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Set
up your site to take advantage of Deep Navel's quick and
powerful navigation update features.
new websites from old
Before you begin, make a backup copy of your
current site.
Decide how you want to organize your new
site. Sketch out a map of your site hierarchy showing
first-level and second-level pages.
Open Dreamweaver or GoLive.*
*If you're working with HTML in BBEdit or
another text editor rather than a web application such as
Dreamweaver or GoLive, this process may take a bit longer.
You'll have
to
globally re-establish image links, for example, after setting
up your new hierarchy and running Deep Navel.
Now open
your existing site in Site View mode.
(If you haven't done so before, create a Site View for your
website.)
Important: Be sure to
perform this step in your web app, not in the Finder. Why? Web apps
like Dreamweaver and GoLive allow you to automatically update all
links
when you
move
files and folders around in Site View mode. But files and
folders moved in the Finder don't retain their links.
Next, in Site View, create
a hierarchy of folders modeling your new
site structure. Name your first-level folders however you want
your new nav bar tabs to read ("home", "services", "favorite
links"). Likewise name your second-level
folders inside these folders according to your intended sub-tabs.
You've now created the site hierarchy Deep
Navel will use to make your nav bars. However, because you want
to pick up existing page content from html, there are a couple
more steps
to follow before we run Deep Navel.
something old, something new
Still in Site View, find your existing html files
containing the content you want to appear on your new pages.
Move
your html files into the relevant new folders. For example, your
old "services.html" page will go into your new "services" folder.
Now change the html files' names to
"index.html" (for example, "services.html" will
become a file called "index.html"
that resides within the "services" folder).
Next it's time to deal with other leftover folders
from your old site.
Drag your "images" folder to the same
level as your first-level folders. (By default, Deep
Navel
is set to ignore a first-level folder called "images".)
Other
extant folders, if any, need to be eliminated, or you'll see them
appearing on
your new
tab bar. If you have an old "html" folder, delete it,
assuming you've already moved out all the html files containing
content you want to use. (And assuming you made a backup of your
old site.)
If there are other folders you absolutely want to
keep inside the site folder but not have appear in the nav
bar,
see advanced
issues.
Reminder: if you want your nav bars to contain a "home" tab,
be sure you've created a home folder along with your other first-level
folders.
Once your site folders are organized to reflect
your site map, you're ready. Run Deep Navel.
the moment of truth
Open the Deep Navel application, choose your
newly re-arranged site, select a theme and apply it.
Deep Navel automatically modifies the "index.html" file
in each of your new tab folders, adding your nav bar to your existing
content.
Note that each index.html
file is unique to its folder. Each file contains a nav bar
with the tabs and sub-tabs appropriate to its location within the
site,
so be sure you don't move index.html pages from one folder to
another.
Look in your folders. Notice
that Deep Navel has made a backup of the index.html file in each
folder,
calling it
"index.html.ORIG".
Check out your new site in your browser.
site modification from the desktop
Did you forget to include a sub-tab? Have you changed
your mind about what to call an entire tab section?
In the Finder, simply add or subtract folders,
or change folder names. Then re-run
Deep Navel.
From here on, re-arranging
your website, renaming sections, and adding content is a snap. |
