Adobe Dreamweaver CS4: Introduction

Course Description:

This extremely popular course is the Adobe authorised introductory course for new users of Dreamweaver who wish to build professional websites. Adobe Dreamweaver is the worldwide tool of choice for those who need to design, build and manage professional websites. This course has been specifically designed to enable you to master the essentials of Dreamweaver quickly and easily. You will cover creating, editing, publishing and updating a website as well as adding elements to existing sites and important site management issues.

This three day course includes understanding the development process, adding content to an existing site, understanding the power of style sheets (CSS), working with buttons and rollovers, creating jump menus and publishing, testing and maintaining your site. This course will provide you with the expertise to produce and maintain innovative, professional websites using Dreamweaver.

This course includes the following modules:

Dreamweaver Features

• CSS Layouts
• CSS Management
• CSS Advisor
• Browser Compatability
• Spry Data
• Spry Widgets
• Spry Effects
• Photoshop Integration
• Adobe Device Central
• Adobe Bridge

Getting started

• Introducing Dreamweaver
• Learning the interface
• Defining a local site
• Creating a website

Adding content to a site

• Adding content
• Controlling document structure
• Making lists
• Adding horizontal rules
• Adding special characters

Formatting text with CSS

• Formatting text
• Introducing cascading style sheets
• Creating styles
• Exporting CSS rule definitions
• Creating class styles
• Attaching external style sheets
• Creating advanced styles
• Creating a new external style sheet
• Displaying styles
• Understanding cascading order and inheritance of styles

External styles

• Attaching external style sheets
• Working with Live Code
• Creating new external style sheets
• Displaying styles
• Cascading order and inheritance of styles
• Creating internal styles
• The Code Navigator feature

Working with graphics

• Seamless integration with Photoshop and Fireworks
• Placing graphics on the page
• Accessibility settings
• Integration with Adobe Photoshop
• Importing layered images
• Optimising an image
• Adding Flash content

Navigating your site

• Linking files to your site
• Adding anchors
• Adding email links
• Linking from images
• Linking from an image map
• Creating a navigation bar
• Inserting a jump menu

Using libraries and templates

• Creating library items
• Placing and editing library items
• Detaching library items
• Creating templates
• Applying a template to an existing image
• Defining editable regions
• Modifying templates

Designing pages with CSS

• Dreamweaver CSS templates
• Inserting DIV tags
• Using the rulers and guides
• Drawing layers to design your pages
• Adding CSS to a layer
• Editing CSS code in the Property Inspector
• Working with Live Code
• Attaching external style sheets
• Adding tables
• The Spry Framework for Ajax - an overview
• Importing tabular data
• The Adobe CSS Advisor website

Using Libraries and Templates

• Using site library items
• Creating site templates
• Defining editable regions
• Using templates
• Applying a template to an existing page
• Modifying templates

Creating Forms

• Understanding forms
• Processing a form
• Setting focus in a form
• Validating a form

Testing, maintenance and uploading

• Checking accessibility, links and browser compatibility
• Using the integrated File Browser
• Connecting to a remote site
• Cloaking folders and files
• Uploading files
• Synchronising files
• Using browser compatibility check