Dreamweaver 8 is a great Web design tool for pros, but newcomers may be overwhelmed by its interface or want to know more about how to work creatively and intelligently in the program. Help is at hand in Take Control of Getting Started with Dreamweaver, which offers a detailed tutorial for making your first site in Dreamweaver. Author Arnie Keller, who teaches Web design at the University of Victoria, shows you how to style type the smart way with CSS, create a sophisticated page layout using layers, and design a template-based site with an interactive navigation bar. This book also breaks new ground by linking to video screenshots (check them out now!) that show you exactly what to do.
Compatibility: This title covers Dreamweaver 8 and should also work well for folks running the older Dreamweaver MX2004. Although our plans may change, at this time, we do not plan to update this title for the new Dreamweaver CS3.
Table of Contents
- Read Me First
- Introduction
- Quick Start
- Explore the Dreamweaver Interface
- Your First Page: Text, Graphics, and Links
- Your Second Page: Moving Beyond Bland
- Your Third Page: Lay Out Pretty Pages
- Your First Web Site
- Navigation
- Put Your Site on the Web
- Learn More
- About This Ebook
- Featured Titles
- Small Dog Electronics Coupon ($5 off)
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Read Me First
This book shows you how to use Dreamweaver 8 to create a basic Web site for small businesses and nonprofits, consultants, schools, and individuals. This book was written by Arnie Keller, edited by Lea Galanter, and published by TidBITS Electronic Publishing.
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Introduction
Dreamweaver is a WYSIWYG—what you see is what you get—Web development tool. That means that as you add text, graphics, and other objects, you immediately see what your page looks like on the Web. Working with Dreamweaver is a lot like working with a word processor: You enter content, arrange it, and format it. Both a word processor and Dreamweaver work behind the scenes to make what you write look as you intend. A word processor embeds invisible tags, which have meaning only within documents that the word processor creates. Dreamweaver also embeds invisible tags, but they're in HTML (hypertext markup language), the common language of the Web. These tags tell browsers how to display your pages.
Dreamweaver dominates the field of WYSIWYG Web development tools because it best combines power and ease of use. It can create sites ranging from those for large organizations with complex needs to those for individuals with simple needs. It can accommodate teams of designers working together or a solo designer working alone. It's flexible enough for people who want to write HTML and for people who don't.
Mastering Dreamweaver isn't trivial, but you can readily tap into much of its power. I wrote this book as a short guide to help you learn Dreamweaver's essentials, not as a huge volume that covers its every nuance and feature. I won't show you how to create an industrial-strength site; I will show you how to create a simple, attractive, helpful site. Using a tutorial, I answer the question how do I do this? with step-by-step instructions. But sometimes, I use the Web to provide you with video screenshots and other resources to illustrate the points I'm making. For a complete list of these resources, with links, go to http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/dreamweaver/. In brief, I combine what print and electronic media each do best. Let's begin.
NOTE: Dreamweaver Versions. As I write, Dreamweaver 8 is the latest version available, but in most cases, I use methods that also work with the previous version, Dreamweaver MX2004. The interface may differ a bit—Adobe sometimes moves things around for reasons known only to Adobe—but the features are largely unchanged.
NOTE: Get Set Up for the Video Screenshots.To check whether you have Flash Player 8 installed, visit http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/dreamweaver/detect/. If you need Flash Player 8, a link on that page directs you to the Flash player site where you can download it. For the best playback experience, keep the videos in the front window of your computer as it plays. Otherwise, the audio may stutter.
Quick Start to Getting Started with Dreamweaver
The text in this book is crafted tutorial-style, and you should work through the sections in sequence in order to build your skills as you proceed from creating a modest Web page to a working Web site. Here's a quick look at what you'll cover in each section:
Learn the basic Dreamweaver interface:
- Explore the Dreamweaver Interface by watching video screenshots that give you a basic tour of Dreamweaver's interface and help you learn about the Property inspector, which you use to configure elements on a Web page.
Create your first pages:
- Create a simple page with text, graphics, and working Web links. See Your First Page: Text, Graphics, and Links.
- Your first page works okay, but the text isn't particularly attractive or helpful. Learn how to style it with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) in Your Second Page: Moving Beyond Bland.
- Your text is looking better, but your layout won't win any awards. Read Your Third Page: Lay Out Pretty Pages to learn how to use CSS to position your page elements with layers.
Create your first Web site:
- Link your pages together in Your First Web Site, and give your site a consistent, organized appearance.
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Provide consistent Navigation: Learn about Navigation Bars; get the scoop on linking with Absolute links and Relative links; and find out how to Make a Graphical Navigation Bar and how to Design a CSS-Based Navigation Bar.
Put it out there:
- If nobody knows that a tree falls in the forest, does it matter? If nobody can visit your Web site, does it matter? Learn how to Put Your Site on the Web.
Where did the video screenshots go?
We had to move them in our recent server transition - they're here.
Can I read this ebook on an iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, or Kindle?
There are lots of great ways to read our ebooks on these devices. For more details, please read our latest Device Advice.
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