Thanks I am trying that. Having looked at the code generated, your right. So many classes it is almost impossible to change the colour of anything outside in web editor
It seems to me you don't export anything until your design is complete i.e. no more pages to be added or changes to be made.

Pretty much with the exception of pages that can be added later. The nice thing is that if you need another page later you can make your new page in that project and then when you export the site, just pull the css folder(s) and the page you created and that should be all you need. This gives you the ability to create new pages, edit pages if you're planning to do a big restructure to a specific page or anything else you need to revamp in a page or handful of pages, without really messing up anything else in the site as you just copy out the pages you need without taking those that are already done since you don't want to overwrite your completed pages.

I would back up your site regularly as well if you do decide to make extra things later so that you don't "accidentally" overwrite the good stuff and if you do you can always get it back. lol, not that I would ever do that... *looks around innocently* nope not me!

May I ask why one would need to reuse the Responsive Layout Maker tool to add a new page to the site?

Surely the CSS has been built with the RLM application and so one could simply add in the CSS reference to the header and in the HTML Editor just use the same classes and IDs as one would use for an existing page?

Malc

That would work Malcolm, but if your client ever wanted to do layout changes you would have to do them all by hand because if you dont keep the RLM updated with your content you will lose any changes you have made in HTML editor.

To make it simple, once your website is done you have to either A use an HTML Editor to do your updates from now on or B use RLM as your project file and only use the HTML editor to add your menus, sliders, image galleries and such.

Once you make changes to the content in the HTML Editor you will not be able to make RLM see those changes.

Forgive me for asking as this never occured to me; what you are saying is then that one should then use RLM as one's site editor?

Thankfully, I am my client so I am used to getting ridiculous requirements from him but I had never considered the consequences of this.

My site has Goodness Knows How Many Pages but it goes well into the octoDozens for sure. Am I then to edit the whole thing in RLM as at the moment I am just planning on making the framework, trying to use the same class names as what I have at the moment and then dumping that to the web server as Job Done? Do is my plan not quite right then?

Malc

The thing is Malcolm, if you create your site using RLMP you will be able to complete a vast majority of the site within the program. When you export it, the only things you really "need" to change outside of the program should be maybe adding a few extra classes to your elements (since that is a major limitation that I'm hoping will change in the future for RLMP as well as RSD with only being able to add one class to an element) such as rounded corners etc., adding your external scripts for things like Galleries, Forms, etc. and that's mostly it. You may need to edit a little text to get what you want fine tuned at the moment, but hopefully the next update will fix some of the text editing issues it has right now also.

There isn't a lot you need to change outside of the program. Even all your images should be already showing when you export it as long as you've added the correct paths in the program for them, and as long as you have uploaded them all to that path. Doesn't really leave a lot to be done outside the program which means....

If you need to edit the structure of a page you would use RLMP to do so. If you need to add a new page, you would use RLMP to do so.
The great thing about that is that when you export it all you need to grab is the CSS, JS (not sure on JS, but I grab it anyways), and the html page(s) that you just edited and/or created. Yes you will probably need to reenter any scripts that belong on the page say if you had a form on one you restructured, but it's extremely minimal editing needing to be done even when altering pages. You don't have to redo them all after it's done, just the pages you are editing or adding.

Keep it simple, do everything you possibly can in RLMP and you'll be much happier in the end when you can go back and use RLMP or later RSD for editing instead of having to manipulate the code manually all the time for structural changes.

Thanks Jo. I wasn't really planning on putting the 200 pages plus into RLM at all.

I think that I am going to have to make a new CSS and then keep the project out of RLM because I want to get the site responsive within a few days and since I already use the twelve column grid system I can't imagine me taking as long writing the updated CSS with a text editor.

Would this be correct or am I missing something here?

Cheers
Malc

Not sure, but I think you're missing something there lol.

Basically (and I'm working on a site as we speak so I can tell you better because of that), I have everything in my page except the following things that need to be edited:

Links if they are within a sentence (because the link feature in the text editing mode does not work yet)
Adding classes for things like rounded corners (because RLMP does not allow more than one class per element)
Image enhancements such as shadows, frames, borders, etc. (because RLMP does not allow more than one class per element)
HTML symbols such as the copyright symbol (not built into RLMP at all as of yet, not expecting to see it really)

Little things like this that are super quick and easy to do. You might have 200 pages, but every one of those pages won't have a link in them that is within a sentence. Links that are stand alone links (like a list of links or a full sentence or phrase that is a link) won't need this, only if you do something like 'download this "here"' where the word "here" is a link.
Adding classes is extremely easy to do and if you're using the HTML Editor you'll go all that much quicker do to the ability to click in the visual window and it highlighting the code for that element automatically. These are usually classes that surround images, containers, things that you're adding enhancements too which again is not every single page or not a lot of it on a lot of pages.

If you keep your classes unique for say a page of photos that you're using for a portfolio or gallery etc. You can give them all the same class name within RLMP and then just copy that class setting from the CSS file that RLMP creates and paste it into a "custom.css" file that you create. Then just add the other settings you want to that class. That would give you a mass update to anything that uses that class so it could span multiple pages.

There are so many ways to do things that will make it quick and easy using RLMP that I cannot see why you wouldn't try it other than the learning curve which does take a while if someone doesn't know website jargon at all. If you have the jargon down and understand the terms, then even with a 3 day time frame it can be done if you keep at it. May not get every single page done within 3 days, but I can guarantee you that the framework can be done in 3 days depending on how much time you devote to it.

I know I say this lightly since I dont' know the structure of your 200 pages and there could be a couple dozen or more different page structures ( which there shouldn't be ), just saying it's doable and you should try it if you already have the program.

To be honest that's about it really. I'll shut up now haha. Yes there are flaws in the program, what software doesn't have it, but it's a great program and I'm surely hopeing to see some of the limitations above taken away in the future. In the meantime, the excess work isn't all that bad and even with 200 pages it could probably all be done fully in a week if you kept at it.

Thanks again, Jo Ann. I am still struggling with the application and the documentation so I am going to do my conversion by hand as it will be quicker. At the moment I am hacking away with Top Style for the CSS and making some code changes in the editor for the test page.

Then get into HTML Editor to do a mass of global changes so my site should be up and running in a short time before lobbing the whole thing up via the ftp application.

At the moment I am finding RLM quite unusable as I can't find anything in the documentation that I need so I will perhaps wait for the next version and another site project before giving it a go.

Malc

Well good luck with it then no matter which way you decide to go.