Building Web Sites All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies®

Chapter 3. Workhorse Graphics

In This Chapter

• Creating buttons

• Creating rollover buttons

• From concept to completed page

• Optimizing your Fireworks design

• Exporting your Fireworks design

When you design a Web site, you've got graphics that you use over and over and over and . . . you get the picture. These graphics become the workhorse graphics for your Web pages. So then, what are workhorse graphics? Well, buttons for one thing. Buttons can range from mundane to passing‐for‐sane. In other words, you can have a site with buttons ranging from very utilitarian — you know, functional? — to very cool ones that are both functional and artistically gorgeous. Buttons are a part of your design. This chapter shows you how to create buttons and other graphics for your Web design. So roll up your sleeves and get ready for a magical Fireworks tour de force.

Creating Buttons in Fireworks

You've got to have navigation for a Web site. Without navigation, your visitors, looking at the home page, might yawn and say something like, “Is that all there is?” It had better not be if you expect to be a Web designer for any length of time. Clients also have a tendency to frown on one‐page Web sites. Therefore, you've got to give visitors a way to navigate from page to page. In the old days before cool applications like Fireworks appeared, navigation menus consisted of underlined text that when clicked, transported the visitor to a related page. Although functional, this method was far from being artistic or compelling. ...