Problem with tables

[AlineH]

Aloha,

I imported my websites from NOF MX to 2013 and the tables have extra spaces that I don't seem to be able to get rid of. They only show up when the page is previewed/published.

The page is supposed to look like this: www.awesomeoahu.com/savannahs_cabana.html but when I publish from NOF 2013 it looks like this: www.awesomeoahu.com/hale_ainoni.html (look at the forms at the bottom of the page to see most clearly what is happening).

I understand that this has happened because I opened a site created in MX in NOF 2013 (I was unable to install MX on my new computer with Windows 8 and export the site as a template) but I'm hoping there is a way of editing the tables so that these extra spaces are not created?

Can anyone help?

[franko]

Download and install VMware. Create a virtual machine and install whatever OS you were using with MX (probably win2000, possibly XP) and then install MX into the virtual machine. You will then be able to open the original .nod file and export as a template. Whether you keep the virtual machine afterwards is up to you; I do because I still have 8-bit applications that I want to run. Once you have a template you can open it in 2013 in the normal New Site From Template way.

[AlineH]

Thanks Franko but that sounds a bit daunting to me. Good to know I have that option though.

Is there really no way to fix the tables without doing that?

[franko]

It's always best to migrate via template export/import especially when you're migrating from such an old version as MX. The whole structure of windows was very different then. You could simply rebuild the affected pages from scratch; depends how many of them there are. Often rebuilding is quicker than trying to solve problems that come from opening old sites directly, especially as a site created in MX will us complex embedded tables for positioning as opposed to much cleaner CSS. With a site this old, rebuilding may well be your best option.

[AlineH]

It's always best to migrate via template export/import especially when you're migrating from such an old version as MX. The whole structure of windows was very different then. You could simply rebuild the affected pages from scratch; depends how many of them there are. Often rebuilding is quicker than trying to solve problems that come from opening old sites directly, especially as a site created in MX will us complex embedded tables for positioning as opposed to much cleaner CSS. With a site this old, rebuilding may well be your best option.

It's not a massive site so I could rebuild (ugh, if I can find the time). I tried re-creating tables but they still looked 'wrong' in preview mode so I'm guessing you mean starting out with an entirely new site, not just re-doing the content of the pages?

[franko]

Yes, redoing from scratch. There will be too much deprecated code left over by simply updating the content. MX was just too long ago.

[AlineH]

I also contacted NOF support and they asked me what the HTML output setting is for the layout, so now I am wondering if this makes a difference?

What should it be?

Thanks,
Aline

[franko]

Ideally html 5 or html 5 dynamic, but web sites created using html 4.01 and 4.01 with tables will be interpreted by all modern browsers. html 5 and html 4.01 use fixed positioning. If you're using these you could try shifting the output for those pages to dynamic positioning (html 5 dynamic or html 4.01 with tables or xhtml) and that may make it better. My comments about deprecated code above still stand, though. It may solve your problem in the short term but in the longer term (in web terms <= 12 months) it will cause more problems. Better to bite the bullet now, IMHO.

[AlineH]

Hi Franko, I definitely hear you re deprecated code and am planning on re-doing my websites from scratch within the next year. I now realize that the (minor) problems I was already having in MX were because I simply opened them up from an earlier version Also no doubt why NOF regularly crashes and closes
At this point in my life I wish I could hire someone to maintain websites (and do my book-keeping and taxes for the two small business I have)!
Bit your help has been invaluable...

[franko]

Well, I can't help with the book-keeping and taxes but I do do project work in NoF.