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by Sheila
Lennon
'Bottom-up' journalism from the pros
May 6,
2002
Blogging with
Dreamweaver: Doc
Searls
(Linux Journal
Senior Editor, Cluetrain
co-author) asked for a permanent link to last week's item about Triana,
the earth-imaging satellite grounded by politics. I've been ducking the obvious
need for a link to each item ("fifth item" is a lame reference), but
I don't use a blogtool
that would automate this. I make all my html pages with Dreamweaver 3 (screenshot),
commuting between the WYSIWYG window and the code, so I worked out a partial
workaround that might be useful to others who blog with Dreamweaver:
(You could reverse
this process by writing every item in a new document, then either copy and paste
each into the main page, or make them includes (SSI) in the main blog page.
But I hate to face a WYSIWYG page that's blank but for a line of include tags
that have to be clicked to see what's in them. I also often find myself typing
one item while another comes to mind, so I need easy access to the whole main
page. When it's all done, I'll spin the items off to separate files.)
Here's how to make
it less tedious:
1. Make each blog
entry a separate file:
This is a bit quicker
with a Dreamweaver Extension called "New
Document from Selection" that works like this:
-- Select any text
in the DW text window and, on the File menu, under "new from template," a "new
from selection" option appears.
-- Click it and it makes a new file containing only the copied text and links.
-- Save that to a standard place with a short name (such as triana.htm)
2. Link to the
new files in the main page:
-- Create a library
item containing a prelinked "Link to this item" link with the path already filled
in (http://www.projo.com/cgi-bin/include.pl/technology/shenews/items/)
except for the "*.htm"
-- Save it with an obvious name such as "linkto"
To use it:
-- Drag the "linkto" item from the library to a new line below the end of blog
entry.
-- Right-click to "detach from original" (i.e. make it editable)
-- Copy and stamp it after each blog entry
-- Complete each link with the appropriate *.htm
This is just a
way of opening a discussion. If others have better ways to automate blogging
with Dreamweaver, I'm all ears.
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