MACROMEDIA DREAMWEAVER MX 2004 Use Manual

Using Dreamweaver

Trademarks

Add Life to the Web, Afterburner, Aftershock, Andromedia, Allaire, Animation PowerPack, Aria, Attain, Authorware, Authorware Star, Backstage, Bright Tiger, Clustercats, Cold Fusion, Contribute, Design in Motion, Director, Dream Templates, Dreamweaver, Drumbeat 2000, EDJE, EJIPT, Extreme 3D, Fireworks, Flash, Fontographer, FreeHand, Generator, HomeSite, JFusion, JRun, Kawa, Know Your Site, Knowledge Objects, Knowledge Stream, Knowledge Track, LikeMinds, Lingo, Live Effects, MacRecorder Logo and Design, Macromedia, Macromedia Action!, Macromedia Flash, Macromedia M Logo & Design, Macromedia Spectra, Macromedia xRes Logo and Design, MacroModel, Made with Macromedia, Made with Macromedia Logo and Design, MAGIC Logo and Design, Mediamaker, Movie Critic, Open Sesame!, Roundtrip HTML, Shockwave, Sitespring, SoundEdit, Titlemaker, UltraDev, Web Design 101, what the web can be, and Xtra are either registered 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, servicemarks, or tradenames 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.

Third Party Software Notices and/or Additional Terms and Conditions can be found at www.macromedia.com/go/thirdparty/.

Apple Disclaimer

APPLE COMPUTER, INC. MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, REGARDING THE ENCLOSED COMPUTER SOFTWARE PACKAGE, ITS MERCHANTABILITY OR ITS FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE EXCLUSION OF IMPLIED WARRANTIES IS NOT PERMITTED BY SOME STATES. THE ABOVE EXCLUSION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. THIS WARRANTY PROVIDES YOU WITH SPECIFIC LEGAL RIGHTS. THERE MAY BE OTHER RIGHTS THAT YOU MAY HAVE WHICH VARY FROM STATE TO STATE.

Copyright © 2003 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 prior written approval of Macromedia, Inc. Part Number ZDW70M200

Acknowledgments

Senior Management: Sheila McGinn

Project Management: Charles Nadeau

Writing: Jed Hartman, Jennifer Rowe, Chris Bedford, Charles Nadeau

Editing: Lisa Stanziano, Mary Ferguson, Noreen Maher

Production Management: Patrice O’Neill

Media Design and Production: Adam Barnett, Aaron Begley, Chris Basmajian, John Francis, Jeff Harmon

Special thanks to Jay London, Alain Dumesny, Lori Hylan-Cho, Jack Herrington, Vic Mitnick, Rebecca Hyatt, Russ Helfand, Erik Bergman, Luciano Arruda, Sho Kuwamoto, Ken Karleskint, Scott Richards, Bonnie Loo, David Deming, Jennifer Taylor, Rosana Francescato, Randy Nielsen, the beta testers, and the entire Dreamweaver engineering and QA teams.

First Edition: September 2003

Macromedia, Inc. 600 Townsend St.

San Francisco, CA 94103

CONTENTS

PART I: Dreamweaver Basics

INTRODUCTION: Welcome to Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

What’s new in Dreamweaver MX 2004. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Where to start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Dreamweaver workflow for creating websites. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Using Dreamweaver with other applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Dreamweaver and accessibility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Guide to Dreamweaver instructional media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Typographical conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

HTML and web technologies resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

CHAPTER 1: Exploring the Workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

About the Dreamweaver workspace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Working in the Document window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Using toolbars, inspectors, and context menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Using panels and panel groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Using Dreamweaver accessibility features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Optimizing the workspace for accessible page design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Using visual guides in Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Dreamweaver customizing basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

CHAPTER 2: Setting Up a Dreamweaver Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

About Dreamweaver sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Setting up a new Dreamweaver site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Using the Advanced settings to set up a Dreamweaver site. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Editing settings for a Dreamweaver site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Editing existing websites in Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

CHAPTER 3: Creating and Opening Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Creating new documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Saving a new document. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Setting a default new document type. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Opening existing documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Importing a Microsoft Word HTML file. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

PART II: Working with Dreamweaver Sites

CHAPTER 4: Managing Your Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

About site management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Accessing sites, a server, and local drives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Viewing files and folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Managing files and folders in the Files panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Working with a visual map of your site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Importing and exporting sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

Removing a Dreamweaver site from your list of sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Checking in and checking out files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Getting and putting files to and from your server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Synchronizing the files on your local and remote sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Cloaking folders and files in your site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Storing file information in Design Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Testing your site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

CHAPTER 5: Managing Site Assets and Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

About library items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Working with assets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

Creating and managing a list of favorite assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Working with library items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

CHAPTER 6: Managing Contribute Sites with Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

About managing Contribute sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

Preparing a site for use with Contribute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

Administering a Contribute site using Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

Troubleshooting a Contribute site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

Managing Contribute files using Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

4 Contents

PART III: Laying Out Pages

CHAPTER 7: Laying Out Pages with CSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

About layers in Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

Inserting content blocks for layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

Changing highlight color for content blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

Working with content blocks for layout. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Inserting a layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Setting layer preferences and properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

Managing layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Manipulating layers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Converting layers to tables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Using rulers and grids to lay out pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

Using a tracing image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

CHAPTER 8: Presenting Content with Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

About tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

Inserting a table and adding content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Importing and exporting tabular data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166

Selecting table elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

Using Expanded Tables mode for easier table editing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

Formatting tables and cells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

Resizing tables, columns, and rows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Adding and removing rows and columns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

Splitting and merging cells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Copying, pasting, and deleting cells. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

Nesting tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

Sorting tables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

CHAPTER 9: Laying Out Pages in Layout Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

About Layout mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

Switching from Standard to Layout mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Drawing in Layout mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Adding content to a layout cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

Clearing automatically set cell heights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Resizing and moving layout cells and tables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Formatting layout cells and tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

Setting column width . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Setting preferences for Layout mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

CHAPTER 10: Using Frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

About frames and framesets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

Working with framesets in the Document window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Creating frames and framesets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

Selecting frames and framesets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

Opening a document in a frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

Saving frame and frameset files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

Contents 5

Viewing and setting frame properties and attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

Viewing and setting frameset properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

Controlling frame content with links. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

Handling browsers that can’t display frames. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

Using JavaScript behaviors with frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

CHAPTER 11: Managing Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

About Dreamweaver templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

Creating a Dreamweaver template. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226

Creating templates for a Contribute site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

Creating editable regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

Creating repeating regions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

Using optional regions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

Defining editable tag attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Creating a nested template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Editing and updating templates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

Managing templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

Exporting and importing template XML content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246

Exporting a site without template markup. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

Applying or removing a template from an existing document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

Editing content in a template-based document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248

PART IV: Adding Content to Pages

CHAPTER 12: Working with Pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

About working with pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

Saving web pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

Specifying HTML instead of CSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

Setting page properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

Working with colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260

Selecting elements in the Document window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

Using the History panel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Automating tasks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265

Using JavaScript behaviors to detect browsers and plug-ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270

Previewing and testing pages in browsers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270

Setting download time and size preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272

CHAPTER 13: Inserting and Formatting Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

About text formatting in Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

Inserting text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280

Formatting paragraphs and document structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282

Formatting text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

Using Cascading Style Sheets styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290

Updating CSS style sheets in a Contribute site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

Checking spelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

Searching for and replacing text. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

6 Contents

CHAPTER 14: Inserting Images. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303

About images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303

Inserting an image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305

Resizing an image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

Cropping an image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310

Optimizing an image using Fireworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310

Adjusting the brightness and contrast of an image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

Sharpening an image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

Creating a rollover image. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312

Using an external image editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

Applying behaviors to images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

CHAPTER 15: Linking and Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

Understanding document locations and paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316

Jump menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318

Navigation bars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

About image maps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320

Creating links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320

Managing links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327

Inserting jump menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

Using navigation bars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333

Using image maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335

Attaching JavaScript behaviors to links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336

Checking for broken, external, and orphaned links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336

Fixing broken links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338

Opening linked documents in Dreamweaver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

CHAPTER 16: Working with Other Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341

About Fireworks and Flash integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341

Optimizing your work environment for Fireworks and Flash. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342

Working with Fireworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342

Working with Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351

CHAPTER 17: Adding Audio, Video, and Interactive Elements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355

About media files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356

Inserting and editing media objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358

Starting an external editor for media files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359

Using Design Notes with media objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360

Inserting and modifying a Flash button object. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361

Inserting a Flash text object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363

Inserting Flash content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363

Downloading and installing Flash elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364

Inserting Flash elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364

Editing Flash element attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365

Inserting Shockwave movies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365

Adding video. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365

Adding sound to a page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366

Contents 7

Inserting Netscape Navigator plug-in content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367

Inserting an ActiveX control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368

Inserting a Java applet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368

Using behaviors to control media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369

CHAPTER 18: Using JavaScript Behaviors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371

Using the Behaviors panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372

About events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372

Applying a behavior. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373

Attaching a behavior to text. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374

Changing a behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375

Updating a behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375

Creating new actions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375

Downloading and installing third-party behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376

Using the behavior actions that come with Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376

PART V: Working with Page Code

CHAPTER 19: Setting Up Your Coding Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

Viewing your code. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

Using the coder-oriented workspace (Windows only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402

Setting viewing preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403

Setting coding preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403

Customizing keyboard shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405

Opening files in Code view by default . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405

Setting Validator preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405

Managing tag libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406

Importing custom tags into Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410

Using an external HTML editor with Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412

CHAPTER 20: Coding in Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415

About coding in Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416

Writing and editing code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423

Searching and replacing tags and attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428

Making quick changes to a code selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430

Using language-reference material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431

Printing your code. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432

CHAPTER 21: Optimizing and Debugging Your Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433

Cleaning up your code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433

Verifying that tags and braces are balanced . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434

Checking for browser compatibility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434

Validating your tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437

Making pages XHTML-compliant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438

Using the ColdFusion debugger (Windows only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439

8 Contents

CHAPTER 22: Editing Code in Design View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441

Editing code with the Property inspector. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441

Changing attributes with the Tag inspector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442

Editing code with the Quick Tag Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443

Editing code with the tag selector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446

Editing scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446

Working with server-side includes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448

Using JavaScript behaviors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449

Viewing and editing head content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449

PART VI: Preparing to Build Dynamic Sites

CHAPTER 23: Setting Up a Web Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453

What you need to build web applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453

Setting up a web server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 454

Setting up an application server. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 454

Creating a root folder for the application. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458

Defining a Dreamweaver site. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459

Connecting to a database. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461

CHAPTER 24: Database Connections for ColdFusion Developers . . . . . . . . . . 463

Connecting to a database. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463

Editing or deleting a database connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464

CHAPTER 25: Database Connections for ASP.NET Developers . . . . . . . . . . . 465

Connecting to a database. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465

Editing or deleting a database connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468

CHAPTER 26: Database Connections for ASP Developers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469

About database connections in ASP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469

Creating a DSN connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471

Creating a DSN-less connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474

Connecting to a database on an ISP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475

Editing or deleting a database connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478

CHAPTER 27: Database Connections for JSP Developers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479

About database connections in JSP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479

Connecting to a database. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481

Connecting through an ODBC driver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482

Editing or deleting a database connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485

Contents 9

CHAPTER 28: Database Connections for PHP Developers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487

Connecting to a database. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487

Editing or deleting a database connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488

CHAPTER 29: Troubleshooting Database Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489

Troubleshooting permissions problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489

Troubleshooting Microsoft error messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491

PART VII: Making Pages Dynamic

CHAPTER 30: Optimizing the Workspace for Visual Development . . . . . . . . . . 497

Displaying web-application development panels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497

Viewing your database within Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499

Viewing live data in Design view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500

Working in Design view without live data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505

Previewing dynamic pages in a browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505

Restricting database information displayed in Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506

CHAPTER 31: The Workflow for Dynamic Page Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507

Designing the page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 508

Creating a source of dynamic content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 508

Adding dynamic content to a web page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 510

Enhancing the functionality of a dynamic page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 510

Testing and debugging the page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511

CHAPTER 32: Obtaining Data for Your Page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515

Using a database to store content. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515

Collecting data submitted by users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516

Accessing data stored in session variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520

CHAPTER 33: Defining Sources of Dynamic Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 525

About dynamic content sources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 526

Defining a recordset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 530

Defining URL parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534

Defining form parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 535

Defining session variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536

Defining application variables for ASP and ColdFusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537

Using a variable as a data source for a ColdFusion recordset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538

Defining server variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538

Caching content sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 542

Changing or deleting content sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 543

Copying a recordset from one page to another page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 543

10 Contents

CHAPTER 34: Adding Dynamic Content to Web Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545

About adding dynamic content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 546

Making text dynamic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 547

Making images dynamic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 548

Making HTML attributes dynamic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549

Making ActiveX, Flash, and other object parameters dynamic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 551

Editing dynamic content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552

Deleting dynamic content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552

Creating dynamic pages in a Contribute site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 553

CHAPTER 35: Displaying Database Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555

About displaying database records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555

Using predefined data formats. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 562

Creating recordset navigation links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 563

Showing and hiding regions based on recordset results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566

Displaying multiple recordset results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566

Creating a table with a Repeat Region server behavior. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567

Creating a record counter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 569

Creating ASP.NET DataGrid and DataList web controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 570

CHAPTER 36: Using ColdFusion Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573

About ColdFusion components. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573

Visually creating a component in Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 574

Viewing ColdFusion components in Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575

Editing ColdFusion components in Dreamweaver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 576

Building web pages that use ColdFusion components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577

CHAPTER 37: Using Web Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 579

About web services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 580

Configuring proxy generators for use with Dreamweaver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583

Adding a web service proxy using the WSDL description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 585

Adding a web service to a page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 586

Editing the UDDI web service site list. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588

CHAPTER 38: Adding Custom Server Behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 589

About custom server behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 589

Installing third-party server behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 598

Using the Server Behavior Builder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 598

Using parameters in server behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 601

Positioning code blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 602

Creating a dialog box for a custom server behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 603

Editing and modifying server behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 605

Contents 11

CHAPTER 39: Creating Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 607

About forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 607

Creating HTML forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 611

Inserting HTML form objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 613

Inserting dynamic HTML form objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 617

Validating HTML form data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 620

Attaching JavaScript behaviors to HTML form objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 620

Attaching custom scripts to HTML form buttons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 621

Creating accessible HTML forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 622

Creating ASP.NET forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 623

PART VIII: Developing Applications Rapidly

CHAPTER 40: Building ColdFusion Applications Rapidly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 629

About rapid application development (all servers) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 629

Building master/detail pages (ColdFusion) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 634

Building search/results pages (ColdFusion, ASP, JSP, PHP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 641

Building a record insert page (all servers) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 646

Building pages to update a record (ColdFusion) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 649

Building pages to delete a record (ColdFusion) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 655

Using stored procedures to modify databases (ColdFusion) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 665

Building pages that restrict access to your site (ColdFusion, ASP, JSP, PHP) . . . . 666

CHAPTER 41: Building ASP.NET Applications Rapidly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 675

Building master/detail pages (ASP.NET) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 675

Building a database search page (ASP.NET). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 681

Building a record insert page (ASP.NET). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 685

Building pages to update a record (ASP.NET) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 686

Building pages to delete a record (ASP.NET). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 692

Using stored procedures to modify databases (ASP.NET) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 700

Building pages that restrict access to your site (ASP.NET) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 701

CHAPTER 42: Building ASP and JSP Applications Rapidly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 703

Building master/detail pages (ASP and JSP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 703

Building search/results pages (ASP and JSP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 706

Building a record insert page (ASP and JSP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 706

Building pages to update a record (ASP and JSP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 707

Building pages to delete a record (ASP and JSP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 711

Building pages with advanced data manipulation objects (ASP and JSP) . . . . . . . 714

Building pages that restrict access to your site (ASP and JSP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 718

12 Contents

CHAPTER 43: Building PHP Applications Rapidly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 719

Building master/detail pages (PHP). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 719

Building search/results pages (PHP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 725

Building a record insert page (PHP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 725

Building pages to update a record (PHP). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 726

Building pages to delete a record (PHP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 732

Building pages that restrict access to your site (PHP). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 738

PART IX: Appendixes

APPENDIX A: Beginner’s Guide to Databases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 741

About databases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 741

Database design basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 742

Understanding database connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 747

APPENDIX B: SQL Primer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 753

Syntax basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 753

Defining the columns of a recordset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 755

Limiting the records in a recordset. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 755

Sorting the records in a recordset. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 758

Joining tables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 759

INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 761

Contents 13

14 Contents

PART I

Dreamweaver Basics

Learn how to use Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 documentation and other resources, and set up the Dreamweaver workspace to fit your preferred working style. Then plan and set up a site, and begin to create pages.

This part contains the following chapters:

Introduction, “Welcome to Dreamweaver,” on page 17

Chapter 1, “Exploring the Workspace,” on page 31

Chapter 2, “Setting Up a Dreamweaver Site,” on page 59

Chapter 3, “Creating and Opening Documents,” on page 69

PART I

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to Dreamweaver

Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 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.

The visual editing features in Dreamweaver let you quickly create 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, then importing them directly into Dreamweaver, or by adding Macromedia Flash objects.

Dreamweaver also provides a full-featured coding environment that includes code-editing tools (such as code coloring and tag completion) and reference material on HTML, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), JavaScript, ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML), Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP), and JavaServer Pages (JSP). 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 enables you to build dynamic database-backed web applications using server technologies such as CFML,ASP.NET, ASP, JSP, and PHP.

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.

This chapter contains the following sections:

• “What’s new in Dreamweaver MX 2004” on page 18

• “Where to start” on page 20

• “Dreamweaver workflow for creating websites” on page 22

• “Using Dreamweaver with other applications” on page 25

• “Dreamweaver and accessibility” on page 26

• “Guide to Dreamweaver instructional media” on page 27

• “Typographical conventions” on page 29

• “HTML and web technologies resources” on page 29

What’s new in Dreamweaver MX 2004

Dreamweaver MX 2004 contains a new, streamlined interface, along with improved product performance. There’s also a wide variety of new features that improve usability and help you build pages whether you are working in the design environment or the coding environment.

Streamlined design and development interface

The Dreamweaver interface is more approachable to help you improve your productivity and quality of work.

Insert bar improvements give the Insert bar a new streamlined look, which takes up less space in

the workspace. There’s also a new Favorites category, which you can use to customize an Insert bar with the objects you use most often. For more information, see “The Insert bar” on page 37.

Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel copy and paste commands enable you to copy and paste

a Microsoft Word or Excel document directly into Dreamweaver. When you paste a Word or Excel document, Dreamweaver preserves formatting and generates quality HTML. For more information, see “Copying and pasting text from MS Office documents” on page 281.

Table editing visual feedback enables you to see the effects column resize operations will have

on your tables. Visual feedback also makes it easier for you to select table elements. For more information about resizing, see “Resizing tables, columns, and rows” on page 173. For more information about using Expanded Tables mode for selecting elements, see “Using Expanded

Tables mode for easier table editing” on page 170.

User interface overhaul maximizes the usable workspace, showing context and focus more

clearly, and makes the interface more approachable and logical. For more information about the Dreamweaver workspace, see “About the Dreamweaver workspace” on page 32.

The Start page enables you to access recently used files, create new files, and access Dreamweaver

resources. The Start page appears when you start Dreamweaver or when you don’t have any documents open. For information hiding or showing the Start page, see “Hiding and displaying

the Start page” on page 55.

Saved desktop option gives you the choice to have Dreamweaver reopen documents you were

last working on when you restart Dreamweaver. For information about setting this option, see

“Setting General preferences for Dreamweaver” on page 56.

Full Unicode support means that Dreamweaver in Windows supports all text encodings

supported by Internet Explorer. You can use almost any language font installed on your system in Dreamweaver, and Dreamweaver will render and save it properly. For information about setting font encodings, see “Setting Fonts preferences for Dreamweaver display” on page 56.

Secure FTP enables you to fully encrypt all file transfers and prevent unauthorized access to your

data, files, user names, and passwords. For information about setting up a remote connection using FTP, see “Setting up a remote folder” on page 65.

Modernized page layout and design environment

Dreamweaver includes the following enhanced CSS features that provide a more sophisticated way to style and add interactivity to designs, and also includes feedback to improve visual editing.

18 Introduction: Welcome to Dreamweaver

Dynamic cross-browser validation automatically checks the current document for cross-

browser compatibility issues when you save the document. You specify which browsers to target, and Dreamweaver checks to make sure pages are not using tags or CSS constructs that those browsers do not support. For more information, see “Checking for browser compatibility”

on page 434.

Relevant CSS tab displays the CSS rules applied to the current Code view or Design view

selection. Click any rule to see which attributes it specifies (border style, margin, padding, text size, and so on). Special markings let you know when a specific attribute has been overridden, and in-place editing allows for quick edits that are instantly reflected in Design view. For more information, see “The CSS Properties tab” on page 279.

CSS layout visualization makes laying out pages in CSS much easier. You can easily select div

and other content blocks in Design view, then modify properties with the CSS Properties tab. For more information, see Chapter 7, “Laying Out Pages with CSS,” on page 145.

Improved CSS rendering means Dreamweaver can render more complicated CSS-based layouts

and designs more accurately. Improved CSS rendering enables you to design more sophisticated layouts and use Dreamweaver design tools for robust visual manipulations.

Improved CSS Styles panel provides more options for editing styles in the current document.

You can also now directly apply styles from the text Property inspector. For more information, see

“Using Cascading Style Sheets styles” on page 290.

CSS-based text Property inspector lists all of the styles available for use in text, and includes a

preview that shows what text will look like after the style is applied. For more information, see

“The Property inspector and text formatting” on page 277.

CSS-based page properties give you more control of page properties, such as the appearance of

headings and links, using modern CSS coding constructs. For more information, see “About

setting page properties” on page 254.

Integrated image-editing toolbar enables you to do basic image manipulation and editing from

Dreamweaver using Macromedia Fireworks technology. You can crop, resize, resample, and so on, without leaving Dreamweaver. For more information, see “Editing images in Dreamweaver”

on page 304.

Powerful and open coding environment

Dreamweaver offers the following new features for coders, including improvements to the Code view and the ability to edit files without creating a Dreamweaver site. Dreamweaver also includes current support for server technologies.

Improved Tag inspector displays a list of properties available for the current selection and

enables you to make quick, comprehensive edits. For more information, see “Changing attributes

with the Tag inspector” on page 442.

Siteless file editing enables you to work directly on an FTP or RDS server without creating a

Dreamweaver site. For more information about setting up Dreamweaver to work on a server, see

“Setting up Dreamweaver to work without defining a site” on page 82. For more information

about setting up a Dreamweaver site, see “Setting up a new Dreamweaver site” on page 62.

PHP server behaviors enable you to create a master/detail page set and user authentication

pages. For more information, see “Building master/detail pages (PHP)” on page 719 and

“Building pages that restrict access to your site (PHP)” on page 738.

What’s new in Dreamweaver MX 2004 19

Improved support for ASP.NET form controls provides new and improved ways, including new

Property inspectors, to build and manipulate ASP.NET web forms in Design view. For more information, see Chapter 42, “Building ASP and JSP Applications Rapidly,” on page 703.

Code view context menu enables you to make quick formatting changes to selected code. For

more information, see “Making quick changes to a code selection” on page 430.

Where to start

Dreamweaver documentation includes information for readers from a variety of backgrounds. To get the most out of the documentation, start by reading the parts that are most appropriate for you.

For information about Dreamweaver resources, see “Guide to Dreamweaver instructional media”

on page 27.

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 the tutorials for creating a static site in Getting Started Help. 2 In Using Dreamweaver Help (Help > Using Dreamweaver), read Chapter 1, “Exploring the

Workspace,” on page 31, Chapter 2, “Setting Up a Dreamweaver Site,” on page 59, Chapter 4, “Managing Your Files,” on page 77, and Chapter 3, “Creating and Opening Documents,” on page 69.

3 Learn about page layout by reading Chapter 9, “Laying Out Pages in Layout Mode,”

on page 183.

4 To learn about formatting text and including images in your pages, read Chapter 13, “Inserting

and Formatting Text,” on page 273 and Chapter 14, “Inserting Images,” on page 303.

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 Help. You might want to wait to read the dynamic-page chapters until you’re more familiar with creating web pages.

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 for creating a static site in Getting Started Help. 2 In Using Dreamweaver Help, read Chapter 1, “Exploring the Workspace,” on page 31 to learn

more about the Dreamweaver user interface.

3 Although much of the material in Chapter 2, “Setting Up a Dreamweaver Site,” on page 59 and

Chapter 4, “Managing Your Files,” on page 77 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.

20 Introduction: Welcome to Dreamweaver

4 For useful information on the details of using Dreamweaver to create basic HTML pages, read

Chapter 13, “Inserting and Formatting Text,” on page 273 and Chapter 14, “Inserting Images,” on page 303.

5 For information about coding in Dreamweaver, see “Setting Up Your Coding Environment”

on page 401, “Coding in Dreamweaver” on page 415, “Optimizing and Debugging Your Code” on page 433, and “Editing Code in Design View” on page 441.

6 Read the overview at the beginning of each of the other chapters in Using Dreamweaver Help

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 “Understanding Web Applications” and “Tutorial: Developing a Web

Application” in Getting Started Help.

2 In Using Dreamweaver Help, skim Chapter 1, “Exploring the Workspace,” on page 31 to learn

about new aspects of the Dreamweaver user interface, then read “Optimizing the Workspace for

Visual Development” on page 497.

3 Become familiar with the Dreamweaver workflow for dynamic pages by reading “The Workflow

for Dynamic Page Design” on page 507.

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

on page 453.)

5 Connect to a database. (See “Connecting to a database” on page 461.) 6 Read the overview at the beginning of each chapter in Using Dreamweaver Help to determine

whether its topics are of interest to you.

7 If you’re interested in customizing Dreamweaver by hand, read Customizing Dreamweaver on

the Macromedia Support Center at www.macromedia.com/go/customizing_dreamweaver. If you want to write extensions for Dreamweaver, read Extending Dreamweaver Help.

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 “Tutorial: Editing Code” in Getting Started Help. 2 In Using Dreamweaver Help, read Chapter 1, “Exploring the Workspace,” on page 31 to learn

more about the Dreamweaver user interface.

3 Although much of the material in Chapter 2, “Setting Up a Dreamweaver Site,” on page 59 and

Chapter 4, “Managing Your Files,” on page 77 is probably familiar to you, skim those chapters

to see how these familiar concepts are implemented in Dreamweaver. Pay particular attention to the sections on setting up a Dreamweaver site.

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

Environment,” on page 401, Chapter 20, “Coding in Dreamweaver,” on page 415, Chapter 21, “Optimizing and Debugging Your Code,” on page 433, and Chapter 22, “Editing Code in Design View,” on page 441.

5 Read the overview at the beginning of each chapter in Using Dreamweaver Help to determine

whether its topics are of interest to you.

Where to start 21

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 Getting Started Help to familiarize yourself with the basics of using

Dreamweaver.

2 In Using Dreamweaver Help, read Chapter 1, “Exploring the Workspace,” on page 31 to learn

more about the Dreamweaver user interface.

3 Although much of the material in Chapter 2, “Setting Up a Dreamweaver Site,” on page 59 and

Chapter 4, “Managing Your Files,” on page 77 is probably familiar to you, skim those chapters

to see how these familiar concepts are implemented in Dreamweaver. Pay particular attention to the sections on setting up a Dreamweaver site.

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

Web Application,” on page 453.)

5 Connect to a database. (See “Connecting to a database” on page 461.) 6 Read the overview at the beginning of each of the chapter in Using Dreamweaver Help 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 MX 2004” on page 18. 2 In Using Dreamweaver Help, skim Chapter 1, “Exploring the Workspace,” on page 31 to learn

about new aspects of the Dreamweaver user interface.

3 If you’re interested in customizing Dreamweaver by hand, read “Customizing Dreamweaver”

on the Macromedia Support Center at www.macromedia.com/go/customizing_dreamweaver. If you want to write extensions for Dreamweaver, read Extending Dreamweaver Help.

Dreamweaver workflow for creating websites

There are many possible approaches to creating a website. The workflow presented in this documentation starts by defining a site’s strategy or goals. If you’re developing web applications, you have to set up servers and databases as needed. Then you design the look and feel of the site. When the design is complete, you build the site and code the pages, adding content and interactivity; then you link pages together, and test the site for functionality and to see if it meets its defined objectives. You can include dynamic pages in your site as well. At the end of the cycle, you publish the site on a server. Many developers also schedule periodic maintenance to ensure that the site remains current and functional.

Planning your site

Planning and organizing your site carefully from the start can save you time later on. Organizing your site includes not only determining where the files will go, but also examining site requirements, audience profiles, and site goals. Additionally, you should consider technical requirements such as user access, as well as browser, plug-in, and download restrictions.

22 Introduction: Welcome to Dreamweaver

Once you’ve organized your information and determined a structure, you can begin creating your site.

• Use the Dreamweaver Files panel to set up your site’s organizational structure. In the Files

panel, you can easily add, delete, and rename files and folders to change the organization as needed. (See Chapter 2, “Setting Up a Dreamweaver Site,” on page 59 and Chapter 4,

“Managing Your Files,” on page 77.)

• You can begin to create simple pages which you’ll later turn into more complex designs. Create

new blank pages or pages based on predesigned page designs. (See Chapter 3, “Creating and

Opening Documents,” on page 69.)

If you work on a web-development team, you may also be interested in these topics:

• Set up a system to prevent team members from overwriting files. (See “Checking in and

checking out files” on page 97.)

• Use Design Notes to communicate with web team members. (See “Storing file information in

Design Notes” on page 108.)

Managing your site files

The Dreamweaver Files and Assets panels make it easy for you to manage your site files.

• In the Dreamweaver Files panel you’ll find many tools to help you manage your site, transfer

files to and from a remote server, set up a Check In/Check Out process to prevent files from being overwritten, and synchronize the files on your local and remote sites. (See “Managing

Your Files” on page 77.)

• Use the Assets panel to easily organize the assets in a site; you can then drag most assets directly

from the Assets panel into a Dreamweaver document. (See Chapter 5, “Managing Site Assets

and Libraries,” on page 115.)

• You can use Dreamweaver to manage aspects of your Contribute sites. (See Chapter 6,

“Managing Contribute Sites with Dreamweaver,” on page 133.)

Laying out web pages

Dreamweaver provides you flexibility as you mock-up and work toward a final layout for your pages. Choose the layout technique that works for you, or use the Dreamweaver layout options in conjunction with one another to create your site’s look.

• You can use Dreamweaver layers or CSS positioning styles to create your layout. (See

Chapter 7, “Laying Out Pages with CSS,” on page 145.)

• The table tools and Layout mode in Dreamweaver let you quickly design web pages by

drawing and then rearranging the page structure. (See Chapter 8, “Presenting Content with

Tables,” on page 163 and Chapter 9, “Laying Out Pages in Layout Mode,” on page 183.)

• If you want to display multiple documents at once in a web browser, you can lay out

documents using frames. (See Chapter 10, “Using Frames,” on page 199.)

• Dreamweaver templates enable you to easily apply reusable content and page designs to your

site. You can create new pages based on a Dreamweaver template, then update the layout of those pages automatically when the template changes. (See Chapter 11, “Managing

Templates,” on page 215.)

Dreamweaver workflow for creating websites 23

Adding content to pages

Using Dreamweaver, you can easily add a variety of content to web pages. Add assets and design elements, such as text, images, colors, movies, sound, and other forms of media.

• Dreamweaver page creation features enable you to specify web page properties such, as page

titles, background images and colors. In addition, Dreamweaver provides tools to help you maximize website performance, and to test pages to ensure compatibility with different web browsers. (See Chapter 12, “Working with Pages,” on page 253.)

• Type directly in a Dreamweaver document, or import text from other documents, then format

the text using the Dreamweaver Property inspector. You can also easily create your own Cascading Style Sheets. (See Chapter 13, “Inserting and Formatting Text,” on page 273.)

• Insert images, including rollover images, image maps, and Fireworks sliced images, and use

alignment tools to position images in a page. You can also resize images directly in Dreamweaver. (See Chapter 14, “Inserting Images,” on page 303 and Chapter 16, “Working

with Other Applications,” on page 341.)

• With Dreamweaver you can create standard HTML links, including anchor links and e-mail

links, or easily set up graphical navigation systems, such as jump menus and navigation bars. (See Chapter 15, “Linking and Navigation,” on page 315.)

• Insert other types of media in a web page, such as Flash, Shockwave, and QuickTime movies,

sound, and applets. (See Chapter 17, “Adding Audio, Video, and Interactive Elements,”

on page 355.)

• Use behaviors to perform tasks in response to specific events, such as highlighting a button

when the visitor passes the pointer over it, validating a form when the visitor clicks the Submit button, or opening a second browser window when the main page is finished loading. (See

Chapter 18, “Using JavaScript Behaviors,” on page 371.)

Hand-coding

Coding web pages by hand is another approach to creating pages. Dreamweaver provides easy-touse visual editing tools, but it also provides a sophisticated coding environment; you can use either approach, or both, to create and edit your pages.

• You can work in a coding environment without visual tools; coding tools help you create and

edit code, format code, and make sure that your code adheres to standards. (See Chapter 19,

“Setting Up Your Coding Environment,” on page 401 and Chapter 20, “Coding in Dreamweaver,” on page 415, and Chapter 21, “Optimizing and Debugging Your Code,” on page 433.)

• You can also use some Dreamweaver coding tools in Design view, the visual design

environment. (See Chapter 22, “Editing Code in Design View,” on page 441.)

Setting up a web application

Many websites contain dynamic pages that allow visitors to view information stored in databases, and usually allow some visitors to add new information and edit information in the databases. To create such pages, you must first complete several preparatory steps.

• Set up a web server and application server, then create or modify a Dreamweaver site. (See

Chapter 23, “Setting Up a Web Application,” on page 453.)

• Connect to a database. (See “Connecting to a database” on page 461).

24 Introduction: Welcome to Dreamweaver

Creating dynamic pages

In Dreamweaver, you can define a variety of sources of dynamic content, including recordsets extracted from databases, form parameters, and JavaBeans components. To add the dynamic content to a page, simply drag it onto the page.

You can set your page to display one record or many records at a time, display more than one page of records, add special links to move from one page of records to the next (and back), and create record counters to help users keep track of the records.

• If you’re unfamiliar with creating web applications in Dreamweaver, learn how to use

Dreamweaver to build dynamic pages. (See Chapter 30, “Optimizing the Workspace for Visual

Development,” on page 497 and Chapter 31, “The Workflow for Dynamic Page Design,” on page 507.)

• Define and display dynamic content on your pages. (See Chapter 32, “Obtaining Data for

Your Page,” on page 515, Chapter 33, “Defining Sources of Dynamic Content,” on page 525, Chapter 34, “Adding Dynamic Content to Web Pages,” on page 545, and Chapter 35, “Displaying Database Records,” on page 555.)

• Encapsulate application or business logic using leading-edge technologies such as Macromedia

ColdFusion components and web services. (See Chapter 36, “Using ColdFusion

Components,” on page 573 and Chapter 37, “Using Web Services,” on page 579.)

• If you need more flexibility, you can create your own server behaviors and interactive forms.

(See Chapter 38, “Adding Custom Server Behaviors,” on page 589 and Chapter 39, “Creating

Forms,” on page 607.)

Rapid application development

Dreamweaver offers a number of rapid application development (RAD) tools, including server behaviors and application objects, that help you build sophisticated web applications without having to write any server-side code.

• Quickly create pages that search and modify databases and display the results. Provide security

by restricting access to your pages. (See “Building ColdFusion Applications Rapidly”

on page 629, “Building ASP.NET Applications Rapidly” on page 675, “Building ASP and JSP Applications Rapidly” on page 703, and “Building PHP Applications Rapidly” on page 719.)

Using Dreamweaver with other applications

Dreamweaver accommodates your web design and development process by making it easy for you to work with other applications. For information about working with other applications such as browsers, HTML editors, image editors, and animation tools, see the following topics:

• For information about using Dreamweaver with other HTML editors, such as HomeSite or

BBEdit, see “Using an external HTML editor with Dreamweaver” on page 412.

• You can specify preferred browsers for previewing your site. (See “Previewing and testing pages

in browsers” on page 270.)

• You can start an external image editor, such as Macromedia Fireworks or Adobe Photoshop,

from within Dreamweaver. (See “Using an external image editor” on page 313.)

• You can configure Dreamweaver to start a different editor for each file type. (See “Starting an

external editor for media files” on page 359.)

Using Dreamweaver with other applications 25

• For information about adding interactivity to your site using Macromedia Flash, see “Inserting

and modifying a Flash button object” on page 361, “Inserting a Flash text object” on page 363,

or “Downloading and installing Flash elements” on page 364.

• To learn how to add animation to your site using Macromedia Shockwave movies, see

“Inserting Shockwave movies” on page 365.

• For information about using ColdFusion, see ColdFusion help in Dreamweaver (Help > Using

ColdFusion).

Dreamweaver and accessibility

Accessibility refers to making websites and web products usable for people with visual, auditory, motor, and other disabilities. Examples of accessibility features for software products and websites include screen reader support, text equivalents for graphics, keyboard shortcuts, change of display colors to high contrast, and so on.

Note: For more information about two significant accessibility initiatives, see the World Wide Web Consortium Web Accessibility Initiative (www.w3.org/wai) and Section 508 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act (www.section508.gov).

Dreamweaver provides tools that make the product accessible and tools that help you author accessible content:

Using Dreamweaver accessibility features For Dreamweaver web designers who need to use

accessibility features, Dreamweaver offers screen reader support, keyboard navigation, and operating system accessibility support.

For more information, see “Using Dreamweaver accessibility features” on page 49.

Authoring for accessibility For Dreamweaver web designers who need to create accessible

content, Dreamweaver assists you in creating accessible pages that contain useful content for screen readers and comply with government guidelines.

Dreamweaver provides dialog boxes that prompt you to enter accessibility attributes when you insert page elements (see “Optimizing the workspace for accessible page design” on page 53). For example, the accessibility dialog box for images reminds you to add text equivalents for graphics. Then, when the image appears on a page for a user with visual disabilities, the screen reader reads the description.

Dreamweaver also provides sample web pages that were designed for accessibility (see “Creating a

document based on a Dreamweaver design file” on page 70) and an accessibility report that you

can run to test your page or site against the Section 508 accessibility guidelines (see “Testing your

site” on page 111).

Note: Remember that no authoring tool can automate the development process. Designing accessible websites requires you to understand accessibility requirements and make many ongoing subjective decisions about how users with disabilities interact with web pages. The best way to ensure that a website is accessible is through deliberate planning, development, testing, and evaluation.

26 Introduction: Welcome to Dreamweaver

The Dreamweaver accessibility validation feature

The accessibility validation feature in Dreamweaver MX uses technology from UsableNet. UsableNet is an industry leader in developing easy-to-use software to automate usability and accessibility testing and repair. For additional assistance with accessibility testing, try the UsableNet LIFT for Macromedia Dreamweaver, a complete solution for developing usable and accessible websites. UsableNet Lift for Macromedia Dreamweaver includes fix wizards for complex tables, forms, and images; a global ALT editor; customizable reporting; and a new active monitoring mode that ensures content is accessible as pages are being built. Request a demo of Lift for Macromedia Dreamweaver at www.usablenet.com.

Guide to Dreamweaver instructional media

Dreamweaver has a variety of resources to help you learn the program quickly and become proficient in creating your own websites and pages:

• “Dreamweaver Help systems” on page 27

• “Macromedia website resources” on page 28

• “Additional books and training” on page 28

To get the most out of the Dreamweaver resources, see “Where to start” on page 20.

Note: For a list of HTML and web resources, see “HTML and web technologies resources”

on page 29.

Dreamweaver Help systems

The Dreamweaver Help systems are accessible through the Help menu. All Dreamweaver Help appears in the Help viewer provided by your operating system: Microsoft HTML Help (Windows) or Apple Help (Macintosh).

Dreamweaver help includes the following help systems:

Getting Started Help is designed to guide you through the process of creating a simple but

functional website using Dreamweaver. It’s aimed at users who have created web pages but are unfamiliar with particular aspects of Dreamweaver. It contains tutorials on creating and editing simple static pages, editing the code by hand, and creating dynamic web applications. The guide is provided as a printed manual, as part of the help system, and as a PDF file.

Using Dreamweaver Help provides comprehensive information about all Dreamweaver features,

optimized for online reading.

Extending Dreamweaver Help provides information on the Dreamweaver Document

Object Model.

Dreamweaver API Reference Help provides information on the APIs (application

programming interfaces) that enable JavaScript and C developers to create extensions for Dreamweaver.

MACROMEDIA DREAMWEAVER MX 2004 Use Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual