Dreamweaver 4 Visual Insight
Authors: Greg Holden, Scott Wills
Venue:  (2001)

From the Book:Dreamweaver is the most user-friendly program you can choose to create well-organized and professionally designed Web sites. With the release of version 4, Dreamweaver is now among the most powerful Web design tools as well. You can carry out even the most complex programming tasks by means of a user-friendly visual interface. This visual component makes Dreamweaver an ideal package for professional graphic designers who are beginning to work in the field of Web design. This book is intended to serve as an easy and practical visual guide to getting started with Dreamweaver 4. Through illustrative and abundant screen shots, Dreamweaver 4 Visual Insight leads both Windows and Macintosh users through a tour of the most important tools and functions they need to know. Extensive projects walk readers step by step through the process of creating their own Web sites using Dreamweaver 4. The book focuses on the basics that users need to know in order to get up and running with the program-but in the case of Dreamweaver, some of the "basics" are actually pretty advanced and very cool, too. The Book's Structure This book is divided into two parts. The first part, Techniques and Tasks, comprises Chapters 1 through 10 and focuses primarily on the basics of the Dreamweaver 4 interface. These chapters introduce the fundamental tools and procedures used in the process of creating Web pages and spinning them into Web sites. You begin by using the feature-rich Dreamweaver toolkit to create basic Web content, then move on to create more complex content such as interactive forms, frames, and behaviors. Part II, Projects, encompasses Chapters 11 through 15. It includes hands-on projects that illustrate real-world uses for the tools described in Part I. You can follow along as the authors create a real Web site. (You can visit the finished product at www.womanlore.com.) By performing the steps as outlined, you will be able to understand firsthand the steps and concepts required to create a particular effect or look. If you're new to Dreamweaver, it makes sense to start at the beginning and read straight through to the end. However, if you are already familiar with earlier versions of the program and just want to learn about new features or check out particular techniques, feel free to skip around. You might want to read a chapter in Part I and then read its corresponding chapter in Part II before delving further into Part I. About Dreamweaver 4 Dreamweaver has been a popular Web design tool since Macromedia first released it in early 1998. From the start, Dreamweaver caught on because of its support for both Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator and because of dynamic HTML features such as layers. The program's newest features include support for viewing code and for creating interactive features such as pop-up menus and rollover images without having to write code. A new Layout View lets you create clean tables that work in all browsers. And there's better integration with other Macromedia Web content-creation software, including Fireworks and Flash. (For more information on these programs, see Fireworks 4 f/x and Design and Flash 5 Visual Insight, both published by The Coriolis Group, 2001.) One of the best things about Dreamweaver is its support for the Macintosh. Both Windows and Mac versions of the software were released at the same time; the Mac version is developed on the Mac platform, not ported over from the PC. In fact, one of the authors, Scott Wills, a professional designer, created this book's color section and many of the graphics shown in the examples using Dreamweaver for the Mac. The other author, Greg Holden, did the rest of the work using the Windows version. Where applicable, we've tried to indicate Macintosh equivalents for keyboard shortcuts as well as images that were captured using the Mac version of the program. You can download a fully functional 30-day trial version of the Dreamweaver program at www.macromedia.com/software/dreamweaver/trial/. Using Dreamweaver After you have installed Dreamweaver and you've started up the program, you're ready to begin working with and manipulating images. Among the major components of the Dreamweaver work environment are the Document Window and Site Window, toolbars, menu bars, and a varied assortment of elements called panels and inspectors. These elements let you perform such basic functions as inserting Web page objects (the Objects panel), adjusting an object's properties (the Property Inspector), or managing an entire Web site's contents (the Assets panel or Site Window). To activate one of Dreamweaver's panels or inspectors, look to the program's menu bar. Choose Modify|Selection Properties to display the all-important Property Inspector, or turn to the Window menu if you need to display (or hide) the Site Window or any of the program's panels. Have fun!