Question

Converting FP2003 Website to work with Dreamweaver CS4

Asked by: wcameron

I have a very large database driven site at www.MountainNature.com. It was designed in FrontPage 2003 and much of the database connectivity was done using the Database Connection Wizard in FrontPage. I'm being told by my host Web.com that very soon all sites that have FP Server Extensions will be migrated to new servers as the extensions will no longer be supported. The only real FP specific things in the site are the database wizards. What I'm looking for is advice on the best way to transition away from the need for the extensions. Here are a few questions:

1. Will my asp pages still work without fpse? There is an option in FP to clean the code and remove FP specific attributes. Do I need to do that and will the asp then work?
2. Are there other things I should worry about? I know how to import the site to Dreamweaver I just don't want to begin working on it there until I'm sure it's ready.
3. What FP specific folders on my site can I delete when I transition?

I appreciate all of the help this site provides.

wcameron

This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.

Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get

Instant Access to this Solution

  • Plus...
  • 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
  • Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
  • Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
  • Never be left without tech help again

Subscribe Now

Asked On
2009-02-09 at 10:13:25ID24126532
Tags

Dreamweaver CS4

,

Frontpage

,

ASP

Topic

FrontPage-Expressions

Participating Experts
1
Points
250
Comments
6

Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.

  • "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
  • "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
  • "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.

See what Experts Exchange can do for you.

Got a question?

We've got the answer.

Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Need individual assistance?

Our experts are ready to help.

If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Want to learn from the best?

Read articles from industry experts.

Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.

Screenshot of an Article

Working on a long term project?

Store your work and research.

Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Access the answers to your technology questions today.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?

Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Trusted by the world's most respected brands.

image of each brand's logo

Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.

Experts Exchange Logo

Try it out and discover for yourself.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

Related Solutions

  1. Dreamweaver books
    I was wondering if anyone could recommend a good book for using dreamweaver? Also which is better, Dreamweaver or Frontpage? Thanks
  2. dreamweaver vs frontpage
    Hi Everyone, I am new to web development, and I am about to start a website that should do pretty simple things. There will be users to log on and modify data, and it should produce various reports. In the future the possibility of enhancing it with Flash is there as well. I...
  3. Possible to Convert a Dreamweaver Template into Frontpag…
    I have a client who wants me to design a Frontpage template for her, but I'm a Dreamweaver user. Anyone know how hard it would be to convert a Dreamweaver template into one that Frontpage can use? We're not talking about highly complex templates here BTW. It's mostly going...
  4. can Dreamweaver connect like FrontPage Extensions?
    Hello, Does Dreamweaver have the ability to connect to a live web site and make changes. I know FrontPage can do this with FrontPage extensions but can Dreamweaver? We have a web site on a server that does not have FTP access but it does have FrontPage Extensions and I am...

Free Tech Articles

  1. WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
    It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
  2. SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
    SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
  3. Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
    This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
  4. Create a Win7 Gadget
    This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
  5. Outlook continually prompting for username and password
    There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
  6. Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
    There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...

Cloud Class Webinars

  1. Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
    Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
  2. Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
    Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
  3. IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
    Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
  4. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
    Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
  5. Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
    Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
  6. How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
    Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...

Join the Community

Give a Little. Get a Lot.

Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.

Join the Community

Answers

 

by: coreybryantPosted on 2009-02-10 at 05:00:04ID: 23599869

Looking at FrontPage Server Extensions,  I did not see anything about the database information there.  There are a few more links that you can verify.  If you have any FrontPage WebBot Components that are listed in the post, those are the ones you need to worry about.

FrontPage created the ASP code (albeit its own version) but I am pretty sure it will work since it is still ASP.

Delete all the _vti_cnf files / folders.  You can also upgrade to Expression Web.  Opening the site in DW should not mess anything up unless you have any FrontPage WebBot Components that are listed in the post.

 

by: wcameronPosted on 2009-02-10 at 08:29:40ID: 23602095

Thanks. I will use FP's option to clean the asp code to remove the database wizard specific comments. Am I correct in assuming then that FPSE are not used when parsing the FP ASP code?

Then I need to change the bots to make them compatible. Luckily I didn't use many but I did use hundreds of include page bots with code like the following:

<!--webbot bot="include" U-Include="http://mountainnature.com/banner.htm" TAG=BODY" -->

I'm guessing I need to replace those with server side includes but I'm not sure how to go about it. Thats new to me. I have tried the following code but it doesn't work:

<!--#include file="http://mountainnature.com/banner.htm"-->

My host is web.com and a windows server.

Thanks again for your help.

wcameron

 

by: coreybryantPosted on 2009-02-10 at 09:29:27ID: 23602768

The FrontPage Page Include is one of the very few FrontPage WebBot Components that do not require FPSE to work.  However, you have to upload every page.  

For the new question re: the includes, check out Server Side Includes.  Your code is almost correct but use a relative path as the example below.  You will also need to name your pages with .asp so the pages are parsed before rendering.

Before making any of these major changes, make a backup copy of your FrontPage Website.  You can look at downloading Expression Web for free to see if you like that.  

<!--#INCLUDE FILE="nav.html" -->

                                              
1:

Select allOpen in new window

 

by: wcameronPosted on 2009-02-11 at 12:22:26ID: 23615696

Thanks Corey. Are you saying that my current FP Includes will continue to work once my site is migrated away from a site with fpse? Do you know if there's any way to duplicate this with Dreamweaver CS4. I have no problem publishing all the pages using the includes. My site has hundreds of pages indexed by Google and changing the extensions to asp from htm will cause many problems with indexing.

I'm also guessing then that my current FP Database Connection Wizard pages will also continue to work?

Is there anything else I should be thinking of?

wcameron

 

by: coreybryantPosted on 2009-02-11 at 12:40:36ID: 23615913

The FrontPage Page Include WebBot Component is a FrontPage feature, not Dreamweaver.  Expression Web supports the FrontPage Page Include WebBot Component however.  I don't think Dreamweaver will support the FrontPage Page Include WebBot Component.  

You might contact your hosting company to see if they have a component that would process the HTML pages as ASP - then you could use the ASP File Includes.  I would imagine though that some of your pages are ASP since you are communicating with a database, so you could use ASP File Includes on these pages.  

Chances are most of the ASP pages will continue to work without FPSE.  Check FrontPage Server Extensions, one feature that is used by FPSE is stylesheet links to ASP files, so if you are using a style sheet you might have some problems.

You can create a new folder on your website, and FTP the pages created by the Database Connection Wizard.  Upload these files and make sure you don't upload the files in the _vti_cnf.  This will give you a pretty good idea.  If you have a separate domain name for testing, you might consider using this method as well.

Also check out Database Results Wizard if you have not already.  There is some general information and tips.  

You should consider starting to use server side includes (ASP includes) - renaming your pages now.  Contact your hosting company about possible support setting up 301 redirects.  Dreamweaver supports server side includes (.shtml / .shtm) in that the program will show the includes while you are working in the program.  However, you would need to upload the pages with the proper file extension to work on the server

 

by: wcameronPosted on 2009-02-11 at 12:54:12ID: 23616081

Thanks again Corey. I'll check into Expressions. It's so confusing with the different versions of the program and it seems to have no connection to FrontPage. That is why I moved to Dreamweaver. I am very familiar with the Database Results Wizard. One of my other sites is www.FrontPageMagic.com a site dedicated to helping non-programmers create database driven websites. Needless to say the dropping of FrontPage threw me for a loop. Heck. Even though I've not been here for a while, I'm still sitting at #12 on the All Time List for FrontPage. It's just been confusing getting a handle on what was controlled by the server extensions.

I appreciate all of your help.

wcameron

20120131-EE-VQP-002

3 Ways to Join

30-Day Free Trial

The Experts

98% positive feedback on 31,087 answers since March 2000. angeliii is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with MS SQL Server & Develoment.

He has also proven his knowledge of Visual Basic Programming, PHP Scripting and Oracle Databases.

The Experts

97% positive feedback on 10,752 answers since July 2000. lrmoore has more than 18 years experience in the networking industry.

The six-time Mircosoft MVPs specialties include firewalls, virtual private networking, and network management.

Testimonials

"...and excellent source for support... Kind of like having your very own IT dept." Electriciansnet

Testimonials

"I was apprehensive at signing up at first. However... it has already made my life as an IT administrator much easier." JaCrews

Testimonials

"WOW! You guys have great, active, and knowledgeable people on here." moore50

Business Clients

Business Clients

In the Press

"If you’ve got a question... Experts Exchange can supply an answer.”

In the Press

"...an invaluable aid for both IT professionals and those who require tech support."

In the Press

"where IT professionals provide quick answers on just about any topic"

Business Account Plans

Loading Advertisement...