EDITING THE TEMPLATE WITH DREAMWEAVER
 
Opening the template in Dreamweaver
 
In Dreamweaver you must define the site before making any changes to the template. Please note, there are slight variations between the different Dreamweaver versions, the basic principle remains the same:
 
1. Open Dreamweaver
2. Select Site (sometimes also Manage Sites)
3. Click on New Site
4. Ensure that Advanced Tab is selected and in the Site Name Section give the folder (site) a name
5. In the Local Root Folder Section, select the yellow folder image to browse to the folder you extracted the script to
6. In the Default Image Folder Section, select the yellow folder image to browse to the images folder in your local root folder.
 
 
To get started you wont need to fill in any other information. Click on OK.
 
To start making design changes, you only need to edit one file for the main site layout to change on every page. On your right-hand side (by default) in Dreamweaver, you wil find a Files Tab. Make sure you have selected your site's script folder in Dreamweaver and select from the list of files showing there templates/page.dwt.php to open.
You will notice that what you see is the main layout of the script (the default one), make any modifications to it and save, you will then be prompted with an 'Update all related files' window, accept and wait till it finishes and you should see 4 files updated.
 
To edit the menus, you should keep in mind that the site uses 3 different menus:
 
- menu.inc.php that appears to Anonymous users (visitors)
- menu_members.inc.php for members pages
- menu_admin.inc.php for admin pages
 
For all tables, fonts & colors, open the file styles/styles.css and make the necessary changes there. Please note that you should not attempt this without having a minimum of HTML and CSS knowledge.
 
Using Dreamweaver to upload your site.
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Dreamweaver has an inbuilt FTP utility, which you can use to upload your files and folders. When you first defined the site you may have only set up the local information. If you want to use Dreamweaver to upload your script, you will need to add some details to the remote window:
 
1. Select Site (sometimes also Manage Sites)
2. Double-click on the Script-Template Site to edit
3. Ensure the Advanced Tab is selected and choose Remote Info
4. Enter the remote host details. *
5. Select OK
* Your host should have given you these details when you signed up for your hosting account. Once you have entered the information above, make sure you are connected to the internet and hit the Test button to make sure your connection settings are correct.
 
 
At this point, you will need to make your site's layout modifications. The script is developed in a way that you only need to change one file (templates/page.dwt.php) and save it, then Dreamweaver will automatically detect the changes and make the necessary modifications to the rest of the files (template.php, lib/template.php and members/template.php).
 
Note: The page.dwt.php file doesn't have to reside on your server as it is only used for making changes locally, but it wouldn't harm anything if it's uploaded.
 
Everytime you make changes to the main layout (page.dwt.php), the following files have to be uploaded again:
- lib/template.php
- members/template.php
- template.php
 
NOTE: DO NOT UPLOAD ANY ENCRYPTED FILE USING DREAMWEAVER BECAUSE ENCRYPTED FILE NEEDS TO BE UPLOADED IN BINARY MODE. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION.
Inc: This is where you will find the inc/ folder version for the visitors, the filenames are pretty much self-explanatory.
Lib: This is where all the main site functions, configuration and license are kept. None of these files should be modified. You will also find lang_en.php, which is (by default) the language file used by the script, for any text modification for script field names.
 
Members: This is where all the members pages are, and just like for the visitors, the inc/ folder in there is the one that defines the layout of each interior member page.
 
Admin: This folder SHOULD NEVER BE EDITED. All upgrades may be void for the slightest non-approved edit in the admin panel.