Breaking Up A Large Site in NetObjects Fusion

Your web site has grown over the course of time. You now find yourself faced with managing all those pages quickly without “crashing” NetObjects Fusion (and retaining your sanity at the same time). What do you do?

You could try using a database but you’re like me and cannot figure out how to do that from the available instructions. The following is how I solved this problem for my large web site - creating many small sites from one large site. Trust me, they will all come together again as one large site once published online.

Step 1 - Create your base site

Start a new blank site and give it a name that you can relate to. My convention is to use initials, a short section name and a date. For example, my site’s domain is example.com and I have seven major sections branching off of it in addition to the main area. I will name the main area EXMain052007. This gives me the following information at a glance:

  • EX tells me that the site belongs to example.com
  • Main tells me that this is the base of the entire site.
  • 052007 tells me that I created this in May of 2007.

step1

At this point you should only have your new Home page.

Step 2 - Add pages

Add a page for each of your sections and pages that you will develop in the base site.

step2

In the above illustration, the following pages will be developed in the base site:

  • Home - your home page
  • faq - a frequently asked questions page
  • links - a page of links for reference
  • about - a page about you, your site, your company or whatever is your choice.

Step 3 - Export your new “base” as a template

step5

Step 4 - Create your Section 1 site and insert your template

You will now create a new blank site which contains only the “home” page. This site will be named EXSec1052007 if you are following my naming conventions mentioned above.

step6a

Insert the template that you created in step 3.

step6b

When you insert the template you will want to “overwrite” the master borders when asked. Also, you will find that you have two “home” pages. Move the “home” page that has content to the top of the site structure and delete the empty home page.

Step 5 - Develop the new section

You will now add the pages for the section that you’re working on.

step7

In the illustration above I’ve simply added 5 pages and given each one a name. The content of each page can be written from scratch or copied from your older, larger site.

Instead of creating these pages from scratch, you can also go into your original large NOD file, select the pages that you want to export for this section then export by using the “selected pages” option. Name the exported pages zip file accordingly so that you know exactly which zip file to insert into your new site’s section. To insert those pages to the correct section be sure to have the section page selected as above before doing the insert.

Repeat steps 4 and 5 as needed.

Pitfalls and Cautions

I have found the following things to constantly check when using this method:

  1. Any links in the master border are going to get lost when inserting a template. They will have to be linked again. This includes all of the local pages that appear in the site view.
  2. If you are using a style that you’ve created you may have to manually copy the style into each section’s style folder using Windows Explorer. Most of the time it will transfer properly but once in a while it doesn’t.
  3. You will need to set your style to the same style you used in your base site. Unfortunately, it doesn’t transfer over as the style to use. Fortunately, in most cases it will be readily available.
  4. If you’ve made any alterations to the text side of the style, you may have to manually make those changes again in the new section. Remember to check this for consistency.

Publishing

Publishing a site created in this manner can never be done using the “entire site” option. The result of using that option will be several blank pages. Definitely not a desired result!

Instead, you will use the “current page” option or manually “select pages”. In the illustration used in Step 5 above, I would select the following pages to publish: section1, sub1a, sub1b, sub1c, sub1d and sub1e. The entire section can be selected by doing a ctrl-click on the parent page, section1 in this example.

Publishing Order

The order you choose to publish your pages may not matter. If you already have your large site online then all you are doing is uploading fresher copies of those same pages. Otherwise, consider publishing your sections first so that when the “base” pages (home, faq, links, about) are published there won’t be any broken links to the pages that are in the sections.

Redesign Time?

There are two main categories that easily come to mind that will require going back through this basic process for your entire site, though these procedures will be slightly different.

  1. The time has come to give your site a new appearance, add something that you want to appear on all pages, or make improvements to your method of navigation.
  2. Perhaps you have material that just doesn’t fit in any of the existing site sections and you need a new section.

If the reason for your redesign falls in category #1, then you will proceed by making your desired changes to your “home” page only. Remember that the changes will automatically be made for your faq, links and about page. Instead of exporting the entire site to a zip file, you will export only your “home” page. To make the changes site wide, go into each of your section sites and insert the zip file that has only the new “home” page. As before, move your newest home page above the older home page and delete the older home page. Don’t forget to check those 4 items under “Pitfalls and Cautions” above as they will reappear. Publish each section as above by selecting pages.

If the reason falls in category #2, then go into your “base” site and add a new “section” page. Export the entire “base” site as a template. Create a new site for your new section, and insert the new template. Again you will be moving the template’s home page above the empty home page and deleting the empty home page. Develop your new section and publish as above by selecting each of the new pages. For your other section sites, simply add a page with the exact same name as your new “section” page that you added to your “base” site. Publish each section by selecting pages.

Again, don’t forget to check those 4 items under “Pitfalls and Cautions” above as they will reappear with any insert of a template.

 

The above tutorial has been created in NetObjects Fusion 9. I have been using this method at least since version 7 and possibly earlier. I have been using NetObjects Fusion since version 4. I have the latest version 10, but have yet to really take the time to get completely familiar and comfortable with it.
Linda Gerfen
Shoebox Recipes is published using the above methods and as of this date is rapidly approaching 900 pages spread over 35 sites in NetObjects Fusion 9. Currently the site is in the midst of a redesign for navigation improvement reasons.

May 17, 2007

Please note: As of today, October 8, 2007, Shoebox Recipes is being rebuilt and will no longer be built in NetObjects Fusion. This does not mean that I am no longer using NetObjects Fusion nor does it invalidate the above outlined method. It simply was time for a change to CSS and for me to expand my own skills.