a cheaper editor that can change dreamweaver templates

jason1178 is right. The reason is because DW template functionality uses a proprietary markup. What you see as comments in another editor is that markup. If you need to change a site built on DW templates without DW, you will need to remove those comments from the pages.

>> If you need to change a site built on DW templates without DW, you will need to remove those comments from the pages.

Not totally true.  The comments are just comments, they don't hurt the functionality of the pages if you leave them in there.  Bu if you muck about with the comments or remove them you will basically break the DW template functionality going forward.

But your larger point (and mine) is valid:  If the site was created by using a DW template, you need to decide how you are going to proceed.  Either get DW and continue using the .dwt file to make global changes to all child pages or get rid of DW, strip the comments out and use a different editor that can do multi-file find/replace.

But whatever you decide, don't do both.  That will lead to disaster.

Thanks.  We're saying the same thing, just coming at it from different directions :)

Good discussion...

Thank you. As i thought unfortunately. Use dreamweaver or move away from dreamweaver template files.

Thanks.

If you want an actual recommendation?

Drop Dreamweaver unless you are reliant on its built in behaviors and the wysiwyg.  It is SIMPLE to build a "template" that uses PHP includes in place of template markup and it will always, always work.  DW Templating has been buggy since day 1 and they've never really fixed it.