Macromedia DREAMWEAVER 8 User Manual

Getting Started with Dreamweaver

Trademarks

1 Step RoboPDF, ActiveEdit, ActiveTest, Authorware, Blue Sky Software, Blue Sky, Breeze, Breezo, Captivate, Central, ColdFusion, Contribute, Database Explorer, Director, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, FlashCast, FlashHelp, Flash Lite, FlashPaper, Flex, Flex Builder, Fontographer, FreeHand, Generator, HomeSite, JRun, MacRecorder, Macromedia, MXML, RoboEngine, RoboHelp, RoboInfo, RoboPDF, Roundtrip, Roundtrip HTML, Shockwave, SoundEdit, Studio MX, UltraDev, and WebHelp are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Macromedia, Inc. and may be registered in the United States or in other jurisdictions including internationally. Other product names, logos, designs, titles, words, or phrases mentioned within this publication may be trademarks, service marks, or trade names of Macromedia, Inc. or other entities and may be registered in certain jurisdictions including internationally.

Third-Party Information

This guide contains links to third-party websites that are not under the control of Macromedia, and Macromedia is not responsible for the content on any linked site. If you access a third-party website mentioned in this guide, then you do so at your own risk. Macromedia provides these links only as a convenience, and the inclusion of the link does not imply that Macromedia endorses or accepts any responsibility for the content on those third-party sites.

Copyright © 1997-2005 Macromedia, Inc. All rights reserved. This manual may not be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated, or converted to any electronic or machine-readable form in whole or in part without written approval from Macromedia, Inc. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the owner or authorized user of a valid copy of the software with which this manual was provided may print out one copy of this manual from an electronic version of this manual for the sole purpose of such owner or authorized user learning to use such software, provided that no part of this manual may be printed out, reproduced, distributed, resold, or transmitted for any other purposes, including, without limitation, commercial purposes, such as selling copies of this documentation or providing paid-for support services. Part Number ZDW80M100

Acknowledgments

Management: Charles Nadeau

Writing: Jon Michael Varese

Editing: Rosana Francescato, Lisa Stanziano, Evelyn Eldridge, Mark Nigara

Production and Editing Management: Patrice O’Neill and Rosana Francescato

Media Design and Production: Adam Barnett, Aaron Begley, Paul Benkman, John Francis, Geeta Karmarkar, Paul Rangel, Arena Reed, Mario Reynoso

Localization Management: Melissa Baerwald

Special thanks to Sheila McGinn, Jennifer Rowe, Jay Armstrong, Sally Sadosky, Jennifer Taylor, Paul Gubbay, Melissa Baerwald, Masayo Noda, Kristin Conradi, Yuko Yagi, and the entire Dreamweaver engineering and QA teams.

First Edition: September 2005

Macromedia, Inc. 601 Townsend St.

San Francisco, CA 94103

PART 1: INTRODUCTION TO DREAMWEAVER

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

What you can do with Dreamweaver 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

What's new in Dreamweaver 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Installing Dreamweaver 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Registering Dreamweaver 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Typographical conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Chapter 1: Learning Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Where to start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Getting the most from the Dreamweaver documentation . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Using the Dreamweaver help system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Chapter 2: Dreamweaver Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27

Getting to know the Dreamweaver 8 workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27

Customizing the Dreamweaver 8 workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Accomplishing basic tasks in Dreamweaver 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

PART 2: TUTORIALS

Chapter 3: Tutorial: Setting Up Your Site and Project Files . . . 49

Learn about Dreamweaver sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Set up your project files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Define a local folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Chapter 4: Tutorial: Creating a Table-based Page Layout . . . . 55

Examine the design comp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Create and save a new page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57

Insert tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Set table properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Insert an image placeholder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .67

Add color to the page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Chapter 5: Tutorial: Adding Content to Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Locate your files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Review your task . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Insert images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Insert and play a Flash file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Insert Flash Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Insert text. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Create links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .94

Preview your page in a browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .96

Chapter 6: Tutorial: Formatting Your Page with CSS . . . . . . . . .99

Locate your files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Review your task . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101

Learn about CSS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Create a new style sheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Attach a style sheet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Explore the CSS Styles panel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Create a new CSS rule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Apply a class style to text. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113

Format the navigation bar text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .114

(Optional) Center the contents of the page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Chapter 7: Tutorial: Publishing Your Site. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Learn about remote sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Define a remote folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

Upload your local files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

Troubleshoot the remote folder setup (optional) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

PART 3: ADVANCED TUTORIALS

Chapter 8: Tutorial: Working with Code. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Look at the code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

Switch to the coding workspace (Windows only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

Add a tag with the Tag Chooser. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

Edit a tag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Look up information about a tag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

Add an image with code hints. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

Check your changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .151

Print your code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

4Contents

Chapter 9: Tutorial: Creating a CSS-based Page Layout . . . . . 153

Learn about CSS-based page layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .153

Examine the design comp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .154

Create and save a new page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .156

Insert layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Add color to the page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Chapter 10: Tutorial: Displaying XML Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Locate your files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

Review your task. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Learn about using XML and XSL with web pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

Learn about XSLT pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Convert an HTML page to an XSLT page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

Attach an XML data source to the XSLT page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .180

Alter the XSLT page layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

Bind XML data to the XSLT page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .183

Apply styles to the XML data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .185

Create a dynamic link . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .186

Add a Repeat Region XSLT object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .188

Attach the XSLT page to the XML page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

Learn about other deployment options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .194

Chapter 11: Tutorial: Developing a Web Application . . . . . . . . . . 197

Before you begin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .198

Review your task. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .198

Open a document to work in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

Define a recordset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .201

Display the database records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

Add dynamic fields to the table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

Set a repeated region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

View your page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

Create a record insert form. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

Copy files to the server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .214

Further reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .214

Contents 5

PART 4: APPENDICES

Appendix A: Understanding Web Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

About web applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

How a web application works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

Authoring dynamic pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .224

Choosing a server technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .226

Web application terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .227

Appendix B: Installing a Web Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

Getting started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

Installing Internet Information Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .232

Testing IIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .233

Testing the Macintosh web server (PHP developers). . . . . . . . . . . . .233

Web server basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .234

Appendix C: Setup for Sample ColdFusion Site . . . . . . . . . . . . .237

Setup checklists for ColdFusion developers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .237

Configuring your system (ColdFusion) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .238

Defining a Dreamweaver site (ColdFusion). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244

Connecting to the sample database (ColdFusion). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250

Appendix D: Setup for Sample ASP.NET Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

Setup checklists for ASP.NET developers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .255

Configuring your system (ASP.NET) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .256

Defining a Dreamweaver site (ASP.NET) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260

Connecting to the sample database (ASP.NET) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .265

Appendix E: Setup for Sample ASP Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

Setup checklists for ASP developers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .269

Configuring your system (ASP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .270

Defining a Dreamweaver site (ASP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .275

Connecting to the sample database (ASP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280

Appendix F: Setup for Sample JSP Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

Setup checklists for JSP developers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .285

Configuring your system (JSP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .286

Defining a Dreamweaver site (JSP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290

Connecting to the sample database (JSP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

6Contents

Appendix G: Setup for Sample PHP Site. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

Setup checklists for PHP developers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

Configuring your system (PHP). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

Defining a Dreamweaver site (PHP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

Connecting to the sample database (PHP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .315

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

Contents 7

8Contents

PART 1

Introduction to Dreamweaver

Part One of this book introduces you to Macromedia Dreamweaver 8, and includes installation information and a workspace overview. It also provides a list of available resources for learning Dreamweaver.

This part contains the following sections:

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

Learning Dreamweaver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Dreamweaver Basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27

Introduction

Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 is a professional HTML editor for designing, coding, and developing websites, web pages, and web applications. Whether you enjoy the control of hand-coding HTML, or prefer to work in a visual editing environment, Dreamweaver provides you with helpful tools to enhance your web creation experience.

This guide introduces you to using Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 if you’re unfamiliar with any major aspect of it.The tutorials in this guide lead you through the process of creating a simple but functional website.

This chapter covers the following topics:

What you can do with Dreamweaver 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

What's new in Dreamweaver 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Installing Dreamweaver 8. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Registering Dreamweaver 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Typographical conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

What you can do with Dreamweaver 8

The visual editing features in Dreamweaver let you quickly create web pages without writing a line of code. You can view all your site elements or assets and drag them from an easy-to-use panel directly into a document. You can streamline your development workflow by creating and editing images in Macromedia Fireworks or another graphics application, and then import them directly into Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver also provides tools that make it easy to add Flash assets to web pages.

In addition to drag-and-drop features that help you build web pages, Dreamweaver provides a full-featured coding environment that includes code-editing tools (such as code coloring, tag completion, a coding toolbar, and code collapse) and language reference material on Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), JavaScript, ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML), and other languages. Macromedia Roundtrip HTML technology imports your hand-coded HTML documents without reformatting the code; you can then reformat code with your preferred formatting style.

Dreamweaver also lets you build dynamic, database-driven web applications using server technologies such as CFML, ASP.NET, ASP, JSP, and PHP. If your preference is for working with XML data, Dreamweaver provides tools that let you easily create XSLT pages, attach XML files, and display XML data on your web pages.

Dreamweaver is fully customizable. You can create your own objects and commands, modify keyboard shortcuts, and even write JavaScript code to extend Dreamweaver capabilities with new behaviors, Property inspectors, and site reports.

For more information on the resources available for learning Dreamweaver, see Chapter 1, “Learning Dreamweaver,” on page 15.

What's new in Dreamweaver 8

12 Introduction

Dreamweaver 8 includes many new features that help you build websites and applications with a minimal amount of time and effort. Dreamweaver makes complex technologies simple and accessible, helping you accomplish more in less time.

Following are a few of the key new features in Dreamweaver 8:

■ Zoom tool and guides

■ Visual XML data binding

■ New CSS Styles panel

■ CSS layout visualization

■ Code collapse

■ Coding toolbar

■ Background file transfer

■ Insert Flash Video command

For a complete list and description of new features in Dreamweaver 8, see “What’s new in Dreamweaver 8” in Using Dreamweaver (Help > Using Dreamweaver).

Installing Dreamweaver 8

This section explains how to install Dreamweaver.

Be sure to read the release notes on the Macromedia website at

www.macromedia.com/go/dw_documentation for late-breaking

information or instructions.

To install Dreamweaver:

1. Insert the Dreamweaver CD into your computer’s CD-ROM drive.

2. Do one of the following:

■ In Windows, the Dreamweaver installation program starts

automatically.

■ In Macintosh, double-click the Dreamweaver installer icon that

appears on the desktop.

3. Follow the onscreen instructions.

The installation program prompts you to enter the required information.

4. If prompted to do so, restart your computer.

Registering Dreamweaver 8

To get additional Macromedia support, it’s a good idea to register your copy of Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 electronically or by mail.

When you register, you can sign up to receive up-to-the-minute notices about upgrades and new Macromedia products. You can also sign up for timely e-mail notices about product updates and new content appearing on both the www.macromedia.com and the www-euro.macromedia.com websites.

Registering Dreamweaver 8 13

To register Macromedia Dreamweaver 8, do one of the following:

■ Select Help > Online Registration and fill out the electronic form.

■ Select Help > Print Registration, print the form, and mail it to the

address shown on the form.

Typographical conventions

The following typographical conventions are used in this guide:

■ Menu items are shown in this format: menu name > menu item name.

Items in submenus are shown in this format: menu name > submenu name > menu item name.

■ Code font indicates HTML tag and attribute names as well as literal

text used in examples.

■ Italic code font indicates replaceable items (sometimes called

metasymbols) in code.

■ Bold roman text indicates text that you enter verbatim.

14 Introduction

CHAPTER 1

Learning Dreamweaver

Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 includes a variety of resources to help you learn the program quickly and become proficient in creating your own web pages. All of the Dreamweaver documentation is available in both electronic help and PDF format.

This chapter contains the following topics:

Where to start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Getting the most from the Dreamweaver documentation. . . . . . . 19

Using the Dreamweaver help system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Where to start

The Dreamweaver documentation includes information for readers from a variety of backgrounds. This section helps you understand how to approach the documentation, depending on what your background is, and what you want to accomplish with Dreamweaver.

This section covers the following topics:

■ “Web-design novices” on page 15

■ “Experienced web designers” on page 16

■ “Experienced hand-coders” on page 18

■ “Web application developers” on page 18

Web-design novices

If you are relatively new to web design, this section will point you to sections of the Dreamweaver documentation that are most appropriate for your background.

For web-design novices:

1. Begin by reading Chapter 2, “Dreamweaver Basics,” on page 27. Then

continue by doing the tutorials in this book. The tutorials are divided into two sections. The first five tutorials are for beginners, and take you through the process of developing a small but functional website from start to finish. The second section of tutorials introduces you to more advanced concepts. You might want to wait to do the more advanced tutorials until you’ve developed some experience building web pages.

2. In Using Dreamweaver (Help > Using Dreamweaver), you get a more

comprehensive idea of what you learned in this Getting Started with Dreamweaver guide by reading Chapter 1, “Exploring the Workspace,”

Chapter 2, “Setting Up a Dreamweaver Site,” Chapter 3, “Creating and Opening Documents” and Chapter 4, “Managing Your Files,”.

3. Learn about page layout by reading Chapter 7, “Laying Out Pages with

CSS,” and Chapter 8, “Presenting Content with Tables” in Using Dreamweaver.

4. To learn about formatting text and including images in your pages, read

Chapter 13, “Inserting and Formatting Text,” and Chapter 14, “Inserting Images” in Using Dreamweaver.

5. That’s all you really need to begin producing high-quality websites, but

when you’re ready to learn how to use more advanced tools, you can proceed through the rest of the static-page chapters in Using Dreamweaver. You might want to wait to read the dynamic-page chapters until you’re more familiar with creating web pages.

16 Learning Dreamweaver

Experienced web designers

If you are an experienced web designer, this section will point you to sections of the Dreamweaver documentation that are most appropriate for your background. There are two different approaches: one for designers who are new to Dreamweaver and one for designers who are familiar with Dreamweaver but would like to learn more about creating dynamic pages.

For experienced web designers who are new to Dreamweaver:

1. Begin by reading the tutorials in this Getting Started with Dreamweaver

guide.

2. In Using Dreamweaver (Help > Using Dreamweaver), read Chapter 1,

“Exploring the Workspace” to learn more about the Dreamweaver user interface.

3. Although much of the material in Chapter 2, “Setting Up a

Dreamweaver Site” and Chapter 4, “Managing Your Files” is probably familiar to you, skim those chapters to see how these familiar concepts are implemented in Dreamweaver. Pay particular attention to the sections about setting up a Dreamweaver site.

4. For useful information on the details of using Dreamweaver to create

basic HTML pages, read Chapter 13, “Inserting and Formatting Text” and Chapter 14, “Inserting Images”.

5. For information about coding in Dreamweaver, see Chapter 19,

“Setting Up Your Coding Environment,” Chapter 20, “Coding in Dreamweaver,” Chapter 21, “Optimizing and Debugging Your Code,” and Chapter 22, “Editing Code in Design View”.

6. Read the overview at the beginning of each of the other chapters in

Using Dreamweaver to determine whether its topics are of interest to you.

For experienced web designers, familiar with Dreamweaver, who want to learn about creating dynamic pages:

1. Begin by reading Appendix A, “Understanding Web Applications,” on

page 217 and Chapter 11, “Tutorial: Developing a Web Application,” on page 197.

2. In Using Dreamweaver (Help > Using Dreamweaver), skim Chapter 1,

“Exploring the Workspace” to learn about new aspects of the Dreamweaver user interface, and then read Chapter 30, “Optimizing the Workspace for Visual Development”.

3. Become familiar with the Dreamweaver workflow for dynamic pages by

reading Chapter 31, “The Workflow for Dynamic Page Design”.

4. Set up a web server and application server. (See Chapter 23, “Setting Up

a Web Application”.)

Where to start 17

5. Connect to a database. (See “Connecting to a database” in Chapter 23,

“Setting Up a Web Application”.)

6. Read the overview at the beginning of each chapter in Using

Dreamweaver to determine whether its topics are of interest to you.

Experienced hand-coders

If you are an experienced hand-coder, this section will point you to sections of the Dreamweaver documentation that are most appropriate for your background.

For experienced hand-coders:

1. Begin by reading Chapter 8, “Tutorial: Working with Code” in this

Getting Started with Dreamweaver guide.

2. In Using Dreamweaver (Help > Using Dreamweaver), read Chapter 1,

“Exploring the Workspace” to learn more about the Dreamweaver user interface.

3. Although much of the material in Chapter 2, “Setting Up a

4. Read more about coding with Dreamweaver in Chapter 19, “Setting Up

Your Coding Environment,” Chapter 20, “Coding in Dreamweaver,” Chapter 21, “Optimizing and Debugging Your Code,” and Chapter 22, “Editing Code in Design View”.

5. Read the overview at the beginning of each chapter in Using

Dreamweaver to determine whether its topics are of interest to you.

18 Learning Dreamweaver

Web application developers

If you are a web application developer, this section will point you to sections of the Dreamweaver documentation that are most appropriate for your background. There are two different approaches, depending on whether you’ve used Dreamweaver before.

For web application developers who have not used Dreamweaver:

1. Begin by quickly reading this Getting Started with Dreamweaver guide to

familiarize yourself with the basics of using Dreamweaver.

2. In Using Dreamweaver (Help > Using Dreamweaver), read Chapter 1,

“Exploring the Workspace” to learn more about the Dreamweaver user interface.

3. Although much of the material in Chapter 2, “Setting Up a

4. Set up a web server and application server using Dreamweaver. (See

Chapter 23, “Setting Up a Web Application”.)

5. Connect to a database. (See “Connecting to a database” in Chapter 23,

“Setting Up a Web Application”.)

6. Read the overview at the beginning of each of the chapter in Using

Dreamweaver to determine whether its topics are of interest to you.

For experienced web application developers who have used Dreamweaver:

1. Begin by reading “What’s new in Dreamweaver 8” in Using

Dreamweaver (Help > Using Dreamweaver). The “What’s new” section is in “Introduction”.

2. Skim Chapter 1, “Exploring the Workspace” to learn about new aspects

of the Dreamweaver user interface.

Getting the most from the Dreamweaver documentation

Dreamweaver includes a variety of media to help you learn the program

quickly and become proficient in creating web pages. The Dreamweaver help system includes several documents that help you learn about Dreamweaver, Dreamweaver Extensibility, and ColdFusion. You can also consult a number of additional online resources as you learn how to build web pages.

Getting the most from the Dreamweaver documentation 19

Accessing the Dreamweaver documentation

The following table summarizes the documentation included in the Dreamweaver help system.

You can purchase printed versions of select titles. For more information, see www.macromedia.com/go/buy_books.

Title Description/

Audience

Getting Started with Dreamweaver

Using Dreamweaver

Basic introduction to Dreamweaver concepts and the interface, with detailed beginner tutorials. Intended for beginning users, as well as intermediate and advanced users who want to learn about new features.

Comprehensive information about all Dreamweaver features. Intended for all Dreamweaver users.

Where to Find It

• View in Dreamweaver: Select Help > Getting Started with Dreamweaver

• View online: http://

livedocs.macromedia.com/go/ livedocs_dreamweaver/

• Get the PDF:

www.macromedia.com/go/ dw_documentation

• View in Dreamweaver: Select Help > Dreamweaver Help, or Help > Using Dreamweaver

• View online: http://

livedocs.macromedia.com/go/ livedocs_dreamweaver/

• Get the PDF:

www.macromedia.com/go/ dw_documentation

20 Learning Dreamweaver

Title Description/

Audience

Extending Dreamweaver

Dreamweaver API Reference

Description of the Dreamweaver framework and application programming interface (API). Intended for advanced users who want to build extensions or customize the Dreamweaver interface.

Descriptions of the utility API and the JavaScript API, both of which let you perform various supporting tasks when developing Dreamweaver extensions. Intended for advanced users who want to build extensions or customize the Dreamweaver interface.

Where to Find It

• View in Dreamweaver: Select Help > Extending Dreamweaver

• View online: http://

livedocs.macromedia.com/go/ livedocs_dreamweaver/

• Get the PDF:

www.macromedia.com/go/ dw_documentation

• View in Dreamweaver: Select Help > Dreamweaver API Reference

• View online: http://

livedocs.macromedia.com/go/ livedocs_dreamweaver/

• Get the PDF:

www.macromedia.com/go/ dw_documentation

Getting the most from the Dreamweaver documentation 21

Title Description/

Audience

Using ColdFusion A selection of the

most important books in the ColdFusion documentation set. (The full set is available on LiveDocs.) Intended for anyone interested in ColdFusion, from beginners to advanced developers.

Reference HTML, server

model, and other types of reference manuals, mainly published by O’Reilly. Intended for anyone needing more information about coding syntax, concepts, and so on.

Where to Find It

• View in Dreamweaver: Select Help > Using ColdFusion

• View online: http://

livedocs.macromedia.com/go/ livedocs_coldfusion/

• Get the PDF:

www.macromedia.com/go/ cf_documentation

• View in Dreamweaver: Select Help > Reference. For a full list of manuals, click the Book pop-up menu in the Reference panel.

22 Learning Dreamweaver

Accessing additional online Dreamweaver resources

The following table summarizes additional online resources for learning Dreamweaver.

Resource Description/

Audience

Dreamweaver Support Center

Dreamweaver Developer Center

Dreamweaver Documentation Resource Center

Macromedia Online Forums

Macromedia Training

TechNotes, plus support and problem-solving information for Dreamweaver users.

Articles and tutorials to help you improve your skills and learn new ones.

Product manuals in PDF format, errata, tutorials, and release notes.

Discussion and problem-solving information by Dreamweaver users, technical support representatives, and the Dreamweaver development team.

Courses featuring hands-on tasks and real-world scenarios.

Where to Find It

www.macromedia.com/go/ dreamweaver_support

www.macromedia.com/go/ dreamweaver_devcenter

www.macromedia.com/go/ dw_documentation

www.macromedia.com/go/ dreamweaver_newsgroup

www.macromedia.com/go/ dreamweaver_training

Getting the most from the Dreamweaver documentation 23

Using the Dreamweaver help system

The online help system available in the Help menu provides detailed information on all tasks you can perform with Dreamweaver. To see a list of documents available in Help, see “Accessing the Dreamweaver

documentation” on page 20.

This section covers the following topics:

■ “Opening Help” on page 24

■ “Searching help” on page 24

■ “Using the index” on page 25

■ “Changing the font size” on page 25

■ “Using the Start Page” on page 25

■ “Printing the Dreamweaver Documentation” on page 26

■ “Discussing the Dreamweaver documentation with LiveDocs”

on page 26

Opening Help

You can access in-product help while you work in Dreamweaver.

To open Dreamweaver Help:

■ Select Help > Dreamweaver Help.

TIP

To search for a specific phrase, enclose it in double quotes.

24 Learning Dreamweaver

Searching help

You can do a full text search of Dreamweaver Help.

To search in-product help (Windows):

1. In Dreamweaver Help, click the Search tab.

2. Type a word or phrase in the text box, and then click List Topics.

3. Double-click a topic in the list of results to display it.

To search in-product help (Macintosh):

1. In Dreamweaver Help, type a word or phrase in the Ask a Question text

box, and then press Enter.

2. Double-click a topic in the list of results to display it.

Using the index

You can find information quickly with the index.

To use the index (Windows):

1. In Dreamweaver Help, click the Index tab.

2. Scroll to an index entry in the alphabetized list and double-click it to

display the indexed information.

To use the index (Macintosh):

1. In Dreamweaver Help, click the Index link in the table of contents.

2. Click a letter and scroll to an index entry in the list.

3. Click a number beside the entry to display the indexed information.

Changing the font size

You can change the size of the font used by the help system.

To change the font size in the Windows help viewer:

1. Open Internet Explorer.

The font size in the Windows help viewer is set in Internet Explorer.

2. Select View > Text Size, and then select a size.

To change the font size in the Apple help viewer:

■ In help, select Edit > Decrease Font Size, or Edit > Increase Font Size.

TIP

You can start typing a keyword in the text box to quickly scroll to an index entry.

Using the Start Page

When you start Dreamweaver without opening a document, the Dreamweaver Start page appears in the work environment. The Start page gives you quick access to Dreamweaver tutorials, recent files, and Dreamweaver Exchange, where you can add new capabilities to some Dreamweaver features. Use the Start page much like a web page. Click any of the features you see to use them.

To disable the Start page:

1. Run Dreamweaver without opening a document.

The Start page is displayed.

2. Click Don’t Show Again.

Using the Dreamweaver help system 25

Printing the Dreamweaver Documentation

The following books are available in PDF format on the Macromedia website at www.macromedia.com/go/dw_documentation:

■ Using Dreamweaver

■ Getting Started with Dreamweaver

■ Extending Dreamweaver

■ Dreamweaver API Reference

You can print all or part of the PDF on your own printer or you can bring the PDF to a copy shop.

Discussing the Dreamweaver documentation with LiveDocs

The Dreamweaver documentation is also available online in LiveDocs format. The LiveDocs version of the Dreamweaver Help looks very similar to the in-product help, but it allows you to comment on the contents of individual help pages. You can add useful information on a specific Dreamweaver topic based on your own experience, or solicit advice from fellow Dreamweaver designers and developers.

The Dreamweaver LiveDocs are available at http://

livedocs.macromedia.com/go/livedocs_dreamweaver/

26 Learning Dreamweaver

CHAPTER 2

Dreamweaver Basics

To get the most out of your Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 experience, you should understand the basic elements of the Dreamweaver workspace. This chapter introduces you to the most important and commonly used workspace elements, and tells you how to accomplish some basic tasks in Dreamweaver.

This chapter contains the following sections:

Getting to know the Dreamweaver 8 workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Customizing the Dreamweaver 8 workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Accomplishing basic tasks in Dreamweaver 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Getting to know the Dreamweaver 8 workspace

The Dreamweaver workspace lets you view documents and object properties. The workspace also places many of the most common operations in toolbars so that you can quickly make changes to your documents.

This section is designed to give you an overview of the Dreamweaver 8 workspace. For more comprehensive information about any of the workspace elements introduced in this section, see Chapter 1, “Exploring the Workspace” in Using Dreamweaver.

This section contains the following topics:

■ “The workspace layout” on page 28

■ “The Document window” on page 30

■ “The Document toolbar” on page 30

■ “The status bar” on page 32

■ “The Insert bar” on page 33

Insert bar

■ “The Coding toolbar” on page 35

■ “The Property inspector” on page 36

■ “The Files panel” on page 37

■ “The CSS Styles panel” on page 38

The workspace layout

In Windows, Dreamweaver provides an all-in-one-window integrated layout. In the integrated workspace, all windows and panels are integrated into a single larger application window.

Document toolbar

Document window

Panel groups

28 Dreamweaver Basics

Files panelProperty inspectorTag selector

NOTE

The Windows workspace also has a Coder option, which docks the panel groups on the left side and displays the Document window in Code view by default. For more information, see “Using the coder-oriented workspace (Windows only)” in Using Dreamweaver. To use this option, see “Choosing the workspace layout (Windows only)” on page 39.

On the Macintosh, Dreamweaver can display multiple documents in a single window with tabs that identify each document. Dreamweaver can also appear as part of a floating workspace in which each document appears in its own individual window. Panel groups are initially docked together, but can be undocked into their own windows. Windows “snap” automatically to each other, to the sides of the screen, and to the Document window as you drag or resize them.

Document toolbar

Insert bar

Tag selector

Property inspector

Document window

Files panel

You can switch between different layouts in both Windows and Macintosh. For more information, see “Choosing the workspace layout

(Windows only)” on page 39, and “Displaying tabbed documents (Macintosh)” on page 40.

Panel groups

Getting to know the Dreamweaver 8 workspace 29

The Document window

The Document window shows the current document. You can select any of the following views:

Design view is a design environment for visual page layout, visual editing,

and rapid application development. In this view, Dreamweaver displays a fully editable, visual representation of the document, similar to what you would see viewing the page in a browser.

Code view is a hand-coding environment for writing and editing HTML,

JavaScript, server-language code—such as PHP or ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML)—and any other kind of code. For more information, see Chapter 20, “Coding in Dreamweaver” in Using Dreamweaver.

Code and Design view lets you view both Code view and Design view for

the same document in a single window.

When the Document window has a title bar, the title bar displays the page title and, in parentheses, the file’s path and filename. After the filename, Dreamweaver displays an asterisk if you’ve made changes that you haven’t saved yet.

When the Document window is maximized in the integrated workspace layout (Windows only), it has no title bar; in that case the page title and the file’s path and filename appear in the title bar of the main workspace window.

Additionally, when a Document window is maximized, tabs appear at the top of the Document window area showing the filenames of all open documents. To switch to a document, click its tab.

For more information about using the Document window, see Chapter 1, “Exploring the Workspace” in Using Dreamweaver.

30 Dreamweaver Basics

The Document toolbar

The Document toolbar contains buttons that let you toggle between different views of your document quickly: Code, Design, and a split view that shows both Code and Design view.

The toolbar also contains some common commands and options related to viewing the document and transferring it between the local and remote sites.

Show Code View

Show Code and Design Views

Show Design View

Server Debug

Document Title

No Browser/Check Errors

Validate Markup

File Management

View Options

Refresh Design View

Preview/Debug in Browser

The following options appear in the Document toolbar:

Show Code View displays only the Code view in the Document window.

Show Code and Design Views displays Code view in part of the

Document window and Design view in another part. When you select this combined view, the option Design View on Top becomes available in the View Options menu. Use this option to specify which view appears at the top of your Document window.

Show Design View displays only the Design view in the Document

window.

Server Debug displays a report to help you debug the current ColdFusion

page. The report includes errors, if any, in your page.

Document Title allows you to enter a title for your document, to be

displayed in the browser’s title bar. If your document already has a title, it appears in this field.

No Browser/Check Errors enables you to check cross-browser

compatibility.

Validate Markup lets you validate the current document or a selected tag.

File Management displays the File Management pop-up menu.

Preview/Debug in Browser allows you to preview or debug your

document in a browser. Select a browser from the pop-up menu.

Refresh Design View refreshes the document’s Design view after you

make changes in Code view. Changes you make in Code view don’t automatically appear in Design view until you perform certain actions, such as saving the file or clicking this button.

Visual Aids

Getting to know the Dreamweaver 8 workspace 31

View Options allows you to set options for Code view and Design view,

including which view should appear above the other. Options in the menu are for the current view: Design view, Code view, or both.

Visual Aids lets you use different visual aids to design your pages.

For more information about using the Document toolbar, see Chapter 1, “Exploring the Workspace” in Using Dreamweaver.

The status bar

The status bar at the bottom of the Document window provides additional information about the document you are creating.

Document size and estimated download time

Tag selector

Zoom tool

Hand tool

Select tool

Window Size pop-up menu

Set magnification

The tag selector shows the hierarchy of tags surrounding the current selection. Click any tag in the hierarchy to select that tag and all its contents. Click the

class or id attributes for a tag in the tag selector, right-click

<body> to select the entire body of the document. To set

(Windows) or Control-click (Macintosh) the tag and select a class or ID from the context menu. The tag selector is the preferable method for selecting tags because it ensures that you are always selecting the tag with accuracy.

The Hand tool lets you click the document and drag it in the Document window. Click the Select tool to disable the Hand tool.

The Zoom tool and Set Magnification pop-up menu let you set a magnification level for your document. For more information, see “Zooming in and out” in Using Dreamweaver.

32 Dreamweaver Basics

The Window Size pop-up menu (visible in Design view only) lets you resize the Document window to predetermined or custom dimensions. For more information, see “Resizing the Document window” in Using Dreamweaver.

To the right of the Window Size pop-up menu are the estimated document size and estimated download time for the page, including all dependent files such as images and other media files. For more information, see “Setting download time and size preferences” in Using Dreamweaver.

For more information about using the status bar, see Chapter 1, “Exploring the Workspace” in Using Dreamweaver.

The Insert bar

The Insert bar contains buttons for creating and inserting objects such as tables, layers, and images. When you roll the pointer over a button, a tooltip appears with the name of the button.

The buttons are organized into several categories, which you can switch on the left side of the Insert bar. Additional categories appear when the current document contains server code, such as ASP or CFML documents. When you start Dreamweaver, the category you were last working in opens.

Some categories have buttons with pop-up menus. When you select an option from a pop-up menu, it becomes the default action for the button. For example, if you select Image Placeholder from the Image button’s popup menu, the next time you click the Image button, Dreamweaver inserts an image placeholder. Anytime you select a new option from the pop-up menu, the default action for the button changes.

The Insert bar is organized in the following categories:

The Common category enables you to create and insert the most

commonly used objects, such as images and tables.

The Layout category enables you to insert tables, div tags, layers, and

frames. You can also you choose among three views of tables: Standard (default), Expanded Tables, and Layout. When Layout mode is selected, you can use the Dreamweaver layout tools: Draw Layout Cell and Draw Layout Table.

Getting to know the Dreamweaver 8 workspace 33

The Forms category contains buttons for creating forms and inserting

form elements.

The Text category enables you to insert a variety of text- and list-

formatting tags, such as

The HTML category enables you to insert HTML tags for horizontal

b, em, p, h1, and ul.

rules, head content, tables, frames, and scripts.

Server-code categories are available only for pages that use a particular

server language, including ASP, ASP.NET, CFML Basic, CFML Flow, CFML Advanced, JSP, and PHP. Each of these categories provides servercode objects that you can insert in Code view.

The Application category enables you to insert dynamic elements such as

recordsets, repeated regions, and record insertion and update forms.

The Flash elements category enables you to insert Macromedia Flash

elements.

The Favorites category enables you to group and organize the Insert bar

buttons you use the most in one common place.

For more information about using the Insert bar, see Chapter 1, “Exploring the Workspace” in Using Dreamweaver.

34 Dreamweaver Basics

The Coding toolbar

The Coding toolbar contains buttons that let you perform many standard coding operations, such as collapsing and expanding code selections, highlighting invalid code, applying and removing comments, indenting code, and inserting recently used code snippets. The Coding toolbar is visible only in Code view and appears vertically on the left side of the Document window.

You cannot undock or move the Coding toolbar, but you can hide it. For more information, see “Displaying toolbars” in Using Dreamweaver.

For more information about using the Coding toolbar, see “Inserting code quickly with the Coding toolbar” in Using Dreamweaver.

Getting to know the Dreamweaver 8 workspace 35

The Property inspector

The Property inspector lets you examine and edit the most common properties for the currently selected page element, such as text or an inserted object. The contents of the Property inspector vary depending on the element selected. For example, if you select an image on your page, the Property inspector changes to show properties for the image (such as the file path to the image, the width and height of the image, the border around the image, if any, and so on).

The Property inspector is at the bottom of the workspace by default, but you can dock it at the top of the workspace if you want. Or, you can make it a floating panel in the workspace. For more information about moving the Property inspector, see “Docking and undocking panels and panel groups” in Using Dreamweaver.

For more information about using the Property inspector, see “Using the Property inspector” in Using Dreamweaver.

36 Dreamweaver Basics

The Files panel

You use the Files panel to view and manage the files in your Dreamweaver site.

When you view sites, files, or folders in the Files panel, you can change the size of the viewing area, as well as expand or collapse the Files panel. When the Files panel is collapsed it displays the contents of the local site, the remote site, or the testing server as a list of files. When expanded, it displays the local site and either the remote site or testing server. The Files panel can also display a visual site map of the local site.

For Dreamweaver sites, you can also customize the Files panel by changing the view—either your local or remote site—that appears by default in the collapsed panel.

For more information about using the Files panel to manage your site, see Chapter 4, “Managing Your Files” in Using Dreamweaver.

Getting to know the Dreamweaver 8 workspace 37

The CSS Styles panel

The CSS Styles panel lets you track the CSS rules and properties affecting a currently selected page element (Current mode), or the rules and properties affecting an entire document (All mode). A toggle button at the top of the CSS Styles panel lets you switch between the two modes. The CSS Styles panel also lets you modify CSS properties in both All and Current mode.

38 Dreamweaver Basics

You can resize any of the panes by dragging the borders between the panes.

In Current mode, the CSS Styles panel displays three panes: a Summary for Selection pane that displays the CSS properties for the current selection in the document, a Rules pane that displays the location of selected properties (or a cascade of rules for the selected tag, depending on your selection), and a Properties pane that lets you edit CSS properties for the rule defining the selection.

In All mode, the CSS Styles panel displays two panes: an All Rules pane (on top), and a Properties pane (on bottom). The All Rules pane displays a list of rules defined in the current document as well as all rules defined in style sheets attached to the current document. The Properties pane lets you edit CSS properties for any selected rule in the All Rules pane.

Any changes you make in the Properties pane are applied immediately, letting you preview your work as you go.

For more information about the CSS Styles panel, see “About the CSS Styles panel” in Using Dreamweaver.

Customizing the Dreamweaver 8 workspace

There are some basic techniques you can use to customize Dreamweaver to suit your needs without knowing complex code or editing text files.

This section contains the following topics:

■ “Choosing the workspace layout (Windows only)” on page 39

■ “Displaying tabbed documents (Macintosh)” on page 40

■ “Hiding and displaying the Start page” on page 41

Choosing the workspace layout (Windows only)

In Windows, you can choose between the Designer and Coder workspace layouts. The first time you start Dreamweaver, a dialog box lets you choose a workspace layout. You can switch to a different workspace at any time.

Customizing the Dreamweaver 8 workspace 39

To choose a workspace layout the first time you start Dreamweaver:

1. Select one of the following layouts:

Designer is an integrated workspace using MDI (Multiple Document

Interface), in which all Document windows and panels are integrated into one larger application window, with the panel groups docked on the right.

Coder is the same integrated workspace, but with the panel groups

docked on the left, in a layout similar to that used by Macromedia HomeSite and Macromedia ColdFusion Studio, and with the Document window showing Code view by default.

NOTE

You can dock panel groups on either side of the workspace in either layout.

2. Click OK.

To switch to a different workspace after you’ve chosen one:

■ Select Window > Workspace Layout, and select the workspace layout

you prefer.

In addition to selecting Coder and Designer, you can select Dual Screen Right or Dual Screen Left. If you have a secondary monitor to the right of your primary monitor, Dual Screen Right puts all panels on the right monitor, and keeps the Document window on the primary monitor. If you have a secondary monitor to the left of your primary monitor, Dual Screen Left puts all panels on the left monitor, and keeps the Document window on the primary monitor.

40 Dreamweaver Basics

Displaying tabbed documents (Macintosh)

On the Macintosh, Dreamweaver can display multiple documents in a single Document window by using tabs to identify each document. Dreamweaver can also display them as part of a floating workspace, in which each document appears in its own window.

To open a tabbed document in a separate window:

■ Right-click or Control-click the tab and select Move to New Window

from the context menu.

To combine separate documents into tabbed windows:

■ Select Window > Combine as Tabs.

To change the default tabbed document setting:

1. Select Dreamweaver > Preferences, and then select the General category.

2. Select or deselect Open Documents in Tabs, and click OK.

NOTE

Dreamweaver does not alter the display of documents that are currently open when you change preferences. Documents opened after you select a new preference, however, will display according to the preference you selected.

Hiding and displaying the Start page

The Dreamweaver Start page appears when you start Dreamweaver and anytime that you do not have any documents open. You can choose to hide the Start page, and then later display it again. When the Start page is hidden and there are no documents open, the Document window is blank.

To hide the Start page:

■ Select the Don’t Show Again checkbox on the Start page.

The Start page will not appear when you start Dreamweaver, or after you open and close a document.

To display the Start page:

1. Select Edit > Preferences (Windows) or Dreamweaver > Preferences

(Macintosh).

The Preferences dialog box appears displaying the General preferences category.

2. Select the Show Start Page checkbox.

The Start page appears when you start Dreamweaver, or after you open and close a document.

Customizing the Dreamweaver 8 workspace 41

Accomplishing basic tasks in Dreamweaver 8

This section describes how to accomplish basic tasks such as creating, opening, and saving files. For more detailed information, see Chapter 3, “Creating and Opening Documents” in Using Dreamweaver.

This section contains the following topics:

■ “About Dreamweaver files” on page 42

■ “Creating new files in Dreamweaver” on page 43

■ “Saving files in Dreamweaver” on page 44

■ “Opening files in Dreamweaver” on page 45

About Dreamweaver files

You can work with a variety of file types in Dreamweaver. The primary kind of file you will work with is the HTML file. HTML files—or Hypertext Markup Language files—contain the tag-based language responsible for displaying a web page in a browser. You can save HTML files with either the .html or .htm extension. Dreamweaver saves files using the .html extension by default.

Following are some of the other common file types you might use when working in Dreamweaver:

CSS, or Cascading Style Sheet files, have a .css extension. They are used to

format HTML content and control the positioning of various page elements. For more information on working with these types of files, see “Understanding Cascading Style Sheets” in Using Dreamweaver.

GIF, or Graphics Interchange Format files, have a .gif extension. GIF

format is a popular web graphic format for cartoons, logos, graphics with transparent areas, and animations. GIFs contain a maximum of 256 colors.

JPEG, or Joint Photographic Experts Group files (named after the

organization that created the format), have a .jpg extension, and are usually photographs or high-color images. The JPEG format is best for digital or scanned photographs, images using textures, images with gradient color transitions, and any images that require more than 256 colors.

42 Dreamweaver Basics

XML, or Extensible Markup Language files, have a .xml extension. They

contain data in a raw form that can be formatted using XSL (Extensible Stylesheet Language). For more information on working with these types of files, see Chapter 36, “Displaying XML Data in Web Pages” in Using Dreamweaver.

XSL, or Extensible Stylesheet Language files, have a .xsl or .xslt extension.

They are used to style XML data that you want to display on a web page. For more information on working with these types of files, see Chapter 36, “Displaying XML Data in Web Pages” in Using Dreamweaver.

CFML, or ColdFusion Markup Language files, have a .cfm extension.

They are used to process dynamic pages. For more information on working with these types of files, see Chapter 40, “Building ColdFusion Applications Rapidly” in Using Dreamweaver.

ASPX, or ASP.NET files, have a .aspx extension. They are used to process

dynamic pages. For more information on working with these types of files, see Chapter 41, “Building ASP.NET Applications Rapidly” in Using Dreamweaver.

PHP, or PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor files, have a .php extension. They

are used to process dynamic pages. For more information on working with these types of files, see Chapter 43, “Building PHP Applications Rapidly” in Using Dreamweaver.

Creating new files in Dreamweaver

This section tells you how to create a new blank document in Dreamweaver.

You can also create new documents in Dreamweaver that are based on a Dreamweaver design file or on an existing template. For more information, see “Creating new documents” in Using Dreamweaver.

Accomplishing basic tasks in Dreamweaver 8 43

TIP

It’s a good idea to save your file in a Dreamweaver site. For more information, see

Chapter 3, “Tutorial: Setting Up Your Site and Project Files,” on page 49.

To create a new blank document:

1. Select File > New.

The New Document dialog box appears. The General tab is already selected.

2. From the Category list, select Basic Page, Dynamic Page, Template

Page, Other, or Framesets; then, from the list on the right, select the type of document you want to create.

For example, select Basic Page to create an HTML document, or select Dynamic page to create a ColdFusion or ASP document, and so on.

For more information about options in this dialog box, click the Help button in the dialog box.

3. Click the Create button.

The new document opens in the Document window.

4. Save the document (see “Saving files in Dreamweaver” on page 44).

Saving files in Dreamweaver

When you create a new document, you need to save it.

To save a new document:

1. Select File > Save.

2. In the dialog box that appears, navigate to the folder where you want to

save the file.

3. In the File Name text box, type a name for the file.

Avoid using spaces and special characters in file and folder names and do not begin a filename with a numeral. In particular, do not use special characters (such as é, ç, or ¥) or punctuation (such as colons, slashes, or periods) in the names of files you intend to put on a remote server; many servers change these characters during upload, which will cause any links to the files to break.

4. Click Save.

44 Dreamweaver Basics

Opening files in Dreamweaver

In Dreamweaver, you can easily open and edit your documents.

To open a file:

1. Select File > Open.

2. In the Open dialog box, select the file and click Open.

Accomplishing basic tasks in Dreamweaver 8 45

46 Dreamweaver Basics

PART 2

Tutorials

Part Two of this book contains five basic tutorials that take you through the steps of building a web page. The web page you’ll create is the home page for Cafe Townsend, a fictional restaurant.

This part contains the following sections:

Tutorial: Setting Up Your Site and Project Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49

Tutorial: Creating a Table-based Page Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55

Tutorial: Adding Content to Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Tutorial: Formatting Your Page with CSS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99

Tutorial: Publishing Your Site. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

CHAPTER 3

Tutorial: Setting Up Your Site and Project Files

This tutorial introduces you to the concept of a Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 site and shows you how to set up the project files for the Cafe Townsend sample website. In Dreamweaver, a site generally consists of two parts: a collection of files on a local computer (the local site), and a location on a remote web server that you upload the files to when you’re ready to make them publicly available (the remote site). You use the Dreamweaver Files panel to manage the files for your site.

The most common approach to creating a website with Dreamweaver is to create and edit pages on your local disk, and then upload copies of those pages to a remote web server for viewing on the web. In this tutorial you’ll only learn how to set up the local site so that you can begin building web pages right away. Later, after you’ve completed the website, you’ll learn how to create a remote site so that you can upload your files to a web server.

In this tutorial, you will complete the following tasks:

Learn about Dreamweaver sites. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49

Set up your project files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50

Define a local folder. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52

Learn about Dreamweaver sites

In Dreamweaver, the term “site” can refer either to a website or to a local storage location for the documents that belong to a website. The latter is what you need to establish before you begin building your website. A Dreamweaver site organizes all of the documents associated with your website and lets you track and maintain links, manage files, share files, and transfer your site files to a web server.

NOTE

Macromedia HomeSite and ColdFusion Studio users can think of a Dreamweaver site as being like a HomeSite or Studio project.

A Dreamweaver site consists of as many as three parts, depending on your computing environment and the type of website you are developing:

Local folder is your working directory. Dreamweaver refers to this folder as

your local site. The local folder is usually a folder on your hard disk.

Remote folder is where you store your files, depending on your

environment, for testing, production, collaboration, and publication. Dreamweaver refers to this folder as your remote site. The remote folder is a folder on the computer that’s running your web server. The computer running the web server is often (but not always) the computer that makes your site publicly available on the web.

Folder for dynamic pages (Testing Server folder) is the folder where

Dreamweaver processes dynamic pages. This folder is often the same folder as the remote folder. You do not need to worry about this folder unless you are developing a web application. For more information about the Testing Server folder, see “Specifying where dynamic pages can be processed” in Using Dreamweaver.

You can set up a Dreamweaver site by using the Site Definition Wizard, which guides you through the setup process, or by using the Site Definition Advanced settings, which let you set up local, remote, and testing folders individually, as necessary. In this tutorial you’ll use the Site Definition Advanced settings to set up a local folder for your project files. Later in this book, you’ll learn how to set up a remote folder so that you can publish your pages to a web server and make them publicly available.

For more information about how to use the Site Definition Wizard to set up a Dreamweaver site, see “Setting up a new Dreamweaver site” in Using

Dreamweaver.

For more information about how to set up a remote site, see Chapter 7,

“Tutorial: Publishing Your Site”.

For more information about Dreamweaver sites in general, see “Setting Up a Dreamweaver Site” in Using Dreamweaver.

Set up your project files

When you create a local site, you can place any existing assets (images or other pieces of content) in the local site’s root folder (the main folder for the site). Then when you’re ready to add content to your pages, the assets are there and ready for you to use.

50 Tutorial: Setting Up Your Site and Project Files

The sample files included with Dreamweaver contain assets for the sample website you’ll build using these Getting Started with Dreamweaver tutorials. The first step in creating the site is to copy the sample files from the Dreamweaver application folder to an appropriate folder on your hard disk.

1. Create a new folder called local_sites on your hard disk.

For example, create a folder called local_sites in either of the following two locations:

■ In Windows: C:\Documents and Settings\your_user_name\My

Documents\local_sites

■ On the Macintosh: Macintosh HD/Users/your_user_name/

Documents/local_sites

NOTE

On the Macintosh, there’s a folder called Sites already in your user folder. Don’t use that Sites folder as your local folder; the Sites folder is where you place your pages to make them publicly accessible when you’re using the Macintosh as a web server.

2. Locate the cafe_townsend folder in the Dreamweaver application folder

on your hard disk.

If you installed Dreamweaver to its default location, the path to the folder is as follows:

■ In Windows: C:\Program Files\Macromedia\Dreamweaver

8\Tutorial_assets\cafe_townsend\.

■ On the Macintosh: Macintosh HD/Applications/Macromedia

Dreamweaver 8/Tutorial_assets/cafe_townsend.

ABOUT...

About local and remote “root” folders The local “root” folder of your Dreamweaver site is often the

main or top-level folder for your website. It usually corresponds to an identical folder on the remote site (web server). The root folder also usually defines the first part of your website’s URL, following the domain name. For example, if your local root folder is called mywebsite, and you have an identical root folder defined on the remote site, the URL for your website would be something like http:// www.yahoo.com/mywebsite. In some cases, the local root folder may not have an exact name equivalent on the remote site. For example, if you own the domain name www.mywebsite.com, with a remote root directory of public_html, your local root folder could still be called mywebsite. The files in both the local and remote root directories would be identical; only the folder names (public_html on the remote site, and mywebsite on the local computer) would be different.

Set up your project files 51

3. Copy the cafe_townsend folder into the local_sites folder.

The cafe_townsend folder is the folder that you will use as the root folder (main folder) for your Dreamweaver site.

Define a local folder

You must define a Dreamweaver local folder for each new website you create. The local folder is the folder that you use to store working copies of site files on your hard disk. If you don’t define a local folder, certain features in Dreamweaver cannot work properly.

Defining a local folder also allows you to manage your files and to transfer files to and from your web server by using a number of file-transfer methods.

Now you’ll define the cafe_townsend folder that you copied into the local_sites folder as your local folder.

1. Start Dreamweaver and select Site > Manage Sites.

The Manage Sites dialog box appears.

2. Click the New button and select Site.

The Site Definition dialog box appears.

3. If the w izard ( Basic ta b) appe ars, click th e Advan ced ta b and se lect Lo cal

Info from the Category list (it should be the default).

4. In the Site Name text box, enter Cafe Townsend as the name of the site.

5. In the Local Root Folder text box, specify the cafe_townsend folder that

you copied to the local_sites folder in the previous section.

You can click the folder icon to browse to and select the folder, or enter a path in the Local Root Folder text box.

52 Tutorial: Setting Up Your Site and Project Files

6. In the Default Images Folder text box, specify the images folder that

already exists in the cafe_townsend folder.

You can click the folder icon to browse to and select the folder, or enter a path in the Default Images Folder text box.

The Site Definition dialog box should now look as follows:

7. Click OK.

The Manage Sites dialog box appears, showing your new site.

8. Click Done to close the Manage Sites dialog box.

Define a local folder 53

The Files panel now shows the new local root folder for your current site. The file list in the Files panel acts as a file manager, allowing you to copy, paste, delete, move, and open files just as you would on a computer desktop.

For more information about how the Files panel works, see “The Files

panel” on page 37.

You’ve now defined a local root folder for your site. The local root folder is the place on your local computer where you keep the working copies of your web pages. Later, if you want to publish your pages and make them publicly available, you’ll need to define a remote folder—a place on a remote computer, running a web server, that will hold published copies of your local files.

You can follow the rest of the tutorials in this guide to create the Cafe Townsend sample site, or you can work on your own web pages. When you’re finished creating and editing pages, proceed to define a remote folder on a server and publish your pages. For more information, see

Chapter 7, “Tutorial: Publishing Your Site”.

54 Tutorial: Setting Up Your Site and Project Files

CHAPTER 4

Tutorial: Creating a Table-based Page Layout

This tutorial explains how to create a table-based page layout in Macromedia Dreamweaver 8. A page layout determines how your page will appear in the browser, showing, for example, the placement of menus, images, and Macromedia Flash content.

Tables are a powerful tool for presenting tabular data and for laying out text and graphics on an HTML page. You can use tables to create your layout quickly and easily. In this tutorial you’ll create a number of tables in a new Dreamweaver document. The rows and cells of the tables effectively act as container boxes for the content you’ll add later.

In this tutorial, you will complete the following tasks:

Examine the design comp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55

Create and save a new page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Insert tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58

Set table properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62

Insert an image placeholder. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Add color to the page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69

Examine the design comp

Typically, you don’t begin building a website by opening Dreamweaver and laying out pages right away. The first steps to creating a website begin on a piece of paper, or in a graphics-editing application like Macromedia Fireworks. Graphic designers usually sketch out a piece of comprehensive artwork (also known as a “comp”) for the website in order to show it to the client and make sure that the initial ideas for the site meet with their client’s approval.

A comp consists of any number of page elements that the client has requested for their website. For example, the client might say, “I want to have a logo at the top of the page, a navigation that links to these other pages, a section for an online store, and a place where I can insert video clips.” Based on that discussion, the designer begins planning the layout of the site, and makes sketches of sample pages that fulfill the client’s requirements.

This tutorial provides you with the completed and approved comp for Cafe Townsend, a fictional restaurant that has requested a website. As the web designer, it’s your job to transform the comp into a working web page (most likely with the help of other graphics designers and Flash developers).

56 Tutorial: Creating a Table-based Page Layout

You’ll notice that the graphic designer has provided you with a web page comp that includes a number of content areas, as well as some graphic ideas. In the next sections, you’ll use Dreamweaver to lay out this design.

You can also open the original comp file if you want to see it on the computer screen. You can find the comp, homepage-mockup.jpg, in the fireworks_assets folder of the cafe_townsend folder that you copied to your hard drive in Chapter 3, “Tutorial: Setting Up Your Site and Project Files.” You might even want to print out the comp so that you can have it in front of you as you build your page.

Create and save a new page

After you set up a site and examine any comps, you are ready to begin building web pages. You’ll start by creating a new page, and saving it in the cafe_townsend local root folder of your website. The page eventually becomes the home page for Cafe Townsend, a fictional restaurant.

If you haven’t created the cafe_townsend local root folder, you must do so before you proceed. For instructions, see Chapter 3, “Tutorial: Setting Up

Your Site and Project Files.”

1. In Dreamweaver, select File > New.

2. On the General tab of the New Document dialog box, select Basic Page

from the Category list, select HTML from the Basic Page list, and click Create.

3. Select File > Save As.

4. In the Save As dialog box, browse to and open the cafe_townsend folder

that you defined as the site’s local root folder.

In Chapter 3, “Tutorial: Setting Up Your Site and Project Files”, you created this folder within a folder called local_sites.

5. Enter index.html in the File Name text box and click Save.

The filename now appears in the title bar at the top of the application window.

Create and save a new page 57

6. In the Document Title text box at the top of your new document, type

Cafe Townsend.

This is the title of your page (different from the filename). Your site visitors will see this title in the browser window title bar when they view the page in a web browser.

7. Select File > Save to save your page.

Insert tables

Next you’ll add a table that will hold text, graphics, and Macromedia Flash assets.

1. Click once on the page to place the insertion point in the upper-left

corner of the page.

2. Select Insert > Table.

3. In the Insert Table dialog box, do the following:

■ Enter 3 in the Rows text box.

■ Enter 1 in the Columns text box.

■ Enter 700 in the Table Width text box.

■ Select Pixels from the Table Width pop-up menu.

■ Enter 0 in the Border Thickness text box.

■ Enter 0 in the Cell Padding text box.

■ Enter 0 in the Cell Spacing text box.

58 Tutorial: Creating a Table-based Page Layout

4. Click OK.

A table with three rows and one column appears in your document. The table is 700 pixels wide with no border, cell padding, or cell spacing.

Insert tables 59

ABOUT...

More about tables Tables are a powerful tool for presenting tabular data and for laying out text and

graphics on an HTML page. A table consists of one or more rows; each row consists of one or more cells. When you create multiple rows with multiple cells, the cells form columns. Technically, a cell is a division within a horizontal row, and a column is the vertical accumulation of those cell divisions. Dreamweaver displays the table width and the width for each table column in the Table selector (indicated by green lines) when the table is selected or when the insertion point is in the table.

Next to the widths are arrows for the table header menu and the column header menus. You can use the menus for quick access to common table-related commands. You can also enable or disable the display of the widths and menus by selecting View > Visual Aids > Table Widths. Tables can have borders, and the cells of a table can have padding, spacing, or both. Cell padding refers to the number of pixels between the cell’s content and the cell’s boundaries. Cell spacing refers to the number of pixels between adjacent table cells. If you don’t explicitly assign values for cell padding and cell spacing, most browsers display the table as if cell padding were set to 1 and cell spacing were set to 2. If you want to ensure that browsers display the table with no padding or spacing, set cell padding and cell spacing to 0. For more information about tables, see Chapter 8, “Presenting Content with Tables” in Using Dreamweaver.

5. Click once to the right of the table to deselect it.

6. Select Insert > Table to insert another table.

7. In the Insert Table dialog box, do the following for the second table:

■ Enter 1 in the Rows text box.

■ Enter 3 in the Columns text box.

■ Enter 700 in the Table Width text box.

■ Select Pixels from the Table Width pop-up menu.

■ Enter 0 in the Border Thickness text box.

■ Enter 0 in the Cell Padding text box.

■ Enter 0 in the Cell Spacing text box.

60 Tutorial: Creating a Table-based Page Layout

8. Click OK.

A second table with one row and three columns appears below your first table.

9. Click to the right of the table to deselect it.

10. Insert a third table by selecting Insert > Table and entering the following

values in the Insert Table dialog box:

■ Enter 1 in the Rows text box.

■ Enter 1 in the Columns text box.

■ Enter 700 in the Table Width text box.

■ Select Pixels from the Table Width pop-up menu.

■ Enter 0 in the Border Thickness text box.

■ Enter 0 in the Cell Padding text box.

■ Enter 0 in the Cell Spacing text box.

11. Click OK.

A third table, with one row and one column, appears below your second table.

Click to the right of the table to deselect it. Your page should now look as follows:

Insert tables 61

NOTE

You may see the Table selector (indicated by green lines) after you insert a table. You can always make the Table selector disappear by clicking outside the table. You can also disable the Table selector by selecting View > Visual Aids > Table Widths.

Set table properties

Now you’ll set precise table properties, using Expanded Tables mode, a feature that temporarily adds cell padding and spacing to tables and increases the borders of the tables to simplify editing. Specifically, it lets you position the insertion point precisely without accidentally selecting the wrong table or other table content.

NOTE

After you finish setting table properties in Expanded Tables mode, always return to Standard mode. Expanded Tables mode is not a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) environment, so some operations, such as resizing, do not display the expected results

1. Select View > Table Mode > Expanded Table Mode.

NOTE

If you see the Getting Started with Expanded Tables Mode dialog box, click OK.

62 Tutorial: Creating a Table-based Page Layout

2. Click once inside the first row of the first table.

3. In the Property inspector (Window > Properties), enter 90 in the Cell

Height (H) text box and press Enter (Windows) or Return (Macintosh).

NOTE

If you cannot see the Cell Height text box, click the expander arrow in the lower-right corner of the Property inspector.

4. Click once inside the second row of the first table.

5. In the Property inspector, enter 166 in the Cell Height text box and

press Enter (Windows) or Return (Macintosh).

6. Click once inside the third row of the first table.

Set table properties 63

7. In the Property inspector, enter 24 in the Cell Height text box and press

Enter (Windows) or Return (Macintosh).

You should now have three rows of differing heights in the first table.

Next you’ll set properties for the second table (the table that contains three columns).

8. Click once inside the first column of the second table.

64 Tutorial: Creating a Table-based Page Layout

9. In the Property inspector, enter 140 in the Cell Width (W) text box and

press Enter (Windows) or Return (Macintosh).

10. Click once inside the second column of the second table.

11. In the Property inspector, enter 230 in the Cell Width text box and

press Enter (Windows) or Return (Macintosh)

12. Set the width of the third column to 330 pixels.

If you have the Table selector enabled (View > Visual Aids > Table Widths), you’ll see all three of the pixel values you just entered above the respective table columns.

You won’t enter any height values for the cells in this table because the height of those cells will vary depending on the content you add later.

13. Finally, click once inside the last table (the table with one row and one

column).

Set table properties 65

14. In the Property inspector, enter 24 in the Cell Height text box and press

Enter (Windows) or Return (Macintosh).

Your layout should now look as follows:

15. Click the Exit Expanded Tables Mode link at the top of the Document

window to return to Standard mode.

16. Save your page.

66 Tutorial: Creating a Table-based Page Layout

Insert an image placeholder

An image placeholder is a graphic that you use until final artwork is ready to be added to a web page. An image placeholder is useful when you lay out web pages because it allows you to position an image on a page before you actually create the image.

1. In the Document window, click once inside the first row of the first

table.

2. Select Insert > Image Objects > Image Placeholder.

3. In the Image Placeholder dialog box, do the following:

■ Ty p e banner_graphic in the Name text box.

■ Enter 700 in the Width text box.

■ Enter 90 in the Height text box.

■ Click the color box and select a color from the color picker. For this

tutorial, select a reddish brown (#993300).

■ Leave the Alternate Text text box blank.

ABOUT...

A note on alternative text Alternative text is a textual description of an image on a web page. It is part

of the HTML code and does not appear on the page. It’s important to provide alternative text for most of your images so that people who use screen readers or text-only browsers can receive the information provided by the image. In the case of a banner graphic, which merely displays a logo for a website, it is not essential to provide alternative text. When you leave the Alternate Text text box blank in the Image Placeholder dialog box, Dreamweaver adds an alt="" attribute to the img tag. Later, if you want to add alternative text to an image, you can select the image and enter the alternative text in the Property inspector. For example, if you later change the logo to include a phone number or address, you would want to provide that information as alternative text.

Insert an image placeholder 67

ABOUT...

About image placeholders An image placeholder is a graphic you use until final artwork is ready to be

added to a web page; it is not a graphic image that displays in a browser. Before you publish your site, replace any image placeholders you’ve added with web-friendly graphic files such as GIFs or JPEGs. If you have Macromedia Fireworks, you can create a new graphic from a Dreamweaver image placeholder. When you select the image placeholder and click the Create button in the Property inspector, Fireworks opens and presents you with a new canvas. The new image dimensions are set to the same size as the placeholder image. You can then create and edit the image as you like, and replace the placeholder image in Dreamweaver. For information about creating an image in Fireworks from an image placeholder, see “Using Fireworks to modify Dreamweaver image placeholders” in Using Dreamweaver.

4. Click OK.

The image placeholder appears inside the first table. The image placeholder displays a label and the size attributes of the image that you’ll eventually place there.

NOTE

When viewed in a browser the label and size text for an image placeholder do not appear.

5. Save your page.

68 Tutorial: Creating a Table-based Page Layout

Add color to the page

Now you’ll add more color to the page by setting colors for some of the table cells and for the background of the page.

1. Click once inside the first cell of the three-columned table.

2. Click the <td> tag (cell tag) in the tag selector to select the cell.

3. In the Property inspector (Window > Properties), click once inside the

Background Color text box.

The text box is located directly next to the Background Color (Bg) color box.

NOTE

If you cannot see the Background Color text box, click the expander arrow in the lower-right corner of the Property inspector.

Add color to the page 69

4. In the Background Color text box, enter the hexadecimal value

#993300 and press Enter (Windows) or Return (Macintosh).

The color of the table cell turns to reddish-brown.

5. Click once inside the second cell of the three-columned table.

6. Click the <td> tag (cell tag) in the tag selector to select the cell.

7. In the Property inspector, click once inside the Background Color text

box, enter the hexadecimal value #F7EEDF, and press Enter (Windows) or Return (Macintosh).

The color of the table cell turns to light tan.

8. Repeat steps 5 through 7 to change the color of the third table cell to

light tan as well.

9. After you have all three cell colors set, click once outside the table to

deselect it.

Next you’ll change the background color for the entire page by modifying page properties. The Page Properties dialog box lets you set a number of page properties, including the size and color of page fonts, the colors of visited links, page margins, and much more.

70 Tutorial: Creating a Table-based Page Layout

1. Select Modify > Page Properties.

2. In the Appearance category of the Page Properties dialog box, click the

Background Color color box and select black (#000000) from the color picker.

ABOUT...

Picking colors In HTML, colors are expressed either as hexadecimal values (for example, #FF0000) or

as color names (red). A web-safe color is one that appears the same in Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer on both Windows and Macintosh systems when using 256-color mode. There are 216 common colors, and that any hexadecimal value that combines the pairs 00, 33, 66, 99, CC, or FF (RGB values 0, 51, 102, 153, 204, and 255, respectively) represents a web-safe color. You can select colors in Dreamweaver by entering hexadecimal values in the appropriate text boxes, or by selecting a color from the color picker. The color picker uses the 216-color web-safe palette; selecting a color from this palette displays the color’s hexadecimal value. To use the color picker, click on the color box and use the eyedropper to select a color. You can also use the color picker to match colors. For example, if an image on your page contains a certain shade of blue and you want the background color of a table cell to match it, you can select the table cell, click on the color box to open the color picker, move the eyedropper over the blue in the image, and click the mouse button. The color picker fills the selected area with the closest match possible to the color you clicked with the eyedropper. If you select colors by this method, however, the color that the color picker chooses for you may not be a web-safe color.

Add color to the page 71

3. Click OK.

Your page background turns to black.

4. Save your work.

Your page layout is now complete. The layout contains a number of tables that can hold assets such as images, text, and Flash Video (FLV) files. In the next tutorial, Chapter 5, “Tutorial: Adding Content to Pages,” you’ll learn how to add assets to the page using the various insertion features that Dreamweaver provides.

72 Tutorial: Creating a Table-based Page Layout

CHAPTER 5

Tutorial: Adding Content to Pages

This tutorial shows you how to add content to web pages in Macromedia Dreamweaver 8. You can add many different kinds of content to web pages, including graphics, Macromedia Flash files, Macromedia Flash Video files, and text, to name a few. After you’ve added content to your pages, you can preview your work in a browser so that you can see what it will look like on the web.

In this tutorial, you will complete the following tasks:

Locate your files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Review your task . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Insert images. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Insert and play a Flash file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Insert Flash Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Insert text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .89

Create links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Preview your page in a browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

Locate your files

In this tutorial, you’ll begin with the table-based page layout (index.html) that you created in Chapter 4, “Tutorial: Creating a Table-based Page

Layout.” If you did not complete that tutorial, you can either complete it

before proceeding, or you can open the finished version of the tutorial and begin with that.

The finished version of the tutorial, table_layout.html, is located in the completed_files/dreamweaver folder, within the cafe_townsend folder that you copied to your hard disk in Chapter 3, “Tutorial: Setting Up Your Site

and Project Files.”

NOTE

If you begin this tutorial with the completed table_layout.html file, instead of the index.html file from Chapter 4, “Tutorial: Creating a Table-based

Page Layout,” some steps and illustrations in the tutorial will not match

what you see on your screen.

74 Tutorial: Adding Content to Pages

Review your task

In this tutorial you’ll add assets to the home page for Cafe Townsend, a fictional restaurant. You’ll learn how to add images, a Macromedia Flash file, a Macromedia Flash Video file, and text. When you’re finished, the page will look like this:

You’ll notice that the text on the page is not yet formatted. That’s because you’ll learn how to format the text by using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) in the next tutorial.

Review your task 75

You can find the required assets for this tutorial in the cafe_townsend root folder that you copied to your hard drive in Chapter 3, “Tutorial: Setting

Up Your Site and Project Files.” If you didn’t complete that tutorial, you

must do so before you proceed. The tutorial lets you know exactly where to find the assets as you go along.

Insert images

After you create your page layout, you are ready to add assets to the page. You’ll start by adding images. You can use several methods to add images to a web page in Dreamweaver. In this section, you’ll add four different images to the index page for Cafe Townsend, using various methods.

Replace the image placeholder

1. In Dreamweaver, open the index.html file that you created in Chapter

4, “Tutorial: Creating a Table-based Page Layout.”

NOTE

If you did not complete Chapter 4, “Tutorial: Creating a Table-based Page

Layout,” see “Locate your files” on page 73 for how to proceed.

2. Double-click the image placeholder, banner_graphic, at the top of the

page.

76 Tutorial: Adding Content to Pages

3. In the Select Image Source dialog box, navigate to the images folder

inside the cafe_townsend folder that you defined as your site root folder.

4. Select the banner_graphic.jpg file and click OK.

Dreamweaver replaces the image placeholder with the banner graphic for Cafe Townsend.

5. Click once outside the table to deselect the image.

6. Save the page (File > Save).

Insert images 77

Insert an image by using the Insert menu

1. Click once inside the third row of the first table (two rows below the

banner graphic you just inserted, just above the colored table cells).

2. Select Insert > Image.

3. In the Select Image Source dialog box, navigate to the images folder

inside the cafe_townsend folder, select the body_main_header.gif file, and click OK.

NOTE

If the Image Tag Accessibility Attributes dialog box appears, click OK.

78 Tutorial: Adding Content to Pages

A long colored graphic appears in the table row. This might look more like background color for the table cell than a graphic, but if you look closely, you’ll see that the graphic has rounded corners. The rounded corner effect gives the lower portion of your page an interesting appearance after you’ve finished adding all of the assets.

Insert an image by dragging

1. Click once inside the last row of the last table on the page (just below

the colored table cells).

2. In the Files panel (Window > Files), locate the body_main_footer.gif

file (it’s inside the images folder), and drag it to the insertion point in the last table.

NOTE

If the Image Tag Accessibility Attributes dialog box appears, click OK.

3. Click once outside the table and save the page (File > Save).

Insert images 79

Insert an image from the Assets panel

1. Click once inside the center column of the three-columned table (the

first table cell that is colored light tan).

2. In the Property inspector (Window > Properties), select Center from the

Horz pop-up menu, and select Top from the Vert pop-up menu. This aligns the contents of the table cell in the middle of the cell, and pushes the cell’s contents to the top of the cell.

NOTE

If you cannot see the Vert or Horz pop-up menus, click the expander arrow in the lower-right corner of the Property inspector.

3. Press Enter (Windows) or Return (Macintosh) once to create more

space.

80 Tutorial: Adding Content to Pages

ABOUT...

The Assets panel You can use the Assets panel to view and manage assets in your current site. The

Assets panel displays assets for the site associated with the active document in the Document window. You must define a local site before you can view assets in the Assets panel. For more information, see

Chapter 3, “Tutorial: Setting Up Your Site and Project Files,” or Using Dreamweaver.

The Assets panel provides two views: The Site list shows all of the assets in your site, including colors and URLs that are used in any document in your site. The Favorites list shows only the assets you’ve explicitly chosen. To add an asset to the Favorites list, select the asset in the Site list, and then select Add to Favorites from the Options menu in the upper-right corner of the Files panel. When you click an asset in the Assets panel, the preview area displays the asset you selected. To change the size of the preview area, drag the line that separates the preview area from the asset column headings. For more information, see “Working with assets” in Using Dreamweaver.

4. Click the Assets tab in the Files panel, or select Window > Assets.

Your site assets appear.

Images button

5. If Images view isn’t selected, click Images to view your image assets.

6. In the Assets panel, select the street_sign.jpg file.

Insert images 81

7. Do one of the following:

■ Drag the street_sign.jpg file to the insertion point in the center

table cell.

■ Click Insert at the bottom of the Assets panel.

NOTE

If the Image Tag Accessibility Attributes dialog box appears, click OK.

The street_sign.jpg graphic appears on the page.

82 Tutorial: Adding Content to Pages

8. Click once outside the table to deselect the image.

9. Save the page.

Insert and play a Flash file

Next, you’ll insert a Flash file that plays a photographic slide show of Cafe Townsend’s featured food items. The Flash file you’ll insert is a flexible messaging area—or FMA—file. An FMA is a common type of Flash application that displays an informational message to the audience. The message can change based on the needs of the business. For example, if Cafe Townsend is holding a special event, the FMA could easily change (without affecting the rest of the web page) to display information about the event, instead of featured food items.

To insert the Flash FMA file, you need to insert HTML code that embeds the file in the Dreamweaver page. The easiest way to do this is to insert the SWF file (the exported Flash Movie file) into the page. When you insert a SWF file in Dreamweaver, Dreamweaver writes all of the necessary Flash HTML code for you.

1. With the index.html page open in the Dreamweaver Document

window, click once inside the second row of the first table.

This is the table row immediately below the banner graphic you inserted in the previous section.

2. In the Property inspector (Window > Properties), select Center from the

Horz pop-up menu, and select Middle from the Vert pop-up menu.

This places the contents of the table cell in the middle of the cell.

NOTE

If you cannot see the Vert or Horz pop-up menus, click the expander arrow in the lower-right corner of the Property inspector.

Insert and play a Flash file 83

ABOUT...

About Flash files When you build assets in Macromedia Flash, you work in FLA files, the default file

type for the Flash application. FLA files are designated by a .fla extension. For example, if you are working on an animated logo for a website, the filename of the Flash file might be animated_logo.fla. When you’ve finished working on a FLA file in Flash, you must export the file to a format that can be played on the web in Flash Player. When you export FLA files in Flash, they are converted to SWF files and designated by a .swf extension. SWF files (not FLA files) play Flash content in a web browser and are the file type you must insert into a web page that you are building with Dreamweaver.

3. Select Insert > Media > Flash.

In the Select File dialog box, browse to the flash_fma.swf file (it’s in the cafe_townsend root folder of your site), select the file, and click OK.

If the Object Tag Accessibility Attributes dialog box appears, click OK.

84 Tutorial: Adding Content to Pages

A Flash content placeholder, rather than a scene from the FMA itself, appears in the Document window. This is because the HTML code is “pointing” to the SWF file flash_fma.swf. When a user loads the index.html page, the browser plays the SWF file.

4. The Flash content placeholder should remain selected after you insert

the SWF file, as long as you don’t click anywhere else on the page.

If it’s not selected, select the Flash content placeholder by clicking it.

5. In the Property inspector (Window > Properties), click Play.

NOTE

If you cannot see the Flash Play button, click the expander arrow in the lower-right corner of the Property inspector.

Dreamweaver plays the Flash file in the Document window, showing you what site visitors will see when they view the page in a browser.

6. In the Property inspector, click Stop to stop playing the Flash file.

7. Save the page.

Insert and play a Flash file 85

Insert Flash Video

Next you’ll insert a Flash Video file, using the asset provided.

1. With the index.html page open in the Dreamweaver Document

window, click once above the graphic that you placed in the center column of the three-columned table.

In the previous section, you created some space before you inserted the graphic—this is where you should click.

2. Select Insert > Media > Flash Video.

3. In the Insert Flash Video dialog box, select Progressive Download Video

from the Video type pop-up menu.

ABOUT...

About Flash Video The Insert Flash Video command in Dreamweaver lets you insert Flash Video

content in your web pages without using the Flash authoring tool. The command inserts a Flash component, which displays the Flash Video content you select, as well as a set of playback controls, when viewed in a browser. The Insert Flash Video command gives you the following options for delivering video content to your site visitors: Progressive Download Video downloads the Flash Video (FLV) file to the site visitor’s hard disk and then plays it. Unlike traditional “download and play” methods of video delivery, however, progressive download allows the video file to start playing before the download is complete. Streaming Video streams the Flash Video content and plays it on a web page immediately. To enable streaming video on your web pages, however, you must have access to Macromedia Flash Communication Server, the only server that can stream Flash Video content. For more information about using Flash Video, see “Inserting Flash Video content” in Using Dreamweaver.

86 Tutorial: Adding Content to Pages

4. In the URL text box, specify a relative path to the

cafe_townsend_home.flv file by clicking Browse, navigating to the cafe_townsend_home.flv file (located in cafe_townsend root folder of your site), and selecting the FLV file.

5. Select Halo Skin 2 from the Skin pop-up menu.

A preview of the selected skin appears below the Skin pop-up menu. The Skin option specifies the look and feel for the Flash Video component that will contain the Flash Video content.

For more information on how to select different skins for Flash Video components, see www.macromedia.com/go/flv_tutorial.

Insert Flash Video 87

6. In the Width and Height text boxes, do the following:

■ In the Width text box, type 180.

■ In the Height text box, type 135 and press Enter (Windows) or

Return (Macintosh).

TIP

You can click Detect Size to determine the exact width and height of the FLV file. Sometimes, however, Dreamweaver cannot determine the dimensions of the FLV file. In such cases, you must manually enter the width and height values.

The value in the Width and Height text boxes specifies the width and height in pixels of the FLV file. You can adjust these values arbitrarily to change the size of the Flash Video on your web page. When you increase the dimensions of a video, the picture quality of the video usually decreases.

NOTE

“Total with skin” is the width and height of the FLV file plus the width and height of the selected skin.

7. Leave the default selections for the remaining options:

Constrain maintains the same aspect ratio between the width and

height of the Flash Video component. This option is selected by default.

Auto play specifies whether to play the video when the web page is

opened. This option is deselected by default.

Auto rewind specifies whether the playback control returns to starting

position after the video finishes playing. This option is deselected by default.

88 Tutorial: Adding Content to Pages

8. Click OK to close the dialog box and add the Flash Video content to

your web page.

The Insert Flash Video command generates a video player SWF file and a skin SWF file that are used to display your Flash Video content on a web page. (You may need to click the Refresh button in the Files panel to see the new files.) These files are stored in the same directory as the HTML file to which you’re adding Flash Video content (in this case, the cafe_townsend root folder). When you upload the HTML page containing the Flash Video content, Dreamweaver uploads these files as dependent files (as long as you click Yes in the Put Dependent Files dialog box).

9. Save the page.

Insert text

Now you’ll add some text to the page. You can type text directly in the Dreamweaver Document window, or you can copy and paste text from other sources (such as Microsoft Word or plain text files). Later, you’ll use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to format the text.

Insert text 89

Insert body text

1. In the Files panel, locate the sample_text.txt file (in the cafe_townsend

root folder) and double-click the file’s icon to open it in Dreamweaver.

You’ll notice that this window is in Code view, and cannot be switched to Design view (the view you’ve been working in until now) because the file is not an HTML file.

2. In the sample_text.txt Document window, press Control+A (Windows)

or Command+A (Macintosh) to select all of the text, and then select Edit > Copy to copy the text.

3. Close the sample_text.txt file by clicking the X in the top-right corner

of the document.

4. In the index.html Document window, click once inside the third table

cell of the three-columned table (the cell to the right of the column that contains the graphic and the Flash video).

5. Select Edit > Paste.

The text from the text file appears in the selected table cell.

90 Tutorial: Adding Content to Pages

Depending on your monitor resolution, the three-columned table widens to accommodate the text. Don’t worry about how this looks right now. In the next tutorial, you’ll learn how to use CSS to format the text so that everything fits in the table appropriately.

6. Make sure the insertion point is still inside the table cell where you just

pasted the text. If it isn’t, click inside the table cell.

7. In the Property inspector (Window > Properties), select Top from the

Vert pop-up menu. This aligns the text you just pasted to the top of the table cell. If you cannot see the Vert pop-up menu, click the expander arrow in the lower-right corner of the Property inspector.

8. Save the page.

Insert text 91

Insert text for a navigation bar

Next you’ll insert text for a navigation bar. However, the text won’t look like a navigation bar until you format it in the next tutorial.

1. Click once in the first column of the three-columned table (the column

that is colored reddish-brown).

2. Type the word Cuisine.

92 Tutorial: Adding Content to Pages

3. Press the Spacebar and type Chef Ipsum.

4. Repeat the previous step until you’ve entered the following words with

a space between each one: Articles, Special Events, Location, Menu, Contact Us.

Do not press Enter (Windows) or Return (Macintosh) when you type. Use only the Spacebar to separate words, and let the words wrap naturally. The fixed width of the table cell determines how many words fit on a line.

5. With the insertion point still in the first cell of the three-columned

table, click the <td> tag in the tag selector.

Insert text 93

6. In the Property inspector (Window > Properties), select Top from the

Vert pop-up menu.

This aligns the text you just typed to the top of the table cell.

NOTE

If you cannot see the Vert pop-up menu, click the expander arrow in the lower-right corner of the Property inspector.

7. Save your page.

Create links

A link is a reference, inserted in a web page, that points to another document. You can turn almost any kind of asset into a link, but the most common kind of link is a text link.

You can create links at any stage of the site-creation process. In this section, you’ll create links for the navigation bar, even though you haven’t formatted the text into the form of a navigation bar yet.

The cafe_townsend site root folder contains a finished HTML page that you can link to (a menu page for Cafe Townsend). You’ll use this page for all of the links in the navigation, even though you would have distinct pages for each of these links if you were building a real site.

94 Tutorial: Adding Content to Pages

1. With the index.html page open in the Document window, select the

word Cuisine that you typed in the first cell of the three-columned table. Be careful to select the word Cuisine only, and not the space after it.

2. In the Property inspector (Window > Properties), click the folder icon

next to the Link text box.

3. In the Select File dialog box, browse to the menu.html file (which is in

the same folder as the index.html file), and click OK (Windows) or Choose (Macintosh).

4. Click once on the page to deselect the word Cuisine. The Cuisine text

is underlined and blue, indicating that it’s now a link.

Create links 95

5. Repeat the previous steps to link each word or set of words that you

typed for the navigation. You want to create six more links: one for Chef Ipsum, Articles, Special Events, Location, Menu, and Contact Us.

Link each word or set of words to the menu.html page, and be careful to avoid the space before and after the words or set of words when you create your links. This is only a set of dummy links; in a real-world site, you would link each word in the navigation to its own distinct page.

NOTE

Links don’t work when you click them in the Document window in Dreamweaver; links work only in a browser. To make sure your links work correctly, preview your page in a browser. For instructions about how to do this, continue to “Preview your page in a browser” on page 96.

6. Save your page.

Preview your page in a browser

The Design view gives you a rough idea of what your page will look like on the web, but you must preview the page in a browser to see the definitive end result. Though browsers in general produce the same results, each browser version can display HTML pages somewhat differently. Dreamweaver attempts to produce HTML that will look as similar as possible from one browser to another; but sometimes differences can’t be avoided. Thus, previewing your work in a browser is the only way for you to see what your site visitors will see after you publish your pages.

96 Tutorial: Adding Content to Pages

1. Make sure the index.html file is open in the Document window.

2. Press the F12 key (Windows) or Option+F12 (Macintosh).

Your primary browser starts if it’s not running already and displays the index page.

NOTE

Dreamweaver automatically detects your primary browser and uses that for previewing. If the preview doesn’t appear, or if it doesn’t appear in the browser you expect, switch back to Dreamweaver (if necessary) and select File > Preview in Browser > Edit Browser List. When the Preview in Browser Preferences dialog box appears, add the correct browser to the list. For more information, click the Help button in the Preferences dialog box.

3. (Optional) Switch back to Dreamweaver to make any necessary

changes.

Then save your work and press the F12 key again to make sure your changes took effect.

Preview your page in a browser 97

You now have a web page full of content. The next step is to format some of the content to make it more appealing. In the next tutorial, you’ll learn how to use CSS to format the text that you added.

98 Tutorial: Adding Content to Pages

CHAPTER 6

Tutorial: Formatting Your Page with CSS

This tutorial shows you how to format text on your page using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) in Dreamweaver. CSS provides you with greater control over the appearance of your page by letting you format and position text in ways that HTML cannot.

In this tutorial, you will complete the following tasks:

Locate your files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Review your task . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101

Learn about CSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Create a new style sheet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Explore the CSS Styles panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Attach a style sheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Create a new CSS rule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Apply a class style to text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113

Format the navigation bar text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .114

(Optional) Center the contents of the page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Locate your files

In this tutorial, you’ll begin with the Cafe Townsend index page to which you added content in Chapter 5, “Tutorial: Adding Content to Pages.” If you did not complete that tutorial, you can either complete it before proceeding, or you can open the finished version of the tutorial and begin with that. The finished version of the tutorial, add_content.html, is located in the completed_files/dreamweaver folder, within the cafe_townsend folder that you copied to your hard drive in Chapter 3, “Tutorial: Setting

Up Your Site and Project Files.”

NOTE

If you begin this tutorial with the completed add_content.html file, instead of the index.html file from Chapter 5, “Tutorial: Adding Content to Pages,” certain steps and illustrations in the tutorial will not match what you see on your screen.

100 Tutorial: Formatting Your Page with CSS

Macromedia DREAMWEAVER 8 User Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual

Contents

Introduction to Dreamweaver

Introduction

What you can do with Dreamweaver 8

What's new in Dreamweaver 8

Installing Dreamweaver 8

Registering Dreamweaver 8

Typographical conventions

Learning Dreamweaver

Where to start

Web-design novices

Experienced web designers

Experienced hand-coders

Web application developers

Getting the most from the Dreamweaver documentation

Accessing the Dreamweaver documentation

Accessing additional online Dreamweaver resources

Using the Dreamweaver help system

Opening Help

Searching help

Using the index

Changing the font size

Using the Start Page

Printing the Dreamweaver Documentation

Discussing the Dreamweaver documentation with LiveDocs

Dreamweaver Basics

Getting to know the Dreamweaver 8 workspace

The workspace layout

The Document window

The Document toolbar

The status bar

The Insert bar

The Coding toolbar

The Property inspector

The Files panel

The CSS Styles panel

Customizing the Dreamweaver 8 workspace

Choosing the workspace layout (Windows only)

Displaying tabbed documents (Macintosh)

Hiding and displaying the Start page

Accomplishing basic tasks in Dreamweaver 8

About Dreamweaver files

Creating new files in Dreamweaver

Saving files in Dreamweaver

Opening files in Dreamweaver

Tutorials

Tutorial: Setting Up Your Site and Project Files

Learn about Dreamweaver sites

Set up your project files

Define a local folder

Tutorial: Creating a Table-based Page Layout

Examine the design comp

Create and save a new page

Insert tables

Set table properties

Insert an image placeholder

Add color to the page

Tutorial: Adding Content to Pages

Locate your files

Review your task

Insert images

Replace the image placeholder

Insert an image by using the Insert menu

Insert an image by dragging

Insert an image from the Assets panel

Insert and play a Flash file

Insert Flash Video

Insert text

Insert body text

Insert text for a navigation bar

Create links

Preview your page in a browser

Tutorial: Formatting Your Page with CSS

Locate your files