Frontpage Template PSD

July 16, 2005 8:17 PM

I have a Frontpage Template and a Photoshop PSD file that is the graphic for the template. I need to update the PSD file - which I can do in Imageready, but I have problems updating the original HTML. Any ideas what I am doing wrong? Or export and make a brand new HTML file with rollovers?
posted by bright77blue to computers & internet (5 comments total)

If your photoshop PSD file makes up just a single image from your site, you simply need to update it and then "Save for the Web" in Photoshop/Imageready. Name the final file the same as the one on your server, then just FTP it to your server.

If the PSD is a template for the whole page made up of different images, then I don't know how to help you since I haven't touched Frontpage in 7 years.
posted by mathowie at 8:34 PM on July 16, 2005

Yes, it is all in a single file. When I "update" the HTML, Imageready give the message "No tables were updated" - although tables were updated as I made changes ... what gives?
posted by bright77blue at 9:09 PM on July 16, 2005

As far as I know, Imageready can't talk to Frontpage or a webserver running Frontpage extensions. I'd suggest going back to the drawing board and reading up on the programs you're using to build websites.
posted by mathowie at 10:47 PM on July 16, 2005

When you say you're "updating" the HTML, what exactly are you doing? Saving optimized with both HTML and images? Did you change any slices before you did that? If you changed the PSD file but did not re-arrange any slices, then I wouldn't think any tables would get updated, since the table structure would remain the same and even the image names would not change. But the newly exported page, when viewed in a browser, should look like the updated PSD file. Does it? If it does, you should be good to go; you can ignore the message.

Not sure what a FrontPage Template is. Is it just the HTML that you use as a departure point when constructing your pages in FrontPage (i.e., not really specific to FrontPage), or is it a godawful MS "labor-saving" device with its own proprietary and impenetrable logic? If the former, you're in luck—you've got your new HTML. If the latter, I'm afraid I've no idea how to turn a nice piece of HTML into such a Template™. You'll have to wade into the FM.
posted by bricoleur at 3:20 AM on July 17, 2005

This depends largely on which version of FrontPage you are using. Older versions only had a "template" that was like a Word or Excel template - merely a way to get the program to open a copy of an existing document as a new, unsaved version.

However, FrontPage 2003 supports something called "Dynamic Web Templates", which may sound vaguely familiar to many more experienced developers on the list. These ".dwt" files allow you to create a template with the page layout, navigation, etc., and then create files from the template. When you later update the template, FP updates any pages created from it. (Yes, this is exactly what Dreamweaver templates do, right down to the same file extension. In fact, FrontPage 2003 fully supports .dwt files created in DW.)

So more information may be necessary before fully answering your question. Knowing which version of FP is important. If you can post some sort of link to the page so we can take a look at the code in question, that'd be very helpful too.
posted by robhuddles at 9:01 AM on July 17, 2005