MACROMEDIA DIRECTOR MX 2004-USING DIRECTOR Mounting instructions

Using Dreamweaver

Trademarks
Add Life to the Web, Afterburner, Aftershock, Andromedia, Allaire, Animation PowerPack, Aria, Attain, Authorware,
Authorware Star, Backstage, Bright Tiger, Clustercats, Cold Fusion, Contribute, Design in Motion, Director, Dream Templates,
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Macromedia Spectra, Macromedia xRes Logo and Design, MacroModel, Made with Macromedia, Made with Macromedia Logo
and Design, MAGIC Logo and Design, Mediamaker, Movie Critic, Open Sesame!, Roundtrip HTML, Shockwave, Sitespring,
SoundEdit, Titlemaker, UltraDev, Web Design 101, what the web can be, and Xtra are either registered or trademarks of
Macromedia, Inc. and may be registered in the United States or in other jurisdictions including internationally. Other product
names, logos, designs, titles, words or phrases mentioned within this publication may be trademarks, servicemarks, or tradenames
of Macromedia, Inc. or other entities and may be registered in certain jurisdictions including internationally.
Third-Party Information
This guide contains links to third-party websites that are not under the control of Macromedia, and Macromedia is not
responsible for the content on any linked site. If you access a third-party website mentioned in this guide, then you do so at your
own risk. Macromedia provides these links only as a convenience, and the inclusion of the link does not imply that Macromedia
endorses or accepts any responsibility for the content on those third-party sites.
Third Party Software Notices and/or Additional Terms and Conditions can be found at www.macromedia.com/go/thirdparty/.
Opera ® browser Copyright © 1995-2002 Opera Software ASA and its suppliers. All rights reserved.
Apple Disclaimer
APPLE COMPUTER, INC. MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, REGARDING THE
ENCLOSED COMPUTER SOFTWARE PACKAGE, ITS MERCHANTABILITY OR ITS FITNESS FOR ANY
PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE EXCLUSION OF IMPLIED WARRANTIES IS NOT PERMITTED BY SOME
STATES. THE ABOVE EXCLUSION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. THIS WARRANTY PROVIDES YOU WITH
SPECIFIC LEGAL RIGHTS. THERE MAY BE OTHER RIGHTS THAT YOU MAY HAVE WHICH VARY FROM
STATE TO STATE.
Copyright © 2003 Macromedia, Inc. All rights reserved. This manual may not be copied, photocopied, reproduced,
translated, or converted to any electronic or machine-readable form in whole or in part without prior written approval of
Macromedia, Inc. Part Number ZDW70M200
Acknowledgments
Senior Management: Sheila McGinn
Project Management: Charles Nadeau
Writing: Jed Hartman, Jennifer Rowe, Chris Bedford, Charles Nadeau
Editing: Lisa Stanziano, Mary Ferguson, Noreen Maher
Production Management: Patrice O’Neill
Media Design and Production: Adam Barnett, Aaron Begley, Chris Basmajian, John Francis, Jeff Harmon
Special thanks to Jay London, Alain Dumesny, Lori Hylan-Cho, Jack Herrington, Vic Mitnick, Rebecca Hyatt, Russ Helfand,
Erik Bergman, Luciano Arruda, Sho Kuwamoto, Ken Karleskint, Scott Richards, Bonnie Loo, David Deming, Jennifer Taylor,
Rosana Francescato, Randy Nielsen, the beta testers, and the entire Dreamweaver engineering and QA teams.
First Edition: September 2003
Macromedia, Inc.
600 Townsend St.
San Francisco, CA 94103

3
CONTENTS
PART I: Dreamweaver Basics
INTRODUCTION: Welcome to Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
What’s new in Dreamweaver MX 2004 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Where to start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Dreamweaver workflow for creating websites. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Using Dreamweaver with other applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Dreamweaver and accessibility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Guide to Dreamweaver instructional media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Typographical conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
HTML and web technologies resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
CHAPTER 1: Exploring the Workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
About the Dreamweaver workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Working in the Document window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Using toolbars, inspectors, and context menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Using panels and panel groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Using Dreamweaver accessibility features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Optimizing the workspace for accessible page design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Using visual guides in Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Dreamweaver customizing basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
CHAPTER 2: Setting Up a Dreamweaver Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
About Dreamweaver sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Setting up a new Dreamweaver site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Using the Advanced settings to set up a Dreamweaver site. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Editing settings for a Dreamweaver site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Editing existing websites in Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

4 Contents
CHAPTER 3: Creating and Opening Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Creating new documents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Saving a new document. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Setting a default new document type. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Opening existing documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Importing a Microsoft Word HTML file. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
PART II: Working with Dreamweaver Sites
CHAPTER 4: Managing Your Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
About site management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Accessing sites, a server, and local drives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Viewing files and folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Managing files and folders in the Files panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Working with a visual map of your site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Importing and exporting sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Removing a Dreamweaver site from your list of sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Checking in and checking out files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Getting and putting files to and from your server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Synchronizing the files on your local and remote sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Cloaking folders and files in your site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Storing file information in Design Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Testing your site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
CHAPTER 5: Managing Site Assets and Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
About library items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Working with assets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Creating and managing a list of favorite assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Working with library items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
CHAPTER 6: Managing Contribute Sites with Dreamweaver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
About managing Contribute sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Preparing a site for use with Contribute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Administering a Contribute site using Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Troubleshooting a Contribute site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Managing Contribute files using Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Contents 5
PART III: Laying Out Pages
CHAPTER 7: Laying Out Pages with CSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
About layers in Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Inserting content blocks for layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Changing highlight color for content blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Working with content blocks for layout. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Inserting a layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Setting layer preferences and properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Managing layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Manipulating layers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Converting layers to tables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Using rulers and grids to lay out pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Using a tracing image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
CHAPTER 8: Presenting Content with Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
About tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Inserting a table and adding content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Importing and exporting tabular data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Selecting table elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Using Expanded Tables mode for easier table editing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Formatting tables and cells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Resizing tables, columns, and rows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Adding and removing rows and columns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
Splitting and merging cells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Copying, pasting, and deleting cells. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Nesting tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Sorting tables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
CHAPTER 9: Laying Out Pages in Layout Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
About Layout mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Switching from Standard to Layout mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Drawing in Layout mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Adding content to a layout cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Clearing automatically set cell heights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Resizing and moving layout cells and tables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Formatting layout cells and tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Setting column width . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Setting preferences for Layout mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
CHAPTER 10: Using Frames. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
About frames and framesets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Working with framesets in the Document window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Creating frames and framesets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Selecting frames and framesets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Opening a document in a frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Saving frame and frameset files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

6 Contents
Viewing and setting frame properties and attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Viewing and setting frameset properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Controlling frame content with links. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Handling browsers that can’t display frames. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Using JavaScript behaviors with frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
CHAPTER 11: Managing Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
About Dreamweaver templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Creating a Dreamweaver template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
Creating templates for a Contribute site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Creating editable regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
Creating repeating regions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Using optional regions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Defining editable tag attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Creating a nested template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Editing and updating templates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Managing templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Exporting and importing template XML content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
Exporting a site without template markup. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Applying or removing a template from an existing document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Editing content in a template-based document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
PART IV: Adding Content to Pages
CHAPTER 12: Working with Pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
About working with pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
Saving web pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Specifying HTML instead of CSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
Setting page properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
Working with colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
Selecting elements in the Document window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
Using the History panel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
Automating tasks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
Using JavaScript behaviors to detect browsers and plug-ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
Previewing and testing pages in browsers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
Setting download time and size preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
CHAPTER 13: Inserting and Formatting Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
About text formatting in Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Inserting text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
Formatting paragraphs and document structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
Formatting text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Using Cascading Style Sheets styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
Updating CSS style sheets in a Contribute site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
Checking spelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
Searching for and replacing text. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

Contents 7
CHAPTER 14: Inserting Images. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
About images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Inserting an image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
Resizing an image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Cropping an image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
Optimizing an image using Fireworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
Adjusting the brightness and contrast of an image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
Sharpening an image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
Creating a rollover image. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
Using an external image editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
Applying behaviors to images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
CHAPTER 15: Linking and Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
Understanding document locations and paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
Jump menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
Navigation bars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
About image maps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
Creating links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
Managing links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
Inserting jump menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
Using navigation bars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
Using image maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
Attaching JavaScript behaviors to links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
Checking for broken, external, and orphaned links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
Fixing broken links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338
Opening linked documents in Dreamweaver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
CHAPTER 16: Working with Other Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
About Fireworks and Flash integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
Optimizing your work environment for Fireworks and Flash. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
Working with Fireworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
Working with Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
CHAPTER 17: Adding Audio, Video, and Interactive Elements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
About media files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
Inserting and editing media objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358
Starting an external editor for media files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
Using Design Notes with media objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
Inserting and modifying a Flash button object. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
Inserting a Flash text object. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
Inserting Flash content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
Downloading and installing Flash elements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
Inserting Flash elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
Editing Flash element attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
Inserting Shockwave movies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
Adding video. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
Adding sound to a page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366

8 Contents
Inserting Netscape Navigator plug-in content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
Inserting an ActiveX control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
Inserting a Java applet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
Using behaviors to control media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
CHAPTER 18: Using JavaScript Behaviors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
Using the Behaviors panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
About events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
Applying a behavior. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
Attaching a behavior to text. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
Changing a behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
Updating a behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
Creating new actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
Downloading and installing third-party behaviors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
Using the behavior actions that come with Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
PART V: Working with Page Code
CHAPTER 19: Setting Up Your Coding Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
Viewing your code. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
Using the coder-oriented workspace (Windows only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
Setting viewing preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403
Setting coding preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403
Customizing keyboard shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
Opening files in Code view by default . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
Setting Validator preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
Managing tag libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
Importing custom tags into Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
Using an external HTML editor with Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412
CHAPTER 20: Coding in Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
About coding in Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
Writing and editing code. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423
Searching and replacing tags and attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428
Making quick changes to a code selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430
Using language-reference material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431
Printing your code. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432
CHAPTER 21: Optimizing and Debugging Your Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
Cleaning up your code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
Verifying that tags and braces are balanced . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434
Checking for browser compatibility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434
Validating your tags. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437
Making pages XHTML-compliant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438
Using the ColdFusion debugger (Windows only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439

Contents 9
CHAPTER 22: Editing Code in Design View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441
Editing code with the Property inspector. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441
Changing attributes with the Tag inspector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442
Editing code with the Quick Tag Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443
Editing code with the tag selector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446
Editing scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446
Working with server-side includes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448
Using JavaScript behaviors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449
Viewing and editing head content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449
PART VI: Preparing to Build Dynamic Sites
CHAPTER 23: Setting Up a Web Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453
What you need to build web applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453
Setting up a web server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 454
Setting up an application server. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 454
Creating a root folder for the application. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458
Defining a Dreamweaver site. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459
Connecting to a database. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461
CHAPTER 24: Database Connections for ColdFusion Developers . . . . . . . . . . 463
Connecting to a database. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
Editing or deleting a database connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464
CHAPTER 25: Database Connections for ASP.NET Developers . . . . . . . . . . . 465
Connecting to a database. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465
Editing or deleting a database connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468
CHAPTER 26: Database Connections for ASP Developers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469
About database connections in ASP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469
Creating a DSN connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471
Creating a DSN-less connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474
Connecting to a database on an ISP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475
Editing or deleting a database connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478
CHAPTER 27: Database Connections for JSP Developers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479
About database connections in JSP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479
Connecting to a database. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481
Connecting through an ODBC driver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482
Editing or deleting a database connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485

10 Contents
CHAPTER 28: Database Connections for PHP Developers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487
Connecting to a database. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487
Editing or deleting a database connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488
CHAPTER 29: Troubleshooting Database Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489
Troubleshooting permissions problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489
Troubleshooting Microsoft error messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491
PART VII: Making Pages Dynamic
CHAPTER 30: Optimizing the Workspace for Visual Development. . . . . . . . . . 497
Displaying web-application development panels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
Viewing your database within Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499
Viewing live data in Design view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500
Working in Design view without live data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505
Previewing dynamic pages in a browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505
Restricting database information displayed in Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506
CHAPTER 31: The Workflow for Dynamic Page Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507
Designing the page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 508
Creating a source of dynamic content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 508
Adding dynamic content to a web page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 510
Enhancing the functionality of a dynamic page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 510
Testing and debugging the page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511
CHAPTER 32: Obtaining Data for Your Page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515
Using a database to store content. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515
Collecting data submitted by users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516
Accessing data stored in session variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520
CHAPTER 33: Defining Sources of Dynamic Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 525
About dynamic content sources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 526
Defining a recordset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 530
Defining URL parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534
Defining form parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 535
Defining session variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536
Defining application variables for ASP and ColdFusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537
Using a variable as a data source for a ColdFusion recordset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538
Defining server variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538
Caching content sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 542
Changing or deleting content sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 543
Copying a recordset from one page to another page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 543

Contents 11
CHAPTER 34: Adding Dynamic Content to Web Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545
About adding dynamic content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 546
Making text dynamic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 547
Making images dynamic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 548
Making HTML attributes dynamic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549
Making ActiveX, Flash, and other object parameters dynamic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 551
Editing dynamic content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552
Deleting dynamic content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552
Creating dynamic pages in a Contribute site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 553
CHAPTER 35: Displaying Database Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555
About displaying database records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555
Using predefined data formats. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 562
Creating recordset navigation links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 563
Showing and hiding regions based on recordset results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566
Displaying multiple recordset results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566
Creating a table with a Repeat Region server behavior. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567
Creating a record counter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 569
Creating ASP.NET DataGrid and DataList web controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 570
CHAPTER 36: Using ColdFusion Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573
About ColdFusion components. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573
Visually creating a component in Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 574
Viewing ColdFusion components in Dreamweaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575
Editing ColdFusion components in Dreamweaver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 576
Building web pages that use ColdFusion components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577
CHAPTER 37: Using Web Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 579
About web services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 580
Configuring proxy generators for use with Dreamweaver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583
Adding a web service proxy using the WSDL description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 585
Adding a web service to a page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 586
Editing the UDDI web service site list. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588
CHAPTER 38: Adding Custom Server Behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 589
About custom server behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 589
Installing third-party server behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 598
Using the Server Behavior Builder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 598
Using parameters in server behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 601
Positioning code blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 602
Creating a dialog box for a custom server behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 603
Editing and modifying server behaviors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 605

12 Contents
CHAPTER 39: Creating Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 607
About forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 607
Creating HTML forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 611
Inserting HTML form objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 613
Inserting dynamic HTML form objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 617
Validating HTML form data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 620
Attaching JavaScript behaviors to HTML form objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 620
Attaching custom scripts to HTML form buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 621
Creating accessible HTML forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 622
Creating ASP.NET forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 623
PART VIII: Developing Applications Rapidly
CHAPTER 40: Building ColdFusion Applications Rapidly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 629
About rapid application development (all servers) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 629
Building master/detail pages (ColdFusion) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 634
Building search/results pages (ColdFusion, ASP, JSP, PHP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 641
Building a record insert page (all servers) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 646
Building pages to update a record (ColdFusion) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 649
Building pages to delete a record (ColdFusion) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 655
Using stored procedures to modify databases (ColdFusion) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 665
Building pages that restrict access to your site (ColdFusion, ASP, JSP, PHP) . . . . 666
CHAPTER 41: Building ASP.NET Applications Rapidly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 675
Building master/detail pages (ASP.NET) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 675
Building a database search page (ASP.NET). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 681
Building a record insert page (ASP.NET). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 685
Building pages to update a record (ASP.NET) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 686
Building pages to delete a record (ASP.NET). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 692
Using stored procedures to modify databases (ASP.NET) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 700
Building pages that restrict access to your site (ASP.NET) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 701
CHAPTER 42: Building ASP and JSP Applications Rapidly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 703
Building master/detail pages (ASP and JSP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 703
Building search/results pages (ASP and JSP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 706
Building a record insert page (ASP and JSP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 706
Building pages to update a record (ASP and JSP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 707
Building pages to delete a record (ASP and JSP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 711
Building pages with advanced data manipulation objects (ASP and JSP) . . . . . . . 714
Building pages that restrict access to your site (ASP and JSP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 718

Contents 13
CHAPTER 43: Building PHP Applications Rapidly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 719
Building master/detail pages (PHP). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 719
Building search/results pages (PHP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 725
Building a record insert page (PHP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 725
Building pages to update a record (PHP). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 726
Building pages to delete a record (PHP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 732
Building pages that restrict access to your site (PHP). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 738
PART IX: Appendixes
APPENDIX A: Beginner’s Guide to Databases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 741
About databases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 741
Database design basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 742
Understanding database connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 747
APPENDIX B: SQL Primer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 753
Syntax basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 753
Defining the columns of a recordset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 755
Limiting the records in a recordset. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 755
Sorting the records in a recordset. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 758
Joining tables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 759
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 761

14 Contents

PART I
Dreamweaver Basics
Learn how to use Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 documentation and other resources, and
set up the Dreamweaver workspace to fit your preferred working style. Then plan and set up a
site, and begin to create pages.
This part contains the following chapters:
Introduction, “Welcome to Dreamweaver,” on page 17
Chapter 1, “Exploring the Workspace,” on page 31
Chapter 2, “Setting Up a Dreamweaver Site,” on page 59
Chapter 3, “Creating and Opening Documents,” on page 69
PART I

17
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Dreamweaver
Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 is a professional HTML editor for designing, coding, and
developing websites, web pages, and web applications. Whether you enjoy the control of
hand-coding HTML or prefer to work in a visual editing environment, Dreamweaver provides
you with helpful tools to enhance your web creation experience.
The visual editing features in Dreamweaver let you quickly create pages without writing a line of
code. You can view all your site elements or assets and drag them from an easy-to-use panel
directly into a document. You can streamline your development workflow by creating and editing
images in Macromedia Fireworks or another graphics application, then importing them directly
into Dreamweaver, or by adding Macromedia Flash objects.
Dreamweaver also provides a full-featured coding environment that includes code-editing tools
(such as code coloring and tag completion) and reference material on HTML, Cascading Style
Sheets (CSS), JavaScript, ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML), Microsoft Active Server Pages
(ASP), and JavaServer Pages (JSP). Macromedia Roundtrip HTML technology imports your
hand-coded HTML documents without reformatting the code; you can then reformat code with
your preferred formatting style.
Dreamweaver also enables you to build dynamic database-backed web applications using server
technologies such as CFML,ASP.NET, ASP, JSP, and PHP.
Dreamweaver is fully customizable. You can create your own objects and commands, modify
keyboard shortcuts, and even write JavaScript code to extend Dreamweaver capabilities with new
behaviors, Property inspectors, and site reports.
This chapter contains the following sections:
•“What’s new in Dreamweaver MX 2004” on page 18
•“Where to start” on page 20
•“Dreamweaver workflow for creating websites” on page 22
•“Using Dreamweaver with other applications” on page 25
•“Dreamweaver and accessibility” on page 26
•“Guide to Dreamweaver instructional media” on page 27
•“Typographical conventions” on page 29
•“HTML and web technologies resources” on page 29

18 Introduction: Welcome to Dreamweaver
What’s new in Dreamweaver MX 2004
Dreamweaver MX 2004 contains a new, streamlined interface, along with improved product
performance. There’s also a wide variety of new features that improve usability and help you build
pages whether you are working in the design environment or the coding environment.
Streamlined design and development interface
The Dreamweaver interface is more approachable to help you improve your productivity and
quality of work.
Insert bar improvements give the Insert bar a new streamlined look, which takes up less space in
the workspace. There’s also a new Favorites category, which you can use to customize an Insert bar
with the objects you use most often. For more information, see “The Insert bar” on page 37.
Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel copy and paste commands enable you to copy and paste
a Microsoft Word or Excel document directly into Dreamweaver. When you paste a Word or
Excel document, Dreamweaver preserves formatting and generates quality HTML. For more
information, see “Copying and pasting text from MS Office documents” on page 281.
Table editing visual feedback enables you to see the effects column resize operations will have
on your tables. Visual feedback also makes it easier for you to select table elements. For more
information about resizing, see “Resizing tables, columns, and rows” on page 173. For more
information about using Expanded Tables mode for selecting elements, see “Using Expanded
Tables mode for easier table editing” on page 170.
User interface overhaul maximizes the usable workspace, showing context and focus more
clearly, and makes the interface more approachable and logical. For more information about the
Dreamweaver workspace, see “About the Dreamweaver workspace” on page 32.
The Start page enables you to access recently used files, create new files, and access Dreamweaver
resources. The Start page appears when you start Dreamweaver or when you don’t have any
documents open. For information hiding or showing the Start page, see “Hiding and displaying
the Start page” on page 55.
Saved desktop option gives you the choice to have Dreamweaver reopen documents you were
last working on when you restart Dreamweaver. For information about setting this option, see
“Setting General preferences for Dreamweaver” on page 56.
Full Unicode support means that Dreamweaver in Windows supports all text encodings
supported by Internet Explorer. You can use almost any language font installed on your system in
Dreamweaver, and Dreamweaver will render and save it properly. For information about setting
font encodings, see “Setting Fonts preferences for Dreamweaver display” on page 56.
Secure FTP enables you to fully encrypt all file transfers and prevent unauthorized access to your
data, files, user names, and passwords. For information about setting up a remote connection
using FTP, see “Setting up a remote folder” on page 65.
Modernized page layout and design environment
Dreamweaver includes the following enhanced CSS features that provide a more sophisticated
way to style and add interactivity to designs, and also includes feedback to improve visual editing.

What’s new in Dreamweaver MX 2004 19
Dynamic cross-browser validation automatically checks the current document for cross-
browser compatibility issues when you save the document. You specify which browsers to target,
and Dreamweaver checks to make sure pages are not using tags or CSS constructs that those
browsers do not support. For more information, see “Checking for browser compatibility”
on page 434.
Relevant CSS tab displays the CSS rules applied to the current Code view or Design view
selection. Click any rule to see which attributes it specifies (border style, margin, padding, text
size, and so on). Special markings let you know when a specific attribute has been overridden, and
in-place editing allows for quick edits that are instantly reflected in Design view. For more
information, see “The CSS Properties tab” on page 279.
CSS layout visualization makes laying out pages in CSS much easier. You can easily select div
and other content blocks in Design view, then modify properties with the CSS Properties tab. For
more information, see Chapter 7, “Laying Out Pages with CSS,” on page 145.
Improved CSS rendering means Dreamweaver can render more complicated CSS-based layouts
and designs more accurately. Improved CSS rendering enables you to design more sophisticated
layouts and use Dreamweaver design tools for robust visual manipulations.
Improved CSS Styles panel provides more options for editing styles in the current document.
You can also now directly apply styles from the text Property inspector. For more information, see
“Using Cascading Style Sheets styles” on page 290.
CSS-based text Property inspector lists all of the styles available for use in text, and includes a
preview that shows what text will look like after the style is applied. For more information, see
“The Property inspector and text formatting” on page 277.
CSS-based page properties give you more control of page properties, such as the appearance of
headings and links, using modern CSS coding constructs. For more information, see “About
setting page properties” on page 254.
Integrated image-editing toolbar enables you to do basic image manipulation and editing from
Dreamweaver using Macromedia Fireworks technology. You can crop, resize, resample, and so on,
without leaving Dreamweaver. For more information, see “Editing images in Dreamweaver”
on page 304.
Powerful and open coding environment
Dreamweaver offers the following new features for coders, including improvements to the Code
view and the ability to edit files without creating a Dreamweaver site. Dreamweaver also includes
current support for server technologies.
Improved Tag inspector displays a list of properties available for the current selection and
enables you to make quick, comprehensive edits. For more information, see “Changing attributes
with the Tag inspector” on page 442.
Siteless file editing enables you to work directly on an FTP or RDS server without creating a
Dreamweaver site. For more information about setting up Dreamweaver to work on a server, see
“Setting up Dreamweaver to work without defining a site” on page 82. For more information
about setting up a Dreamweaver site, see “Setting up a new Dreamweaver site” on page 62.
PHP server behaviors enable you to create a master/detail page set and user authentication
pages. For more information, see “Building master/detail pages (PHP)” on page 719 and
“Building pages that restrict access to your site (PHP)” on page 738.

20 Introduction: Welcome to Dreamweaver
Improved support for ASP.NET form controls provides new and improved ways, including new
Property inspectors, to build and manipulate ASP.NET web forms in Design view. For more
information, see Chapter 42, “Building ASP and JSP Applications Rapidly,” on page 703.
Code view context menu enables you to make quick formatting changes to selected code. For
more information, see “Making quick changes to a code selection” on page 430.
Where to start
Dreamweaver documentation includes information for readers from a variety of backgrounds.
To get the most out of the documentation, start by reading the parts that are most appropriate
for you.
For information about Dreamweaver resources, see “Guide to Dreamweaver instructional media”
on page 27.
Web-design novices
If you are relatively new to web design, this section will point you to sections of the Dreamweaver
documentation that are most appropriate for your background.
For web-design novices:
1Begin by reading the tutorials for creating a static site in Getting Started Help.
2In Using Dreamweaver Help (Help > Using Dreamweaver), read Chapter 1, “Exploring the
Workspace,” on page 31, Chapter 2, “Setting Up a Dreamweaver Site,” on page 59, Chapter 4,
“Managing Your Files,” on page 77, and Chapter 3, “Creating and Opening Documents,”
on page 69.
3Learn about page layout by reading Chapter 9, “Laying Out Pages in Layout Mode,”
on page 183.
4To learn about formatting text and including images in your pages, read Chapter 13, “Inserting
and Formatting Text,” on page 273 and Chapter 14, “Inserting Images,” on page 303.
5That’s all you really need to begin producing high-quality websites, but when you’re ready to
learn how to use more advanced tools, you can proceed through the rest of the static-page
chapters in Using Dreamweaver Help. You might want to wait to read the dynamic-page
chapters until you’re more familiar with creating web pages.
Experienced web designers
If you are an experienced web designer, this section will point you to sections of the Dreamweaver
documentation that are most appropriate for your background. There are two different
approaches: one for designers who are new to Dreamweaver and one for designers who are
familiar with Dreamweaver but would like to learn more about creating dynamic pages.
For experienced web designers who are new to Dreamweaver:
1Begin by reading the tutorials for creating a static site in Getting Started Help.
2In Using Dreamweaver Help, read Chapter 1, “Exploring the Workspace,” on page 31 to learn
more about the Dreamweaver user interface.
3Although much of the material in Chapter 2, “Setting Up a Dreamweaver Site,” on page 59 and
Chapter 4, “Managing Your Files,” on page 77 is probably familiar to you, skim those chapters
to see how these familiar concepts are implemented in Dreamweaver. Pay particular attention
to the sections about setting up a Dreamweaver site.