Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 Revealed

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Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 Revealed

• CHAPTER TWO DEVELOPING A WEB PAGE

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Chapter 2 Lessons

• Create head content and set page properties
• Create, import, and format text
• Add links to Web pages
• Use the History panel and edit code
• Modify and test Web pages

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Introduction

• Craft head content
• Choose colors for page background and text
• Add page content, format, and link to other pages
• Test links regularly

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Understanding Page Layout

• Use white space effectively
• Limit multimedia elements
• Keep it simple
• Use an intuitive navigation structure
• Apply a consistent theme

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Create Head Content

• A Web page is composed of two sections
• Head content includes
• page title displayed in title bar of browser
• meta tags which are not visible to the Web
  browser
• Body
• Contains text, graphics, and links

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Create Head Content

• Title
• Browser title bar
• Keywords
• Search
• Description
• Search results

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Setting Web Page Properties

• Background color
• Font color
• Link colors (unvisited, visited)
• Default
• Unvisited ? blue
• Visited ? purple

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Making Pages Accessible to All

• Techniques you can use to ensure that your Web
  site is accessible to individuals with
  disabilities
• Alternate text with images
• Avoid certain colors
• Supply text as an alternate source for
  information that is presented in an audio file
• www.adobe.com/accessibility

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Using Appropriate Content

• Who is your audience?
• What is the age group of your audience?
• What is the reading level?
• Formal vs. informal tone
• Consider font sizes, amount of text and images,
  and amount of technical expertise needed to
  navigate
• Use consistency

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Viewing the Head Content
Head content section
Title text box on Document toolbar
Title icon
Meta icon
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Entering Keywords Descriptions

• Anticipate search terms
• Keep them short and concise
• List the most important keywords first
• Consider the use of focus groups

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Fig. 4 Insert Bar Displaying HTML Category
Common tab
Head list arrow
Keywords command
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Fig. 7 Head Content in Code View
Opening HTML tag
Head tag
Description
Keyword tags
Description tags
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Fig. 8 Page Properties Dialog Box
Background color box
Transparent color button
White
Hexadecimal number for white
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Creating, Import, and Format Text

• To add text to a Dreamweaver page
• Type in Dreamweaver
• Copy/paste CtrlC and CtrlV
  (Windows)Command C and Command V
  (Macintosh)
• Import Word Document

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Formatting Text with Property Inspector

• Make text attractive and easy to read
• Change font, size, and color
• Use Property Inspector to apply formatting
  attributes

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Changing Fonts

• You can format your text with different fonts by
  choosing a font combination from the Font list in
  the Property inspector.
• A font combination is a set of three fonts that
  specify which fonts a browser should use to
  display the text of your Web page.
• Font combinations are used so that if one font is
  not available, the browser will use the next one
  specified in the font combination.

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Changing Font Sizes

• Default base font 3
• Select font in Property inspector
• Choose between 1 and 7
• Change font size relative to the default base
  size

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Formatting Paragraphs

• Format
• As text
• As different sizes of headings
• Headings
• Heading 1 is the largest
• Heading 6 is the smallest
• lth1gtThis is a big headinglt/h1gt

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Using HTML Tags or Using CSS

• Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
• Standard practice to handle formatting and
  placement of objects
• Disable this preference temporarily

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Fig. 10 Formatting Address on Striped Umbrella
Home Page
Selected address text
Italic button
Font list arrow
Size list arrow
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Web Filenames

• Do not use
• Spaces
• Special characters
• Punctuation
• Uppercase letters
• Number for the first character
• Assume case-sensitive

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Importing Microsoft Office Documents

• File ? Import ? Word Document or Excel Document
• Select file to be imported, then click Formatting
  list arrow
• Always use Clean Up Word HTML command

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Fig. 12 Clean up Word HTML
Clean up HTML from list arrow
Settings
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Linking Microsoft Office Documents

• Drag the Word or Excel document from its current
  location to the location on the Web page where
  you would like the link to appear
• Select the Create a link option button in the
  Insert Document dialog box
• Save the file in your root folder so it will be
  uploaded when you publish your site. If it is not
  uploaded, the link will be broken.

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Link Properties

• Link names should be informative
• Point of contact mailto link
• Two types
• Hypertext
• Graphic
• Formatting properties should be consistent
• Address or path relative or absolute

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Broken Links

• Typos
• Pages move
• Sites move
• Sites expire

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Navigation Bars

• Contain links to the main pages
• Usually located at top of side of page
• Backbone of the sites navigation structure

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Fig. 15 Coca-Cola Web Site
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Fig. 16 Coca-Cola Web Site
New Navigation bar
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Fig. 17 Formatting the Navigation Bar
Asterisk page not saved
New navigation bar
Format list arrow
Font list arrow
Size list arrow
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Fig. 18 Selecting the Home Link
Selected text
Browse for file icon
Link text box
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Fig. 21 E-mail Link Dialog Box
Text for e-mail link on the page
Link information
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Fig. 23 Striped Umbrella Site Map
Site Map button
Collapse to show only local or remote site button
Four pages linked to home page
E-mail link
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Use the History panel

• History panel properties
• Each task is called a step
• 50 steps
• Preferences adds more
• Be carefulincreasing steps uses memory

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History Panel Functions

• Undo
• Redo
• Replay

FIGURE 24 The History panel
Click in the gray bar next to a step to undo to
that step
Slider
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View HTML Code in Code Inspector

• View Code
• Code View
• Code and Design View
• Code Inspector
• Add advanced features
• JavaScript
• Rollover function

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Fig. 25 Code Inspector
Page displayed in design view behind Code
Inspector
View options menu
Code displayed in the Code Inspector
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Fig. 29 View Options Menu
View options list arrow
Code for horizontal rule
View options menu
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Fig. 31 View the Reference Panel
Information on HR tag
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Fig. 32 Insert Date Dialog Box
Date formats
Update automatically on save check box
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Fig. 33 View Date Object in Code View
Code for date object
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Modify and Test Web Pages

• Proofread
• Preview in a browser window
• Test links

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Testing Pages

• Monitors
• Size and resolution
• Platforms
• UNIX, Mac, PC
• Browsers
• Explorer, Netscape, Firefox

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Different Browsers or Screen Size

• You should test your pages using different
  browsers and a wide variety of screen sizes to
  ensure the best view of your page by the most
  people possible.
• Check both Windows and Macintosh platforms
• Testing a web page rendered in a mobile device

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Default Window Screen Sizes
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Fig. 34 Window Screen Sizes
Size choices for viewing a page
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Under Construction

• Dont do it!
• Only causes frustration to the end user

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Chapter 2 Tasks

• Create head content and set page properties
• Create, import, and format text
• Add links to Web pages
• Use the History panel and edit code
• Modify and test Web pages