For clarity’s sake.

Dreamweaver is a program that we use for creating websites, it is called “What You See Is What You Get Editor”. So you type on your screen, you will see that later on in your browser. The nice thing about Dreamweaver is that it is very easy to use.

 

In Dreamweaver, we work with a local site, this is a site that is located in a folder on your computer. This whole folder, or at least its content, we bring it onto the server (read computer) of our Host.
Both folders are identical in structure and files.

This course was created with the version of Dreamweaver CS3, but most of this course is applicable to any version.

 

The Welcome screen

In the welcome screen, we have three columns, divided into four sections:

1. The first column, section “Open a Recent Item”, gives us a list of recently opened items. Clicking on a name from the list opens the file. If you want to open a file that is not listed, click the “Open” button. The same is accomplished by clicking on the “File” button in the menu bar and selecting “Open” in the drop-down list.
2. The second column, in the “Create New” section, we have the opportunity to open a new page as an HTML page, a ColdFusion page, a PHP page, etc. If you cann not find the right type, click the “More” button. This opens a dialog with a list of all types of pages, Dreamweaver can make. The same is accomplished by the “File” button in the menu bar and selecting “New” in the drop-down list.
3. At the top of the third column, “Create from Samples” section, we have the opportunity to make a new page from a template.
4. At the bottom of the third column in the “Extend”, we have the “Dreamweaver Exchange.” When you click on it, it opens the “Dreamweaver Exchange” page. For this you must of course be connected to the Internet. The Dreamweaver Exchange page is a site where you can download various extensions for Dreamweaver, some are free, others require you to pay. Extensions are functions that you can add.
5. And down the first column we have a number of links to open our pages on the Adobe website.

On the right side of the window, we find the different panels. By clicking the right pointing arrow next to the title of the panel, it opens the panel. Clicking on this arrow again closes the panel.
By clicking and dragging on the dots to the left of the title of the panel, we can move this panel.

If you wish that the welcome screen does not always open when you start Dreamweaver, click the check box “Do not show again” at the bottom so that it is checked.
The next time you open Dreamweaver Welcome screen will no longer appear.

If you wish to get the welcome screen again, when you start Dreamweaver, click “Edit” in the menu bar.
Choose your “Preferences” from the drop-down menu.
And in the “General” category, click the check box “Show Welcome Screen”.

 

Define Site

If we wish the best use of features in Dreamweaver, we must define this site.
For defining a site, click on the “Dreamweaver Site …” button in the middle column or click the “Site” in the menu bar.

In both cases, this opens the “Site Definition” dialog.

In the “Site Definition” dialog, we have two tabs, “Basic” and “Advanced”.

In the “Basic” tab, we define our site based on a number of fields, spread over several pages in a wizard.

To define a site you only need to set a local folder so I choose the “Advanced” tab in this example and select “Local Info” category.

In the top textbox, we give a name for our site, no matter what name.
In the second textbox, select the folder on your computer where all your pages and everything you add to these pages will be saved.

If you do not have a folder created, you can still do this by clicking on the “New Folder” button and choosing the folder in the “Choose local root folder for site …” dialog.

Thus, select the folder.
And click the “Select” button.
This is all you need to fill in temporarily.
Click the “OK” button.

As you can see in the picture below, this creates a new folder in the “Files” panel.

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