Dreamweaver MX: The Missing Manual

Introduction

The World Wide Web continues to evolve, growing in scope and complexity, with new technologies popping up every year to make the Web look and work better. Even people building personal Web sites now employ several programming languages and server technologies to dish up content. Throughout its history Dreamweaver has managed to keep pace with this changing technological landscape with each new version.

Dreamweaver MX is no exception—it’s capable of working with more technologies than any previous version. Whether you’re creating database-enabled Active Server Pages, using Cascading Style Sheets for cutting-edge design effects, or simply sticking to straightforward HTML pages, Dreamweaver has just about all the tools you need.

Any enterprising designer can create Web pages, Cascading Style Sheets, and even JavaScript programs with a simple text editor. In fact, Dreamweaver MX provides powerful text-editing abilities to create a basic text file or a complex Java server page. But why go to all that trouble when Dreamweaver’s visual page-building approach makes your job of creating beautiful, complex, and useful Web sites much easier? Whether you’re new to building Web pages or a HARD-CORE, hand-coding HTML jockey, Dreamweaver is a powerful tool that lets you build Web sites quickly and efficiently, without compromising the quality of your code.

What’s New in Dreamweaver MX

If you’ve never used Dreamweaver before, see Chapter 1 for a grand tour and welcome. If you’re upgrading from Dreamweaver 4 or some other version, you’ll find that Dreamweaver MX offers a host of new features aimed at both the novice Web designer and the seasoned HTML guru:

• Dreamweaver MX offers improved support for Cascading Style Sheets (Chapter 8). Dreamweaver can now display most CSS properties, while a revised CSS Panel simplifies the process of applying and editing styles to text, images, and links.

• New template features offer more flexibility than ever before. You can now add complex logic to templates so they can be modified from page to page—giving added subtlety while still maintaining design integrity and control. (See Chapter 18 for more.)

• Building Web sites that meet the needs of physically disabled Web surfers is a worthwhile challenge. If you develop sites for most government agencies, it’s also the law. You’ll find many tools for building accessible Web pages. By adding Dreamweaver’s accessibility tools to your Web pages, more of your visitors can enjoy HTML objects such as images, tables, and forms.

• Want to make sure your site is up to snuff? In addition to the site wide reporting features introduced in Dreamweaver 4, the new validation tool (Chapter 15) will clean up the HTML, XHTML, or XML syntax of your entire site.

• If you need help using Dreamweaver, look no further than the new Answers panel (Appendix). You’ll find tutorials, articles, technical notes, and more, right at your fingertips. Best of all, new content is continually downloaded from the Macromedia Web site (without any marketing messages or ads).

• Tired of having to add the same code over and over? Do you have a favorite table design that you use frequently, for instance? The new Snippets panel (Chapter 17) can help. Here you can store and reuse common bits of code—HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and so on—or take advantage of the many code snippets that ship with the program.

• If you’re a hand-coding junkie, Dreamweaver MX aims to please. In addition to the powerful text-editing abilities introduced in Dreamweaver 4, you’ll find support for code coloring, a tag library editor, and tag hints, which provide pop-up access to tags and tag properties.

• An improved interface organizes the many panels that used to float in an almost uncontrollable mass. Windows users also can take advantage of an integrated interface similar to those used in programming software.

• Dreamweaver 4 was a great program for building static Web pages. But if you wanted to build a database-driven site, you had to shell out the extra bucks for Dreamweaver’s more powerful sibling, UltraDev. Dreamweaver MX now does it all. Using its dynamic Web site features (Part 6), you’ll be building pages to add, edit, and delete database information in no time.

• If you were an UltraDev user, you’ll find that Dreamweaver MX offers more server models to work with, including ASP, ASP.NET, JSP, Cold Fusion MX, and PHP.

  Cold Fusion developers will be pleased as well; Dreamweaver MX uses a new approach for writing cleaner, more professional Cold Fusion code.

Tip

Macromedia occasionally issues updates to Dreamweaver. To make sure you’re using the latest version, visit the Macromedia Web site at http://www.macromedia.com/support/dreamweaver/downloads_updaters.html.