If you have ever wanted to build your own website, you might not even know where to start. If you’ve done the research and you’re looking for the simplest program for regular users, it’s likely that you’ve heard of Adobe Dreamweaver. This is one of the simplest web design programs to use, and the fact that it includes an HTML editor just makes it that much more useful. It doesn’t matter if you’re looking to create a website for fun or for business. There’s something for everyone in Adobe Dreamweaver, but before you get stuck into design, you need to learn how to use the program properly.

There are so many different books and tutorials out there offering Adobe Dreamweaver training, but you might not know how to choose the right one. First of all, if you want learning the program to be as simple as using it is, you’ll need to leave the books on the shelf.

Reading is great for other things, but when it comes to learning web design, having that hands-on experience can make or break your success in using the program. Just like children, who learn the alphabet much more quickly by seeing it and writing it, our brains are wired to learn things through example and by being shown. It’s human nature for us prefer “show me” rather than “tell me” when it comes to learning.

With computers, hands-on practice is essential to your understanding of everything you learn. If you can’t see the computer screen, you won’t know the difference between the pointer and the cursor, except that one is shaped like an arrow and the other is a blinking line. It’s all essentially common sense. If you use training software to learn Adobe Dreamweaver, your brain will get to observe how the program works, and duplicate it better. If you just read a book, your brain will likely get stuck between the execution and information stages and this is because it hasn’t seen the program in use before.

Adobe Dreamweaver makes website building extremely easy for just about anyone. Taking the time to invest in training software and tutorials that can show you how to succeed in web development with Dreamweaver will make learning the program just as simple as using it can be. It doesn’t matter if you’re already a web designer, or if you just want to build a basic website. You can learn Adobe Dreamweaver much more easily if you take the time to get involved in a hands-on training method.

The author is a trainer and developer with TrainingCompany.Com, an independent computer training company offering Adobe Dreamweaver Classes at their central London training centre.

CSS enhancements

Spry is Dreamweaver’s Ajax solution which uses JavaScript and CSS to add sophisticated interactivity to your web pages. Dreamweaver CS4 includes some useful additions to its existing range of Spry widgets. For example, the Spry Tooltip widget allows you to create a tooltip which will appear when the mouse is placed over the specified text or object. Since the tooltip is inside a DIV element, this offers tremendous flexibility as to the appearance of the tooltip. For example, it could include an image or a Flash movie.

In Dreamweaver CS4, the Property Inspector contains buttons which allow you to switch between HTML and CSS options. When working in the CSS options, you can now target a specific CSS rule before choosing an attribute or, if necessary, create a new rule.

Additions to Dreamweaver’s Spry Widgets

Spry is Dreamweaver’s Ajax solution which uses JavaScript and CSS to add sophisticated interactivity to your web pages. Dreamweaver CS4 includes some useful additions to its existing range of Spry widgets. The Spry Validation Password widget allows you to specify the minimum and maximum number of characters, numbers, uppercase and special characters which can be included in the password entered. The Spry Validation Confirm widget checks that the entries in two fields are identical and displays a customizable error is they are not. This makes it ideal for creating “Password/Confirm Password” or “Email/Confirm Email” functionality.

Photoshop images are can be inserted using the same techniques as inserting any other image file: Insert – Image; dragging from the Files panel; dragging from the Assets panel; or using the Insert toolbar. A Photoshop-style Optimise window automatically appears and you can choose the settings appropriate for that particular image usually GIF, JPEG or PNG.

Inserting Photoshop Smart Objects

HTML is a notoriously sparse environment which relies on files created with other technologies to add functionality to web pages. Typical examples of related files are server-side includes, CSS, JavaScript and XML. Dreamweaver now includes a feature called “Related Files” which enables you to edit the content of such files, without having to open them separately, and to instantly see the effect of your changes on the main file.

Whenever you open a file which contains linked files, Dreamweaver displays each of the linked files in the Related Files Bar. To access a related file just click on its name. If you make any changes to a related file and asterisk appears next to its name in the Related Files Bar to remind you to save your changes. When you do, the impact of the changes is immediately visible in the main file.

Once the image has been imported, an icon is displayed in the upper left of the image indicating that it is a smart object. Also, in the Property Inspector, the location of the original PSD file is shown in a box marked “Original”.

The fact that the image is a smart object means that if we resize it in Dreamweaver, it will automatically be re-optimised and a new version of the image will be generated with the new dimensions. (In previous versions, resizing an image would mean that the browser was responsible for resizing leading to poor image quality.

Photoshop images are can be inserted using the same techniques as inserting any other image file: Insert – Image; dragging from the Files panel; dragging from the Assets panel; or using the Insert toolbar. A Photoshop-style Optimise window automatically appears and you can choose the settings appropriate for that particular image usually GIF, JPEG or PNG.

The Property Inspector can be used to change the attributes of any element you select on an HTML page. In previous versions of Dreamweaver, changing the attributes of highlighted text would cause the program to create CSS classes with names like “Style1″, “Style2″, etc. in the head area of the current page. This random creation of styles was often responsible for getting new web developers into bad habits.

In Dreamweaver CS4, the Property Inspector contains buttons which allow you to switch between HTML and CSS options. When working in the CSS options, you can now target a specific CSS rule before choosing an attribute or, if necessary, create a new rule.

The author is a training consultant with TrainingCompany.Com, a UK IT training company offering Adobe Dreamweaver training courses at their central London training centre.

HTML is a markup language used to create documents designed to be accessed across the World Wide Web using browser software such as Internet Explorer or Firefox. The version of HTML in current use is known as XHTML, a stricter, rationalised version of the original HTML specification. One key thing to note about HTML and XHTML pages is that they describe the content and structure of the page rather than the position and presentation of the elements on the page.

The first significant difference between an HTML and XHTML page is the document type definition. There are several ways in which this specification can be done in Adobe Dreamweaver. One of the most convenient is to go to the Modify menu and choose Page Properties. Here, in the category marked Title/Encoding, one of the options reads Document Type (DTD).

There are quite a few options available in the drop-down menu next to this setting, some relating to HTML version 4 and some to XHTML version 1. These DTD settings specify the rules that the mark-up language must follow so that the browsers can render the content correctly. For any new content you may be creating, the best specification to choose is XHTML 1.0 transitional since it uses the current XHTML specification while allowing backward compatibility with slightly older browsers.

When looking at an HTML page, the structural content is perhaps not immediately apparent. However Dreamweaver provides a number of useful ways of keeping tabs on the structure of your web page content. One of these is known as the Tag Selector. Wherever the cursor is positioned, the HTML code relating to that part of the page is displayed in the bottom left of the page on the Status Bar in an area called the Tag Selector.

When the browser reads the page, the tags surrounding text and other elements communicate to the browser the structural importance of each element. Thus, for example, the H1 tag tells the browser that a piece of text is a major heading, while the H2 tag signifies a sub-heading, and so on. When these tags are displayed in the Tag Selector, you can get an idea of the structure of the page and you can also click on any tag to select the element(s) it contains.

Although the tags tell the browser the structural importance of each element, the HTML page doesn’t contain any information that helps the browser decide how each element should be displayed. This is the role of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). An XHTML page is pretty similar to an HTML page. However, its syntax is stricter. Let’s take a look at some examples…

XHTML is case sensitive: HTML is not. In XHTML, tags are always lowercase so the H1 tag has to be written h1. In HTML H1 or h1 can be used.

In XHTML, the closing tag is obligatory: in HTML it is permissible to have an opening tag without a closing tag. One such example is a horizontal rule (hr) which creates a dividing line between two sections on a webpage. This element is represented by a single tag, since it can never be used as a container. In XHTML, there is a special syntax for such elements: a single tag which is both an opening and closing tag (hr/). In HTML, the single opening tag is used with no closing tag (hr).

In summary, XHTML is the current version of HTML and this is the standard that you should use for any new projects. However, existing projects that you may inherit may well contain HTML rather the XHTML. Therefore, you should be aware of both. Remember also that HTML and XHTML describe only the structure of web page content: neither of them should contain information regarding the presentation and display of this content. The display and presentation of web content should be done using CSS.

Author is a developer and trainer with Macresource Computer Solutions, an independent computer training company offering Adobe Dreamweaver training courses at their central London training centre.