Converting someone’s website template into Web Expression involved a number of steps. Each template will probably be a little different but here are some of the steps that I did.
The first was creating a folder structure. I used the existing folder structure as a starting point but created a “template” folder to store the DWT file I would be creating.
The next step was to create that DWT. I took the home page template as a starting point and removed everything except the common elements like the header and footer information. I also added the Adsense ads. Once the DWT was created, I added the editable regions. I created one for the meta tags needed for SEO. I also created one for the H1 title. Then, I created the content region.
Next I took the other sample layout pages and rebuilt them using the DWT. During this process, I found a number of elements that didn’t work in Web Expressions and I would have to figure out how to alter the code to make them work.
Then, I started creating the home page. The home page helped me to figure out that structure of the website and what all the links would be. I added those links back into the DWT.
Finally, I started creating all the web pages. I used the layout templates I had created earlier.
One of the most difficult pages to convert was the contact page. The submit form needed some type of script to send the email. This meant figuring out how the web hosting provider sent email by script. This entire process proved the most time consuming.
To summarize, converting someone website template does take a lot of work but by the end you should be very familiar with the underlying structure of the template and how to make the changes you need to do.
