Joyfulstyle
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A Workflow for customizing Pages with Dreamweaver - 2005/11/05 12:42
I am looking for a good workflow for modifying Miva 5 pages, "items", etc. to achieve the final page layout I am after.
Miva uses "items" (components) in pages, headings, and elsewhere while you are in the Miva contol panels setting up your system. Miva also puts the basic page layout together with local and global headings. These items are not resolved into a comprehensive view of the final page in the control panel set up screens. Instead, much of the final HTML code is not visible until the page is actually rendered in the live store.
The final pages are generally complex enough html wise with lots of tables and tables within tables. Also, it is not that easy to tell which html came from which "item" within which part of your setup or whether it was your own html in some section. So it is not so easy to predict final live display. Nor is it that easy to see the final live display and tell where in the Miva setup you should make a change to get what you want.
I think tools like Dreamweaver help me to understand the HTML and to see where and how to make HTML changes to get the look I am after. The problem is it seems like an awkward process. Here is what I am doing now:
1) make the changes and HTML addtions in the Miva set up screens for a page, heading, or whatever
2) Look at the resulting page - for example a detail product page PROD - in the live store screen that Miva generates. (except no one else can get to it yet so it is really not "live".)
3) Using Internet Explorer I save the page to my hard disk into a temporary directory. This saves the HTML and all the images, etc.
4) Use Dreamweaver to open the saved page. Use dreamweaver to figure out what is going on and test HTML changes that would give what I want.
5) Try and figure out where in the Miva set up screens I need to make the HTML changes I identified using Dreamweaver.
Well this seems pretty awkward. And it is still not that great because it is hard to tell from the final HTML which page, header, or item to change to recreate the manual HTML change I made using dreamweaver.
Any ideas about a more efficient and, more importantly, a more effective work flow would be appreciated.
Regards,
Mike
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