a server without
problems - including updates to the DWT itself. However navigation is written in FPincludes
which update on all pages, and the rest of the DWT is rarely touched.
Click to expand...
 
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