Site Layout update

Hi,

I use Site assist pro 1.07 with Css sculptor 3 and menu writer 2.03.

Whenever I change my sculptor layout that forms the basis for my siteassist layout, I have to completely recreate the layout. Otherwise siteassist won't include the changes made to the sculptor template.

Can you include an option in the next version to link a layout to a sculptor design, so that it updates automatically, or at least a feature that avoids having to go through the whole layout setup procedure?

Thank you

Sincerely

Berthold Hamburger

I will log a feature request for this and it may be added in a future release of the product.

The add layout wizard in SiteAssist Pro asks you to specify what divs in your Sculptor layout to use for the menu, content, and footer. If you changed the Sculptor layout and removed or renamed any of these divs, that would break the SiteAssist Pro layout since those designated areas don't exist anymore. That is why it currently works like it does and requires that a new SiteAssist Pro layout be re-created. Its an interesting suggestion, but I am not sure we could account for the above scenario in an easy manner.

Justin,
I understand your reasoning, but don't forget that Siteassist has a much more dangerous Achilles heal if it comes to breaking designs: Page types!

It is much more likely that a user changes by mistake a page type and looses all his contents of a page than changing the DIV ID's "topnavigation; content; footer". I cannot really think of a reason that would make me change those ID's and I would describe myself as a CSS literate.

What I am proposing is actually to change the whole concept how you integrate sculptor and menuwriter in siteassist. At the moment they work like addons, while IMO they should be plugins and one should not have to leave siteassist in order to change sculptor or menu design parameters.

Basically for users who have all 3 programs installed siteassist should include the option to change the associated sculptor or menu design on the fly. Essentially sculptor would read, when started from within siteassist, the design file from the directory:

..\Adobe\Dreamweaver 9\Configuration\Shared\WebAssist\SiteAssistPro\sculptor\

instead of reading it from :

...\Adobe\Dreamweaver 9\Configuration\Shared\WebAssist\CSSSculptor\

That way you separate a siteassist/sculptor design from standalone sculptor designs and you could even assign parameters that would protect certain ID's like topnavigation etc. from being changed.
There should be also an option to be able to change CSS manually in the site related css fles and have the settings remain sticky.

Another thing that is missing is a seperate "mystiles.css" for the homepage. You could for example include and import by default a "myhomestyles.css" into the index.html of the site.

Last but not least, a feature dearly needed would be the option to create multy-language sites with cloned menu structures in language defining subfolders and common image, spry, java etc. deposits in the top level folder. Right now I cannot think of any way to create a multiple language site with site assist.

Regards

Berthold