Does updating an old site work well with The HTML Editor? I have 3 sites (2 simple, 1 complex) created with FrontPage (but no FP extensions).

I want to upgrade to HTML5 for reasons of compatibility and uniformity. I have simple pages,and pages with embedded video, i-frames, and dynamic web templates, etc.

Is it practical to simply import each page, fix it in HTML Editor so it looks/works correctly, then save it back? What is the best approach to bringing an old site up to current code?

Thanks, Mike

I think personally that I would download everything to my local HD and then get everything working and updated in the Editor rather than importing single pages to work on. That way you will have everything available to determine whether the pages are all working properly.

Seriously consider for the simple sites doing fresh pages to insert the content. It might actually be quicker and cleaner than trying to add "patches". Having said that though, the HTML Editor does have a replace function for working on batch pages. Just be careful how you use it and make sure you have a duplicate backup for the pages you work on!

Janys -- Thanks for the info and insight...

I think I'll start with a small site and do that - re-do completely before uploading and replacing. The big site has about 250 pages in the main area, so I'll leave that until I know what I'm doing.

In looking toward doing this - what will happen when I open an old page in HTML Editor? Will it just break wherever the code is insufficient - and then I work with it until it is clean? Is that a major process?

- Mike

So much really depends on how old the sites are I would say. A lot of code used a few years ago is now deprecated and much has been replaced by by the use of css. I did something like you are planning with an old site of my own. I gradually created a stylesheet with all the basic design...eg. background, fonts and colours etc., and then removed the outdated and deprecated elements from the actual html pages making them link back to that one single css file.

It is a slow process, but much better than trying to actually change things in your web pages...you just get rid of a lot of clutter this way.

If you are not terribly au fait with what is new and/or deprecated in html and css, go take a look at the W3C schools, or get yourself a book (from the library) to bring yourself up to date.

Thanks Janys --

I'll buy HTML Editor and give this a try.

- Mike

Mike...don't forget that you can download for a trial period to give the software a test run...

Mike
I would certainly use the trail version. Also make a copy of the website before you start working on it. The reason for this is you could find things jumping around if you built it with FP and then change a few things with HTML editor. I am not saying HTML editor will spoil anything but you really must test it out first as there are small differences between the two. I know I used to work with FP and also HTML editor.

So my advice, download the trail version, make a copy of the website in a different folder and test it out

Don't download and install until you are sure to have some time to give the trial version a test run. It is just that - a trial version and will give you about 7 days I believe to play with, so to make sure you put it through its paces you will need to have enough time on hand.