Dreamweaver CS5: The Missing Manual

Template Tutorial

In this tutorial, you’ll create a template for the Chia Vet website. Then you’ll build a page based on that template and enjoy an easy sitewide update courtesy of Dreamweaver’s templates feature.

Note

You’ll need to download the tutorial files from www.sawmac.com/dwcs5/ to complete this tutorial. See the note on Note for more details.

Once you download the tutorial files and open Dreamweaver, setup a new site as described on Setting Up a Site: Name the site Templates, and then select the Chapter20 folder (inside the MM_DWCS5 folder). (In a nutshell: Choose Site→New Site. In the Site Setup window, type Templates into the Site Name field, click the folder icon next to the Local Site Folder field, navigate to and select the Chapter20 folder, and then click Choose or Select. Finally, click OK.)

Creating a Template

1. Open the Files panel by pressing the F8 key (Shift-⌘-F).

   Of course, if it was already open, you just closed it. Press F8 (Shift-⌘-F) again.

2. In the Files panel, find and double-click the page tips.html.

   It’s usually easier to create a template from an existing web page (rather than from scratch), which you then save as a template. For the purpose of getting to bed before midnight tonight, pretend that you’ve just designed this beautiful page.

3. Choose File→Save As Template.

   The Save As Template dialog box opens.

4. In the description field, type Use for Chia tips.

   This description appears in the New Template window when you create a page based on this template.

5. Name the template ...