Dreamweaver 8 Design and Construction

Dreamweaver 8 Design and Construction

by Marc Campbell
Released January 2006
Publisher(s): O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ISBN: 9780596101633

Explore a preview version of Dreamweaver 8 Design and Construction right now.

O’Reilly members get unlimited access to live online training experiences, plus books, videos, and digital content from 200+ publishers.

Buy on Amazon Buy from O’Reilly
Start your free trial

Book description

You're a beginner who wants to design a state-of-the-art family web site. You've just started a new job, and you need to learn Dreamweaver fast. Or maybe you're a professional who's been using another program but is now switching to Macromedia's leading web design tool. Learning Dreamweaver 8 gets you up to speed, quickly and efficiently.


Straightforwardly practical, with speed as the by-word, this hands-on guide focuses on the best practices for constructing both interactive and static web sites. While explaining core concepts clearly and thoroughly, so that beginners have a solid conceptural and technical foundation, it cuts through the clutter that might slow down a beginner tackling a subject as vast as web design and a tool as robust as Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver 8 Design and Construction emphasizes learning by doing, with short, task-oriented chapters that demonstrate theory by presenting design solutions and explaining the principles that make them work. Plenty of screen shots, illustrations, and sample layouts accompany rapid prototyping techniques for site production.


Marc Campbell has been building web sites since 1997-for everything from comic book fan communities to state government portals and e-commerce applications. A Macromedia Certified Dreamweaver Developer and beta tester, he has taught web design to students at all levels and has written eight books on the subject.


Sidebars in Dreamweaver 8 Design and Construction allow readers to decide how deeply they want to delve into the subject. "Best Bets" offer bottom-line recommendations for those who want to skip the general discussion, while "Behind the Scenes" sidebars provide more in-depth looks at particular topics for those who want more detail. Absolute beginner or faux debutante, you'll learn proven procedures for quickly building Dreamweaver sites.

Table of contents

  1. Contents
  2. Introduction
    1. Web Design…as Architecture?
    2. About This Book
    3. Who This Book Is For
    4. How This Book Is Organized
    5. Conventions Used in This Book
    6. We’d Like to Hear from You
    7. Safari Enabled
    8. Acknowledgments
  3. Part 1: Planning Your Site
    1. Chapter 1: Stocking Your Technological Toolbox
      1. Choosing Software
        1. Choosing a Code Editor
        2. About HTML
        3. About CSS
        4. About JavaScript
        5. Stocking Up on Web Browsers
        6. Choosing an Image Editor
        7. Choosing Multimedia Software
      2. Comparing Static and Dynamic Sites
        1. Meeting the Demands of Dynamic Sites
        2. Respecting the Limits of Static Sites
    2. Chapter 2: Staking Your Claim
      1. Choosing a Web Host
      2. Deciphering Your Hosting-Plan Options
      3. What’s in a Name? (1/2)
      4. What’s in a Name? (2/2)
        1. Reserving Your Domain
        2. Comparing Top-Level Domains
      5. What Happens Next?
    3. Chapter 3: Organizing the Content
      1. Defining the Scope
        1. Stating the Goals
        2. Identifying the Audience
      2. Consulting the Cards
        1. Creating Content Cards
        2. Organizing Content into Categories
      3. Compiling the Outline
    4. Chapter 4: Sketching the Interface
      1. What Makes a Good Design?
      2. Organizing the Layout
        1. Looking at Side-Nav Layouts
        2. Looking at Top-Nav Layouts
      3. Designing the Navigation (1/2)
      4. Designing the Navigation (2/2)
        1. Tackling the Main Navigation
          1. Using text hyperlinks
          2. Using static images
          3. Using rollover images
          4. Using flash buttons
          5. Adding Secondary Navigation
        2. Dealing with Multiple Levels of Structure
      5. Taking Measurements
        1. Looking at Fixed-Width Layouts
        2. Looking at Liquid Layouts
        3. Filling in the Details
      6. Choosing a Layout Strategy
        1. Building with Tables
        2. Building with Layers
    5. Chapter 5: Preparing Images for the Web
      1. Comparing Image File Types
        1. About GIF
        2. About JPEG
        3. About PNG
      2. Optimizing Images for the Web
        1. Optimizing Resolution
        2. Optimizing Image Size
        3. Reducing the Number of Colors
        4. Increasing Compression
      3. Naming Images for the Web
      4. Creating a Tracing Image
    6. Chapter 6: Thinking About Text
      1. Sorting Out Formats
        1. About Headings
        2. About Paragraphs
        3. About Lists
      2. Looking at Appearance Attributes (1/2)
      3. Looking at Appearance Attributes (2/2)
        1. Considering Fonts
        2. Considering Type Size
        3. Considering Spacing
          1. Looking at line spacing
          2. Looking at word and character spacing
          3. Looking at margins
          4. Looking at padding
        4. Considering Colors and Borders
          1. Looking at text color
          2. Looking at borders
      4. Designing Text Hyperlinks
        1. Looking at Link States
        2. Getting Rid of the Underline
        3. Adding Rollover Effects
    7. Chapter 7: Setting Up Your Site
      1. Defining the Site
        1. Starting with the Basics
        2. Filling in the Gaps
        3. Backing Up Your Definition
      2. Building the Structure
      3. Setting Up Preview Browsers
      4. Setting Up Accessibility Attributes Dialogs
  4. Part 2: Designing Your Site
    1. Chapter 8: Opening a New Page
      1. Using the New Document Dialog Box
      2. A Document Window with a View
      3. Setting Page Properties
      4. Previewing the Page in the Browser
    2. Chapter 9: Designing with Tables
      1. Design View à la Mode
      2. Creating the Layout (1/2)
      3. Creating the Layout (2/2)
        1. Drawing the Layout Table
        2. Adding Layout Cells for the Rows
        3. Adding Nested Tables
        4. Adding Layout Cells for the Columns
        5. Losing the Tracing Image
        6. Labeling the Cells
      4. Centering a Fixed-Width Layout
      5. Creating a Liquid Layout
    3. Chapter 10: Designing with Layers
      1. Creating the Layout
      2. Labeling the Layers
      3. Converting a Fixed-Width Layout into a Liquid Layout
        1. Executing Plan A
        2. Executing Plan B
        3. Executing Plan C
    4. Chapter 11: Creating Templates
      1. Getting Ready
      2. Saving Your Page as a Template
      3. Defining Editable Regions
      4. Applying the Template to an Existing Page
      5. Creating New Pages from the Template
    5. Chapter 12: Building a Stylesheet
      1. Exporting Embedded Styles
      2. Defining Style Rules for Specific Elements (1/2)
      3. Defining Style Rules for Specific Elements (2/2)
        1. Creating a Style for a Layout Element
        2. Creating a Style for a Content Element
      4. Defining General-Purpose Style Rules
      5. Editing a Style Rule
  5. Part 3: Building Your Site
    1. Chapter 13: Adding a Navigation Bar
      1. Creating the Buttons
      2. Building a Two-State Nav Bar
      3. Building a Four-State Nav Bar
        1. Doing It the Easier (Longer) Way
        2. Doing It the Harder (Shorter) Way
      4. Adding a Background Color to the Nav Area
        1. Coloring the Nav Area with HTML Attributes
        2. Coloring the Nav Area with CSS Attributes
      5. Placing Custom Messages in the Status Bar
    2. Chapter 14: Adding Text
      1. Placing Text on the Page
      2. Setting or Changing the Format
      3. Applying Typographic Styles
        1. Adding Boldface and Italics
        2. Transforming Lowercase Letters to Small Caps
        3. Transforming Type Casing
        4. Avoiding the Underline Style
      4. Adding Lists
      5. Aligning and Justifying Text
      6. Adjusting Paragraph Spacing
      7. Using Horizontal Rules
    3. Chapter 15: Adding Images
      1. Placing Images on the Page
      2. Positioning Images in Relation to Other Content
        1. Using Inline Images
        2. Using a Table
      3. Resizing Images
    4. Chapter 16: Adding Flash Content
      1. Placing Flash Movies on the Page
      2. Creating Flash Buttons
      3. Creating Flash Text
      4. Creating a Flash Slideshow
        1. Adding Images to the Slideshow
        2. Adding Links to the Images
        3. Adding Captions to the Images
        4. Testing the Slideshow
    5. Chapter 17: Connecting Links
      1. Linking Internally
        1. Linking to Named Anchors
          1. Inserting a named anchor
          2. Linking to a named anchor
          3. Providing a way back
        2. Opening the Destination Page in a Pop-up Window
      2. Linking Externally
      3. Creating an Email Link
      4. Adding Style Rules for Links
        1. Creating One Style Rule for All Link States
        2. Creating Different Style Rules for Different Link States
        3. Adding a Rollover Effect
      5. Making Clickable Images
        1. Making Rollover Images
        2. Making Image Maps
        3. Making Control Buttons for a Flash Movie
      6. Setting the Tab Index for Links
    6. Chapter 18: Building Forms
      1. Laying Out the Form
      2. Adding Form Elements (1/2)
      3. Adding Form Elements (2/2)
        1. Inserting Text Fields
        2. Inserting Text Areas
        3. Inserting Checkboxes
        4. Inserting Radio Groups
        5. Inserting Lists and Menus
        6. Inserting Buttons
      4. Aligning the Layout
      5. Applying Style Rules to Form Elements
      6. Validating Form Input
      7. Submitting the Form
  6. Part 4: Publishing Your Site
    1. Chapter 19: Tuning, Testing, and Troubleshooting
      1. Remembering What Everyone Forgets
      2. Adding Meta Tags
        1. Adding Keywords
        2. Adding Descriptions
        3. Refreshing the Page or Redirecting the Browser
      3. Running Reports (1/2)
      4. Running Reports (2/2)
        1. Running a Browser Check
          1. Choosing target browsers
          2. Running the check
        2. Validating Markup
        3. Finding and Fixing Broken Links
        4. Finding Orphaned Files
    2. Chapter 20: Going Live
      1. Deciding What Goes
      2. Publishing Your Site
        1. Connecting to the Host
        2. Putting Your Files
      3. Maintaining Your Site
        1. Synchronizing Your Site
        2. Getting Remote Files
      4. Dreamweaver 8 Redesign and Construction
      5. Where to Go, What to Do
  7. Part 5: Appendixes and Glossary
    1. Appendix A: HTML Tags
    2. Appendix B: CSS Style Definitions
    3. Appendix C: JavaScript Event Handlers
    4. Glossary (1/3)
    5. Glossary (2/3)
    6. Glossary (3/3)
  8. Index (1/2)
  9. Index (2/2)
  10. About the Author
  11. Colophon

Product information

  • Title: Dreamweaver 8 Design and Construction
  • Author(s): Marc Campbell
  • Release date: January 2006
  • Publisher(s): O'Reilly Media, Inc.
  • ISBN: 9780596101633