So I am kind of lost but have to get started on this, one page at a time. I have about 1,000 html pages, and about a third are one style (long page), a third another style (medium length page) and the rest another style (short page). If I change things on the long page in RLM, isn't the css going to affect the medium and short pages, too? That is what I don't want. They were designed to be different.

And when I export the project, it overwrites both the previously exported the css files and html files and I have to start from scratch with the html. That is not going to work with a 1,000 pages. How do I change the css, export the project and keep the content/ad code intact on the older html files?

Thank you for any help.

Hi,
I would make a custom.css file with the styles of the three pages on it. All you need to do is add this into the head of your page <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/custom.css">

Hiya Kristen,

First let me say you have quite a job ahead of you with that many pages, but all is not lost.

The first thing to tackle is Class names. If you have a number of pages that will be pretty much identical then create that page that will be the template for them all. Next do the same thing for the second type of page, but when you do this you will want to rename the Classes of the items that will be for sure different on the page. That is what will keep one page from messing up the other. Keep in mind that if you plan to use the same setup for a lot of pages, any time you change a setting for one page it will change it for them all for all the pages that share the same structure (for example your long page), so you'll want to be sure that if there's anything different on those pages, such as a different sized image or table or something, you'll want to name those classes for those items different so it won't mess up the image or table, etc., for the rest of the pages. If you do have different images say, making them all the same size will be extremely to your benefit for your mega site to keep things easy for you. Hopefully that helps understand how to make each structured page different without messing up the others, it's all in the Class Names.

You should give your classes good names as well for those things that you know you will need to adjust after you export. That will help you find them easier in the CSS to copy those classes over to a custom.css file.

Lastly, and this is the part that's not going to make you a happy camper....
This is not a site editor, it's a layout maker. It is designed for you to create your full layout so you should completely design your template pages (the large, medium, small, etc.) fully and completely before you put any pages together at all. Once you have those structures in place I would highly suggest you save the file and then resave it again with a new name by adding a number after the name such as mysite would become mysite1 which will give you mysite1.rlmp for your project name.

That method will help you with both the issue of making sure to keep backups, and overwriting your files. For example:

You create your 3 or 4 structure pages, save the project with whatever name, let's say "mysite"
Now save your project again by going to the File menu in the top left and choose Save As and save it as "mysite1"
You are now 100% sure you will not overwrite your files.
Continue this way by creating your first actual page from the structure/template page for that length and when you have it done, export.
Now save the project under the name "mysite3"
When you export next it will export to a mysite3 folder which will keep you from overwriting the last ones.

Obviously you'll have to delete some of these as you go as they will become obsolete after a while and so you don't have so many backups, no need to keep backups for every single page.
Keep mind, as I said this is not a site editor, it's a layout maker, so it's designed for you to complete your full site before you export really. In your case though you can get away with doing as above as long as you're careful about renaming the file so you don't overwrite.

The other thing is, you shouldn't ever really be overwriting your good files if you don't keep them in the folder that they are exported in which you shouldn't be doing, so there's really no way you will overwrite your manual changes. You shouldn't be editing them as they sit in the exported folder either, copy them to your website folder location and edit them there. Then it won't matter if you accidentally forget to rename the project, the only thing you'll lose then is the ability to go back to changes made to the pages and structure. It won't affect your hand edited pages at all.

Hope that helps

Wow. Thank you. That helps a lot. One more thing, though. I don't quite understand this:

"You should give your classes good names as well for those things that you know you will need to adjust after you export. That will help you find them easier in the CSS to copy those classes over to a custom.css file."

Do I use classes and then find that code in the css file and put it in a separate css file that I link to from the header of each page? So the long pages would link to a css file just for them? And the medium to a css file just for them? Something like:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/long.css">

Kris

Here's what I would do. You would like to have three classes. So I would name the your classes like this xxx-small, xxx-medium and xxx-long then when you export it find them in the css file and copy them into the custom.css file. That way you only have deal with one custom file instead of three of them

I hope this helps.

Thanks! I feel much better now.

Yep that sound like a good plan to me. Just remember to never edit the original.css files. Create a custom.css file and I would also suggest you put that custom.css file into a custom directory so you don't accidentally delete it if you ever delete the exported files that RLM creates. I tend to sometimes delete them before putting the new ones in that are from a new export so I figured I better keep my custom CSS, U.S. And any other custom script files in a separate location. Just a suggestion.

So that I am clear, I put the entire site together in RLM first. A template for each type of page and the index. I set up classes for the elements in each type of page so that when I change one class on one page, it does not affect the classes/element on the other pages. Export the project twice into two different locations.

Then when I actually create the pages related to each template, I export into a new folder so as not to overwrite the previous files/pages. So the long files export will not overwrite the short page files exported previously, etc. I open the main css file after each export, find the class css for that type of page/file and paste it into a custom.css file. I upload that custom.css file so that the class css takes effect. I do not re-upload the main css file again because doing so will overwrite changes I have made to the pages subsequent to when I first uploaded the main css file. Or do I upload the newest css file that RML makes? This is where I am a little fuzzy.

I put the <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/long.css"> into the head of each page I make in RML so that each page connects to the css changes for that page.

After I make the entire site templates, can I ever add another page template to the site? Or will doing so create new css, which if uploaded, will ruin the rest of the site?