Dreamweaver® CS3 Bible

Chapter 29. Using Repeating Elements

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Understanding Dreamweaver Library basics

• Making and inserting Library items

• Managing your Dreamweaver Library

• Dreamweaver Technique: Building a Library Item

• Updating your Web sites with Libraries

• Dreamweaver Technique: Applying and Modifying Library Items

• Using server-side includes

One of the challenges of designing a Web site is ensuring that buttons, copyright notices, and other cross-site features always remain consistent. Fortunately, Dreamweaver offers a useful feature called Library items that helps you insert repeating elements, such as a navigation bar or a company logo, into every Web page you create. With one command, you can update and maintain Library items efficiently and productively.

In this chapter, you examine the nature and the importance of repeating elements and learn how to effectively use the Dreamweaver Library feature for all your sites. In addition, you see how to use server-side includes—generally known as SSIs—to integrate code and content at both design time and runtime.

Dreamweaver Library Items

Library items within Dreamweaver are another means for you, as a designer, to maintain consistency throughout your site. Imagine that you have a navigation bar on every page that contains links to all the other pages on your site. It's highly likely that you'll eventually (probably more than once) need to make changes to the navigation bar. In a traditional Web development environment, you must modify every single page. ...