Adapt existing web site with fluid grid layout

Hi everyone,
I'm wondering if I could take a exisiting website and using Dreamweaver CS6 (which I don't owned at the moment) "easily" create associated fluid layout for tablets and smartphones.
Or do I have to start a new website "from scratch" to get the fluid layout?
I'm just beginning with website creation (only 2 at the moment) and I tried out Dreamweaver 5.5 at the beginning of 2012... since I didn't find any other tools that could do the job like I feel Dreamweaver can, I'm in the process of convincing myself I should buy Dreamweaver CS6.... I won't hesitate much longer if I could take a existing website and be able to easily adapt it to fluid layout.
Thanks for your help
Sebastien

You would have to start over with a whole new Layout. Once you get that designed, then you would need to insert content. There is no magic button for converting existing sites to Fluid Grid Layouts because it's more complicated (3 CSS layouts instead of one).
In addition, Fluid Grid is a new feature in CS6 that still needs some refinement. In order to build responsive designs that work in all devices, you must understand the technology.
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/introducing-media-queries.html
http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2011/01/12/guidelines-for-responsive-web-design/
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/responsive-web-design/
Nancy O.
Alt-Web Design & Publishing
Web | Graphics | Print | Media Specialists
http://alt-web.com/
http://twitter.com/altweb
http://alt-web.blogspot.com/

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Early this morning in the USA the site stopped working. The layout for some users, not all, is only showing the phone view, and takes a long time to load.
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I am using BC for the test site, and one user having this problem can see that version of the site OK.
I noticed that Chrome has done some updates recently Chrome Releases
Has anyone else come across this problem with Chrome and Firefox with their responsive layouts?
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Hi Ben,
Yes, thanks for this link. The Travel Health Website is one of ours, hosted on BC, and no reported problems so far. We also have another large BC website with ga code in it and users are not reporting problems with it. The Headless Way
However the problem website is hosted elsewhere on a different platform to BC. We have been developing it for three months now, and no problems so far until yesterday. The problem of the site taking ages to load, and timing out seems to be happening with about 10% of users in the USA. http://www.harrisonassessments.com/
The web developer found a user in NZ who was experiencing the slow display problem. They looked at the site with Chrome, Firefox and IE. The site would only display on IE. When the developer removed the google analytics code, the site displayed fine on all browsers for the NZ user. We are waiting for users in the USA to wake up and test the site.
So the problem definitely is related to the ga code and the responsive layout that was done by me in DW2014.1 fluid grid layout. So the related problem of DW2014.1 not being able to load htm files with ga code in them looks to be a good clue to what is going on here.
As there was a bug report for DW2014.1 and google analytics code made in the other thread, I would be interested to know if that was ever solved.
It is interesting that you are pushing Bootstrap and Foundation on me. (Big square websites here I come! lol)
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Add a link to jQuery's Latest Library to your document <head> tags.
<script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.min.js"></script>
Add the jQuery function code to <script> tags in your document. I typically put them right above the closing </body> tag.
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Green highlight when working with Fluid Grid Layout Div tags

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Dreamweaver CS6
Mac OSX 10.8.2
THANK YOU!!

Brian McNay wrote:
the green highlight sometimes disappears when modifying the width property of the div. My question is what does this signify?
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Paula Jo Nyman

I have the same Issue, I have been trying to get it resolved for a while now, but the live customer support is terrible, I feel like they don't read the initial question and it frustrates me how I am constantly asked questions about my question that is CLEARLY covered in the initial Question. I Have been on hold on the phone for some time now, if I get this resolved I will post an answer. It does disgust me how adobe are slowly parring the technical support over to its users.

Need help with Fluid Grid Layout and variable column balance.

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Any help on fixing this?
Example at: https://music2help.thoughtburst.net/
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Love the fluid grid layout, but I need a way to make it behave decently with backgrounds/borders. Any help would be hugely appreciated!
Thanks!
mark->

I tried the solution Nancy posted. It altered things, but doesn't seem to do the trick.
Just some quick background. I did HTML from 1994 through about five years ago by hand in vi on *nix systems. I learned HTML through 4.01, and never bothered with XHTML at all. I learned CSS through most of CSS2. The CSS3 and HTML5 stuff is all new to me, but it can't be that hard. I'm not exactly a novice in JS (I've done a fair bit of AJAX programming), but it's not even close to my primary language (I'm a Perl guy).
I'm "stuck on" wanting to use Fluid Grid Layouts. It's billed as one of the selling points of DW CS6, and I really like the concept and results. I just want the results embellished a little, namely with sensible identical heights on grid containers set in the same row, so that you can apply background colours, dropshadows, and borders. That's really all I want to do that it doesn't already do.
I have a test page at: http://music2help.thoughtburst.net/ that you can try with your Quick Columns. I'd be interested to know if you can get it to work.
Here's the catch, though... Resize the browser, shrinking it inwards. (I suggest Firefox, as Chrome only shrinks so far, and you won't get to Mobile width.) As you can see, on a Tablet, one of the columns that should be equal height actually moves up a row and should be equal height with the row that, on a desktop, would take the entire width of the page area. So that's like a 4-up output in printing terms. At Mobile size, the entire thing is vertical, so none of the columns should be resized.
If your product works and can accomodate these conditions, I think I would be interested in spending the $35 it costs.
Let me know? Thanks!
EDIT: Changed URL to be non-SSL. The server has multiple vhosts on it, and I keep forgetting that I don't have a cert on this new one. Sorry about that. You can just add anything to one of the the three middle columns, if you're pulling it down to test.

PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF THIS IS POSSIBLE WITH FLUID GRID LAYOUT?

This is an example of what I'm trying to do. Excel was the best way for me to provide a visual. Is this possible? Every time I try to place divs in a similar layout, the div will not take up multiple rows. For example div 4 would move down and where row 7 is would now be row 4. Div 2 would have also moved down because of 5. I have a large image that needs to be placed to the left of a header and vertical menu. I'm trying to keep the header and menu seperate and the image needs to be aligned to the top left of the text. I'm sorry that I'm overcomplicating this. I must admit it surprises me that the fluid grid appears to be dictated by rows. I'm wondering if for this particular design I should just stick to a table.

I'm perplexing by your question. How do you expect the divs to move in other resolutions? For the question to be whether this is possible with a fluid grid there has to be some transformation between the layouts. If you are just looking for a static layout, that is possible. If the heights are to be fixed like that you could just specify the heights on the divs to make the height. If the divs are moving down then add the attribute clear:none; to the div, in this case 2 and 4. This will prevent the float from being cleared and pushing the element down.

CS6, Fluid Grid Layouts, and Spry Menu - sizing issues

Hi. I am a full-fledged nubie to Dreamweaver, so please forgive my ignorance. But I really need to build a new site, and I really like DW so far (much better than what I was using).
I am building a site with fluid grid layouts so it is properly sized across all decices. I have inserted a spry horizontal menu as my primary navigation. I got the menu to look like I want it as far as formatting goes.
But when I view the page live and change the size of my browser, the menu wraps around to the next row, even with fairly large browser windows.
Can anyone tell me how to scale the spry menu bar the same as an image does in a fluid grid layout?
Thanks,
Steven

Don't use Spry Menus. #1 they're not Responsive. #2 They don't work all that well on Touch Screen devices. #3 Adobe abandoned the Spry framework last year. Is that enough to convince you? See links below for alternatives.
Pop-Menu Magic2 by PVII (commercial DW Extension)
http://www.projectseven.com/products/menusystems/pmm2/index.htm
jQuery Superfish
http://users.tpg.com.au/j_birch/plugins/superfish/
jQuery Mega Menus http://www.javascriptkit.com/script/script2/jkmegamenu.shtml
CSS3 Dropdown Menus
http://www.red-team-design.com/css3-dropdown-menu
10 Responsive Menus
http://speckyboy.com/2012/08/29/10-responsive-navigation-solutions-and-tutorials/
Nancy O.

More insight on divs with fluid grids please!

Help me come further up the CS6 fluid grid learning curve, please!
I'm adapting an exiting site to fluid grids. After creating the template for the primary pages, I have two major issues at this point(yeah, only two, SO FAR).
1- I have a vertically expanding menu in the first layout div. For tablets, I want to preserve the left grid column space for the menu, regardless of its length, and all other content would use just the right gid columns. But when the menu happens to be short, the "excess" content floats left under the menu grid columns. How can I force main page content to only occupy the right grid columns, regardless of the length of the menu?
As a side point to the menu, what happens when I try to put this (or the footer) all back in an SSI, as it originally was?
2 - I've seen the note about no support for nested layout divs. Thru trial and error, I'm still trying to figure out just what this means. Pragmatically, what is the greater implication of this? Can format be controlled only on fluid grid layout divs? Can't I have divs inside of a grid layout div to control image palcement around the text for instance? I've had hit=n-miss experience with this so far.
Can anybody point me to a more in-depth discussion on this topic?
Sorry if this ol' dog seems like he's learning div layout all over again. But hey! That IS how it feels!
Thanks for any education, or pointers to such, that you can provide.

Not sure I completely understand what you want. But in this example, I have set nav and LayoutDivs 5, 6, 7 to display:none in smaller devices.
http://alt-web.com/FluidGrid/Fluid2.html
I did this inside a media query within my Content.css file:
/* Special Rules for Mobiles. */
@media only screen and (max-width: 480px) {
   /**hide some divs**/
     nav, #LayoutDiv5, #LayoutDiv6, #LayoutDiv7 { display: none }
     /**show jQuery buttons**/
     #togglenav { display: block }
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Then I used a simple jQuery toggle to show/hide divs.
http://jsfiddle.net/NancyO/AP9Hm/
Nancy O.

How to increase the width of the Fluid Grid Layout from 1008px to 1080px?

Good day all, I'm experiencing a slight problem with Fluid Grid Layout in Dreamweaver CS6. I want to increase it's width so that it could be one with my Photoshop CS6 design (which is 1080px), the problem is that I can't as I am limited to 1008px. How do I increase the width? I ultimately am re-coding my design as my client demanded a responsive design but I'm clueless in that avenue which is why I resorted to re-doing everything under the set & safe default (Fluid Grid Layout) that doesn't require me to udnderstand media queries at an expert level.

While Fluid Grid Layout can save you some production time, you still need a good understanding of CSS Media Queries to use it.
Introduction to CSS Media Queries
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/introducing-media-que ries.html
CS6 Fluid Grid Layouts (6 min video)
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/digital-design-cs6/creating-adaptive-designs -using-fluid-grid-layouts-in-dreamweaver-cs6/
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http://tv.adobe.com/watch/learn-dreamweaver-cs6/using-fluid-grid-layou ts/
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http://www.adobe.com/inspire/2012/08/fluid-grid-layouts-dreamweaver-cs 6.html
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Nancy O.

Sticky footer in Fluid Grid layouts (was: sticky footer)

Is there a simple solution to putting a sticky footer on the bottom of a page (not fixed on the bottom of the screen) that actually works with fluid grid layouts? I've looked at several options but nothing seems to work in all browsers commonly in use; both mobile and desktop.

Short answer: No.
Browser hacks usually cause other unwanted problems so not a good option. Fixed positioning works in most browsers but will fail in some older mobile devices (Android 2.1, pre-iOS5, Opera Mini, Windows Phone 7). See below for a full list of supporting mobile devices.
Fixed Positioning in Mobile Browsers | Brad Frost Web
Nancy O.

Cs6 fluid grid layout wide-screen resolution issue

Hi all, I've done some poking around but have not found anything that answers this question - if I missed something please pass me the link!
So I'm doing a new site in cs6 with fluid grid layouts. It's fine in terms of screen sizes, that is, small medium large, but different resolutions make the content appear differently. Specifically on desktop size screens with wide-screen resolutions (eg 1600X1200) the content is squeezed up towards the top of the page. The background image is fine on all resolutions - fills the screen - but the content on top changes according to the resolution. On my screen (1600X900) there's a nice distribution of content vertically. Is there any way to make it so that the content adjusts for resolution, not just size? Thanks in advance.

What I'd like is for the widescreen view not to change the vertical distribution. That is, on my screen the content fills about 3/4 of the screen, which looks fine. On widescreen resolution, it barely covers 2/3 and it looks top-heavy - users I've asked with widescreen resolutions have said "it looks squished towards the top, why don't you move it down?". I guess I don't understand, if height as well as width is determined in percentage, why this happens (that lack of understanding could reveal my fundamental lack of understanding of aspect ratio/mathematics in general ).
I suppose I could give a bigger margin at the top to move the content down the page in all cases, but on my screen, not widescreen, that's not ideal. And I'm hoping there's a way to adjust for widescreen without affecting all resolutions.

CSS rules in fluid grid layout?

Hello there
I been working with fluid grid layout and when i set up a page i see in the CSS panel under page.css i have 3 CSS rules for header or content CSS panel for the divs i have set up! Now if i have 3 header CSS rule do i just edit one off them or all off them please? Or is the top one you need to edit in the CSS in the panel you need to edit if just one off them?
I am using Dreamweaver CS6
Look forward to hearing from you.
Thank
Brian

See this FGLayout example. View source to see the code.
Alt-Web :: Fluid Grid Test #4
These are the style sheets I used:
Responsive layout
http://alt-web.com/FluidGrid/FluidGrid.css
My custom content styles
http://alt-web.com/FluidGrid/Content-4.css
Nancy O.

Is it possible to use HTML5 tags within fluid grid layouts?

Hello,
I want to build my future websites with fluid grid layouts and Dreamweaver CS6 but I don't find any help by searching the internet how I could use the HTML5 tags like "header" "nav" "footer" etc. within the fluid grid layouts automaticly. If I do anything manually it's more error-prone. Or is just the best way to stay with the "normal" div-tags???
Thank you in advance, best regards ... Björn

Those tags are equal to a normal DIV and can be used just the same, they are just not built into CS6.
Mylenium

Background Images in Fluid Grid Layouts

How can I get the background image that I assign to a fluid grid layout div to fill up 100% of the grid space and at the same time size the background to the fluid boundaries of the div the same way as if I had placed an image into the div? Currently, the background image lays in the grid at the pixal size of the background picture with only the portion of the background showing commenserate withthe size of the div contents. I use CS6.
Thank you.

In your CSS Styles menu, if you double click on the layout div you are working on or the grid container, you will find that the image will show if you hit the return key. If you create a table bigger than the div tag or grid container, it will automatically resize and you be able to see your image. Thats a couple of cheat ways so you can see your image when you work and when you publish.
It just means you will have several of this code: <p> </p>
The image will only show the width and the height of layout div that you are working in.
I have been able to place one fluid grid layout div tag inside on another, although I find that if I make this a template file, the template tends to break over time. Not sure it that's because I am giving Dreamweaver a headache with multiple fluid grid layout div tags inside each other.
The most I have done: 1st level grid container, 2nd level inside grid container were layout div for spry collapse panel menus, 3rd level inside layout div for spry collapse panel menus were sub menus.
I have tried placing one image in the background of the grid container and then another image over the top in a fluid grid layout div tag. The reason why they move is because of the fixed/scroll option inside the CSS style. I found that when publishing, certain browsers shift both images either up or down. This can be a problem, especially if you create an image with a white box and try to align the second image up inside.
It probably can be done, and I spent months hand coding and playing with the file. IE8 is a problem and I have added extra code which I found online. Firefox tends to move things on Windows platform, but MAC is not as bad. Safari and Chrome tends to work better with fluid grid layouts. There is an option for the early versions of browsers so they can recognise things.
To resize everything when in tablet and mobile, I found tablet grid container/layout div tage size 80-90% and mobile to 40-50% grid container/layout div tage size.
Hope this helps

Adapt existing web site with fluid grid layout

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