An alternative to Dreamweaver?

They have: 2 posts

Joined: Jul 2009

I've tried Dreamweaver, and some other programs that I found on the web for maintaining and updating websites with ease, but, to me at least, they're all far too complicated for what I want to do.

For instance, when I want to update the footer on all of the pages on my website, I have to open up each text file (close to 80 of them right now) and copy&paste the updated html. Now, if I were running *nix/linux on a regular basis, I'd simply write a little script to replace text, but unfortunately I have to run Windows for certain software.

So my question is: is there a simple way to find+replace a certain text block on a batch of files in Windows? Maybe there's some little program or some obvious solution I'm overlooking?

Megan's picture

She has: 11,421 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

You can do that in Dreamaweaver. In the find/replace dialog there's an option to search in a folder or in the entire site. Also look into Dreamweaver templates for maintaining consistent layouts.

If you're running a site larger than 80 pages you should look into Content Management systems. There are many, many available and what you use depends on what your specific needs are. If you elaborate more on your site's needs we could probably point you to something that might work for you.

Greg K's picture

He has: 2,145 posts

Joined: Nov 2003

Even if you don't do a content management system, use some sort of include to include main "chunks"

If you are stuck with most pages being whatever.html, if you are not wanting to change those, there are ways to have web servers process those as PHP as well so you could do a php include.

-Greg

He has: 629 posts

Joined: May 2007

If your hosting service allows it, you could use server-side includes (SSI). For an example, see "Including a standard footer" about half-way down this page:
Introduction to Server Side Includes.

Cordially, David
--
delete from internet where user_agent="MSIE" and version < 8;

davecoventry's picture

He has: 112 posts

Joined: Jun 2009

Perl?

You can install Perl on windows to do your scripting locally on your local machine. Or if you are using a linux server, run your scripts on the server. A MS server might be able to do this too.

Perl regex is not too hard.

Hell, you could probably write something in QBasic which would do the trick on your local machine.

I once had to change 20,000 AutoCAD drawings and replace a particular phrase in them all. I did it with the combination of a batch script, qbasic and a dwg-to-dxf converter. Worked a treat.

They have: 1 posts

Joined: Dec 2009

If you have a lot of links on a page and don't have enough of space to fit them all a simple way to add the links is to create a jump menu. Learn how to create jump menus in Macromedia Dreamweaver 4.0.

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They have: 27 posts

Joined: Jul 2009

i think that's a good alternative programs aside from dream weaver.

yMladenov's picture

He has: 33 posts

Joined: Dec 2009

Before a month or so I was searching for a freeware alternative to Dreamweaver.

Tried out few and I realized that there is a good reason when a tool is mainstream. Smiling

Take Photoshop for example.

yMladenov's picture

He has: 33 posts

Joined: Dec 2009

kanch33 wrote:
So my question is: is there a simple way to find+replace a certain text block on a batch of files in Windows?

Yeah. Smiling

You can use smarty templates. Will take you some time to get used to the syntax of the template system but is well worth it. You can check it out @ smarty.net.

I used to use Dreamweaver templates, but they tend to screw up from time to time, so now I only use it for updating files and coding.

Since I have long lost the hang of PHP (since OOP and MVC kicked in) I always put up a few static pages, or for more than 10-15 pages that must be updated regularly I install Wordpress.
Recently, I read about a superior CMS than Wordpress - Textpattern. I think it is worth checking out. The templates seem to be easier to style and design.

And last - if you are going to stick to Wordpress:

  1. once you style it, do not update;
  2. look into details for templates @ codex.wordpress.org;
  3. get some template like plaintxt.org, the code is much clearer with it.

Have fun. Wink

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