Trouble exporting Fireworks CS5 mockup to Dreamweaver

[blueskies2fly]

Hi all. This is my first post. Found this site out of desperation.

This is my first site created entirely from scratch. I have spent weeks creating an 8 page website using Fireworks CS5. I used the Master Page layout. I've sliced it and tried exporting it to Dreamweaver to no avail.

First I tried exporting the entire site and what I got was the last page of the site pasted into the file folder of every page in the site. In other words, all 8 pages were the same page. Errrr

Then I tried unlinking from the master and exporting one page at a time and at first I thought that was working as I would export and then check DW to see if it was there and it was. But when I went over to DW to look at each page they were all the same again.

I can get the Master Page to export as the index page (with no content, just layout), but I cannot get any of the other content pages to export.

I have tried every thing I can think of and nothing is working. I'm so PO'd, as I thought this expensive software was supposed to make this kind of stuff easier. Now I'm wishing I'd just done the dang site in DW from the beginning!

I've searched Lynda, You Tube and Adobe and can find no GOOD explanation on how to do it. I spent 4 days following a written Adobe tutorial on how to do it and by Part 3 of the tutorial threw my hands up in the air and said to myself, "There's NO WAY I'll ever be able to translate this to what I need."

I have limited knowledge of HTML/XHTML and CSS (don't really care for css myself, but seem there's no getting away from it. It's not going away anytime soon )

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[blueskies2fly]

REALLY ~ There's NO ONE here that can help?

 

[Phreaddee]

since when was $50/mth for an entire suite of products expensive? the mind boggles...

also dont use fireworks to create a whole webpage. thats just stupid.
it can handle imagery much better than photoshop when web is concerned but really...

NOTHING ever does it for you. at least not how you want it.

you know what they say about a bad workman blames his tools so...

 

[Phreaddee]

also your off the cuff comment about css really underlines your problem here.

a bit of further digging with FW will reveal that you can design as you would with photoshop and use the css window to extract the info you need...

if you want to ever work in this field then you must change your attitude towards css...

 

[CaldwellYSR]

I have limited knowledge of HTML/XHTML and CSS (don't really care for css myself, but seem there's no getting away from it. It's not going away anytime soon )

REALLY ~ There's NO ONE here that can help?

Yeah REALLY there's NO ONE that can help you because of your attitude. You have to want to help yourself before anybody is going to be able to help you. You not caring for CSS is like a struggling painter not caring for paint. Know why he's struggling? He's obviously in the wrong field, and so are you.

 

[blueskies2fly]

Thank you. There are people out there

First off Phreaddee not sure about your $50 a month comment. I recently purchased the CS5 suite, albeit at the student discount rate. Even-so, $450.00 is a lot of money for me. Also, I'm NOT blaming my tools. The entire post is a tribute to the fact that "I" do not know what I'm doing. Software used to come with how-to manuals. Now you have to purchase them separately. Unfortunately, the one I got isn't so good and I've ordered another one.

Second, I'm not looking to do this for a living. I'm trying to help out a friend. I first learned Dreamweaver 10 years ago (when they were still Macromedia) and it's been a long time since I last created a site from scratch. Back then tables were the "thing." I was able to take some online courses through my local community college last year to learn some basic FW, PS, FL & DW. But the second semester courses have to be taken in person. I live an hour drive each-way with a $17.00 toll that spans an 18 mile bridge/tunnel. Classes are a minimum of 2 days per week. Can't afford it with the price of gas these days. So trying to wing it.

CaldwellYSR (I like your Skyward Sword shield) I don't have an attitude. I'm just frustrated. I KNOW the info I seek is out there, it's just knowing where to look.

My friends site is currently a WordPress site ( www.safezoneshelters.com ). I really don't understand PHP, but I was able to tweek the site somewhat. Though I couldn't figure out how to get rid of the sidebar on every page. So they just have to live with it for now.

I like the template by Minefield (I believe) and have been able to mostly re-create it in FW. I just/finally found a tutorial that is helping me export my mockup to DW. Though it is using tables, so I may be inside my comfort zone.

Anyway, all that to say THANK YOU for at least posting to my question.

 

[Phreaddee]

well you got jibbed!

CS6 - photoshop/illustrator/dreamweaver/indesign/fireworks/audition/flash/premiere/bridge/acrobat and hey even muse if that floats your boat - $50/mth creative.adobe.com and get this...thats two licences.
so its really $25/month (for two computers)

personally I think PHP sucks balls so I wouldn't be in a hurry to head out and learn it, but I'm guessing the sidebar is an include, while your at it tho, please remove his visitor counter. no one cares except him for that info and well, thats what analytics are for...

PSD to html is a VERY BAD PRACTICE TO GET INTO. please for the love of god dont do that. dont export anything into a table, dont even consider a table, no tables, no, please, no, no, no, no, NO!

Just. Dont.

 

[Phreaddee]

tip for finding tutorials...
LOOK AT THE DATE

"how to make a website" (pre 2010) is like wiping your ass with sandpaper.

anything after that date that offers "table based layouts" deserves a whole heap of cow dung piled on them.

I wont belt you around the head with a dead fish trying to convince you to make a responsive design, but at least stick to SOME sort of standards!

 

[CaldwellYSR]

CaldwellYSR (I like your Skyward Sword shield) I don't have an attitude. I'm just frustrated. I KNOW the info I seek is out there, it's just knowing where to look.

My friends site is currently a WordPress site ( www.safezoneshelters.com ). I really don't understand PHP, but I was able to tweek the site somewhat. Though I couldn't figure out how to get rid of the sidebar on every page. So they just have to live with it for now.

I'm about to make myself look like a complete nerd freak but come on man go with the classic Ocarina of Time not the newest one :/ lol anyways

the sidebar in wordpress is done with <?php get_sidebar(); ?> so you should just go to the pages you want it taken off of and remove that part. For instance if your friend has created pages then you'll want to edit page.php... if he's made posts you'll want to edit single.php... just depends on what kind of page you're looking at.

 

[blueskies2fly]

I'm about to make myself look like a complete nerd freak but come on man go with the classic Ocarina of Time not the newest one :/ lol anyways

the sidebar in wordpress is done with <?php get_sidebar(); ?> so you should just go to the pages you want it taken off of and remove that part. For instance if your friend has created pages then you'll want to edit page.php... if he's made posts you'll want to edit single.php... just depends on what kind of page you're looking at.

[Off Topic~sorry]

NERD? NOT! I, personally, liked Twilight Princess. My boyfriend bought me Ocarina of time two years ago for Christmas and I refused to play it because it was so pixelated. So I watched him play. FINALLY this past winter I was so bored I broke down and played it. I can still hear the monotone of Links sword slashes.

the sidebar in wordpress is done with <?php get_sidebar(); ?> so you should just go to the pages you want it taken off of and remove that part. For instance if your friend has created pages then you'll want to edit page.php... if he's made posts you'll want to edit single.php... just depends on what kind of page you're looking at.

Thanx for that. But I've decided not revisit trying to edit that site. With the exception of adding new properties and moving sold ones to the sold page. I'll keep plugging away. I found a pretty good tutorial on You Tube. But wouldn't you know he never got around to finishing the series. But at least I've made some progress.

BTW ~ I visited your website and LOVE your style. Clean, Crisp, nice overall design. Really like the color combination of the rust nav bar with matching color in your logo. TWO THUMBS UP to ya sir.

 

[CaldwellYSR]

[Off Topic~sorry]

NERD? NOT! I, personally, liked Twilight Princess. My boyfriend bought me Ocarina of time two years ago for Christmas and I refused to play it because it was so pixelated. So I watched him play. FINALLY this past winter I was so bored I broke down and played it. I can still hear the monotone of Links sword slashes.

Yeah Twilight Princess was alot of fun. I'm actually just now getting around to playing it, about to go fight Ganon finally. I played Ocarina of Time way back when on the N64 and I'd play it again today it's old but a classic!

BTW ~ I visited your website and LOVE your style. Clean, Crisp, nice overall design. Really like the color combination of the rust nav bar with matching color in your logo. TWO THUMBS UP to ya sir.

Thanks very much I believe that's the best design we've completed to date and I'm very proud of it.

Okay okay to get back on topic you should listen to Phreadee. Easily one of the best posters on here and very knowledgeable. Although I disagree with him about PHP but that's just because I work with Wordpress so much.

 

[blueskies2fly]

tip for finding tutorials...
LOOK AT THE DATE

"how to make a website" (pre 2010) is like wiping your ass with sandpaper.

anything after that date that offers "table based layouts" deserves a whole heap of cow dung piled on them.

I wont belt you around the head with a dead fish trying to convince you to make a responsive design, but at least stick to SOME sort of standards!

Awwww maaaaan~NUTS! The tut I've been following is from April, 2010 and my DW book is CS4. Looks like I'm losing all the way around.

 

[Phreaddee]

@RAJO, somehow I dont think rightclick > open with dreamweaver is going to fix the problem.

@Caldwell, I like wordpress, a lot, I just dont like what its built on.

PHP is a language that needs some serious refinement. whilst the others are trying to mature, its sneaking off behind the toilets for a smoke. It has grown exponentially on the user side, but is still lagging in development, it has outgrown its initial intended purpose (anyone remember is stood for Personal Home Page???). Its a dogs breakfast where there are 3million ways to do the exact same thing. none is either right or wrong it seems.

although its huge user base means that the community makes some pretty awesome plugins/snippets which you can use...

maybe this link can explain my disappointment at PHP
https://maurus.net/resources/programming-languages/php/

@blueskies2fly, hopefully your DW cs4 book doesnt have too many bad habits in it, but 2 things you should almost exclusively NEVER do in DW.
1. use design view for layout
2. use AP divs

hopefully a tut from april 2010 "should" be OK, but you never know. post the link.

 

[blueskies2fly]

@blueskies2fly, hopefully your DW cs4 book doesnt have too many bad habits in it, but 2 things you should almost exclusively NEVER do in DW.
1. use design view for layout
2. use AP divs

hopefully a tut from april 2010 "should" be OK, but you never know. post the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gxnm7F6cd-g&feature=channel&list=UL

I am determined to do this. Even if I have to work every example in the darn book. http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Dreamwe...=8-1&keywords=9781435441927#reader_1435441923

Why not us AP divs? Chapter 5: Understanding Div Tags ~ sounds like they will be using them

 

[blueskies2fly]

well why didnt you start using dreamweaver from the first place instead making a mess , why don't you try to right click on your file and open with dreamweaver and i think that would solve the solution for now

Because in my class last year they had us layout a site in FW and it was FUN

Coding intimidates me even though I've take HTML and an XHTML courses. Coding comes easy for some of you lucky-ducks. I am an artist by trade (yes with canvas and paint brush, pastels, watercolors....) so I tend to like the design end of things. If I'd know weeks ago it was going to be so difficult to export the site over I WOULD have begun in DW to start with

Once I get my friends site figured out. I plan to really challenge myself and try to design an e-commerce site for my artwork. Ha-ha. Won't that be fun!

 

[Phreaddee]

do not use position absolute until you understand how it works.
divs(general) and AP divs are not the same.
yes they are both a "div" but the way they work are miles apart.

this was one review on that book. to be fair I havent read the book but still...

This book wouldn't be so bad, if all one wishes to know is the basics of how to use Dreamweaver to create web pages. Presumably, however, one also wants to learn something about modern web-coding techniques. One should learn how web designers make pages in the 21st century. One should learn the fundamentals of semantic mark up. You're not going to learn that here.

To be fair, the <FONT> tag is not taught in this book. In theory, the author uses Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to style web-page elements. They even mention the concept of separating content from design (although they fail to demonstrate that in any of their examples). So things could be worse.

The problem, however, is that the coding is virtually all presentational. The author, or perhaps the folks at Adobe, don't understand the basics of CSS. They're wrong on nomenclature (e.g. they don't seem to know what a selector is). They're wrong on implementation (each and every paragraph is styled with a .paragraph_text class). They don't understand what in-line styling means (it's defined incorrectly in the book and is never actually demonstrated). They don't understand, or can't explain with a valid example anyway, the principles of style-sheet precedence. They don't understand semantic markup, preferring instead to wrap everything in paragraph tags with class names that vary according to the situation. They have the bizarre notion that in changing the way one styles a tag one is actually "redefining" the tag. If they understood semantic mark up, they would understand this concept is bogus.

My suggestion is that people avoid this book. Learning how to code incorrectly is worse than never learning at all. The last thing one needs is a book that will show how things were done by web designers whose only nod at modern techniques (i.e. those developed after about 1997) was to replace the <FONT> tag with embedded class names.

If thats an example of the concepts contained in the book, then its a bit of a worry.

 

[ashleebridges16]

it would be better using photo shop and illustrator as firework always has inconvenient errors, it would be better to create a JPEG in photo shop and just export it to dreamweaver like that,

 

[Phreaddee]

it would be better to create a JPEG in photo shop and just export it to dreamweaver like that,

Ashley that is the dumbest comment I've heard all day.

 

[CaldwellYSR]

@Caldwell, I like wordpress, a lot, I just dont like what its built on.

PHP is a language that needs some serious refinement. whilst the others are trying to mature, its sneaking off behind the toilets for a smoke. It has grown exponentially on the user side, but is still lagging in development, it has outgrown its initial intended purpose (anyone remember is stood for Personal Home Page???). Its a dogs breakfast where there are 3million ways to do the exact same thing. none is either right or wrong it seems.

although its huge user base means that the community makes some pretty awesome plugins/snippets which you can use...

maybe this link can explain my disappointment at PHP
https://maurus.net/resources/programming-languages/php/

I'll have to check out that article when I get a chance. I can agree with you that php isn't the best and it definitely has annoying shortcomings... I guess I'm just so used to having to use it because of WP.

 

[blueskies2fly]

Well thank you everyone. It's nice to meet you all (informally anyway). Unfortunately I seem to be back at square one.

It seems I have at least three options here.

1. Write the whole thing myself in xhtml & css (probably not going to happen)
2. Start over again from scratch in DW utilizing css
or
3. Fix what I don't like about my WP template site and keep using it.

Anyway I look at it I've got some hills to climb, (more learning to do).

~heavy sigh~

Thanx again.
Robin