SPD is showing sharepoint site as regular web site

Question

I am trying to open a sharepoint site with Sharepoint designer 2007 (locally) in order to create some custom workflows. However, for some reason this site will not open as a Sharepoint site. All of the document libraries are displayed as regular folders and all of the workflow options are missing in the menu. This happens at random for all site collections and subsites but there are some subsites that this ALWAYS happens on. I there anyway to ensure the sites always open properly?

Update: Proper site Improper site

Answer 1

have you followed this simple guide

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-designer-help/open-a-sharepoint-site-HA010131345.aspx

and

http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1751649&seqNum=3

Answer 2

As stated I was connecting to the sharepoint site using SPD installed locally on my workstation. I now have remote access to SPD installed within the server farm. This seemed to have solved the problem. I'm sure the best bet would be to use SPD directly on the server where you can use internal URL's (http://mysite/) as apposed to being forced to use external (https://site.com). However for my situation being within the same LAN is working fine.

If anyone else finds another way to ensure consistency please add.