capter 2

LEARNING DREAMWEAVER

Dreamweaver includes a variety of resources to help you learn the program quickly and become proficient in creating your own websites and pages. These resources include a printed Getting Started guide, an online help system, and tutorials. In addition, you can find regularly updated tips, TechNotes, examples, and information at the Dreamweaver Support Center on the Macromedia website.

Getting Started Guide

The Getting Started guide 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 includes hapters on creating and editing simple static pages, editing the code by hand, and creating ynamic web applications. The guide is provided as a printed manual, as part of the help system, and as a PDF file.

Tutorials

The tutorials provide further lessons on particular topics, giving more information in specific areas than the rest of the Getting Started guide. By working through the tutorials, you’ll learn how to edit a sample website with some of the most useful and powerful design features of Dreamweaver. The tutorials are available in the printed Getting Started guide, in Dreamweaver Help (in the Help menu in Dreamweaver, choose Tutorials), and as part of the Getting Started PDF file.If you’re already familiar with Dreamweaver’s design features but want to know more about building web applications, start with the dynamic-page tutorials, which teach you how to create interactive pages that connect to databases.

Dreamweaver Help

Dreamweaver Help provides comprehensive information about all Dreamweaver features, optimized for online reading. Dreamweaver Help is displayed in the help viewer provided by your operating system: Microsoft HTML Help (Windows) or Apple Help (Macintosh). On both platforms, you can find the information you need in any of four ways:

The table of contents enables you to see all of the information organized by subject. Click top-level entries to view subtopics. The index, like a traditional printed index, allows you to look up specific terms or concepts.Search allows you to find any character string, anywhere in the text of the help system.Context-sensitive help provides a way to open a relevant help topic from each dialog box, panel, and inspector. To view context-sensitive help, click a Help button in a dialog box, or choose Help from the Options menu in a panel group’s title bar, or click the question-mark icon in an inspector or other kind of window. Each help topic provides buttons you can click to move from topic to topic. The left and right arrow buttons move to the previous or next topic in a section (in the order in which the topics are listed in the table of contents).

Extending Dreamweaver

The Extending Dreamweaver help system provides information on the Dreamweaver Document Object Model and the APIs (application programming interfaces) that allow JavaScript and C developers to create extensions for Dreamweaver.

Dreamweaver Support Center

To help you get the most out of Dreamweaver, you can consult a web-based support center. The Dreamweaver Support Center website at http://www.macromedia.com/support/dreamweaver/ is updated regularly with the latest information on Dreamweaver, plus advice from expert users, examples, tips, updates, and information on advanced topics. Check the website often for the latest news on Dreamweaver and how to get the most out of the program.

Design & Developer Center

The Macromedia Design & Developer Center at http://www.macromedia.com/desdev/ providestools, tutorials, and more for all Macromedia products.

Dreamweaver online forums

Discuss technical issues and share helpful hints with other Dreamweaver users by visiting the Dreamweaver online forums. You’ll find information on accessing the forums on the Macromedia website a http://www.macromedia.com/go/dreamweaver_newsgroup.

Keyboard shortcuts

Charts showing all the keyboard shortcuts in the default Dreamweaver configuration are available on the Macromedia website at http://www.macromedia.com/go/dreamweaver_mx_shortcuts.