DWT Files - Compatible between Expression and Dreamweaver?

[noel_x99]

I am about to start on a site that will have a fair number of pages. I generally work in Expression web (and often use master pages). However, once I'm finished with this site, the customer plans to do his own maintenance in an older version of Dreamweaver. I know both programs use DWT files as templates. I'm wondering if that will work.

1. If I use a DWT in Expression Web, will my customer be able to use the same DWT in Dreamweaver?

2. How do I import a "web" from Expression into Dreamweaver? I'd like to run a test on this to see if/how this works. I can open and edit the files in Dreamweaver, but it doesn't consider it a "web". I'm not terribly familiar with Dreamweaver, so any help there is appreciated.

I use templates quite often and as long as I'm the only one that updates the files, that works just fine. I'm not sure if that will be an ideal solution with multiple editors.

Thanks for any help or suggestions.

[jannmirch]

I'm not familiar with Expressions, but I use Dreamweaver quite a bit.

The first thing I would suggest you do is run a test. To do this you will need to set up the site in Dreamweaver, which will allow DW to access the remote server. Once you've done this you can download the files from the server and see how DW handles them.

Dreamweaver should be able to deal with the HTML assuming Expressions Web doesn't do anything funky with them.

DW templates add coding which will create "editable" and "uneditable" areas. I doubt that it will recognize a template from another source however. But your test will determine this.

[SeeMyBiz]

The edtible regions set up in Expression should be the only editable regions in DW as well. Expression Web does not add any weird code the way FrontPage used to so all should be good.

I highly recommend you do a test to check compatibility though - just the wise thing to do.

[craigmn3]

Front Page had a bad habit of changing the .htaccess files to make them exclusively unusable by even earlier versions of frontpage with their extensions and you could not use ftp to upload/download or edit

Expression doesn't use extentions and offers live ftp editing so it should not interfere with Dream Weaver as long as Dream Weaver doesn't use any such exclusive formatting ( I don't use Dream Weaver)

[texxs]

I've done this before and they appear to work in both at first because you can open the .dwt and it works fine, but it doesn't really work once a .dwt that's been made in one program is edited with another, nor will they change other pages, nor can you create "new from template" etc.

[texxs]

BTW, in this case, I don't think that it's either program adding extraneous code to the files, I think it's more a problem with the way they apply these changes site, to child pages etc.

I think, I haven't really researched it to find out exactly what's up.

P.S. If your not using ASP.NET and you want to choose one, I'd go with Dreamweaver for sure. If you are using ASP.NET then I'd recommend a visual studio/web expression combo.

I use these programs and more related software on a daily basis.

[noel_x99]

THANKS ALL! That's some good info.

I do use asp.net, but the customer wants to be able to make changes - and their artist is familar with Dreamweaver.

I will run some tests, but I'm thinking that IF the changes made in dreamweaver stay inside the editable regions and only Expression is used to make template changes, that might work and keep the associations.

I'll get a test site running first with a web that isn't using asp.net and test it. Then try it with asp.net.

I used to use Front Page. Expression is SO MUCH BETTER in so many ways. I could never quite grasp visual studio as I'm more of an artist/designer than a programmer. Where Visual Studio is a programmer's tool, Expression offers much of the power of VS in a package a designer can use. It works well in conjunction with sites developed in VS. I love master pages, but I know Dreamweaver can't do those. That's why I wanted to try the template.

Thanks again!

[jbladeus]

Expression is surprisingly good and even surpasses DW in generating standards-compliant code.
This is coming from someone who has worked on DW since day one and has no love for MS products.

[noel_x99]

I work with closely with an aspx developer and Expression is very good with that. The code it creates is TOTALLY DIFFERENT from what Front Page used to do. I know most web people hated Front Page and think Expression is just a new version of the same old stuff. But it's much better for serious development.

Back to the topic at hand. I found no real compatiblity between Expression and Dreamweaver. I created a site with a DWT that worked perfectly in Expression. I imported that site into Dreamweaver and could make new pages that used the template without a problem.

However, when I took the site back into Expression and made a change to the DWT, the pages created in Dreamweaver were not attached.

And any change made to the DWT in Dreamweaver wasn't applied to the pages originally created in Expression.

For the solution, I'm using aspx pages with includes for the menu, header, and footer. And I'm controlling styles with external CSS. Keeping the menu consistent on all pages was the primary concern and that's being contolled by the include and and XML file.