Dear Janine,

I’ve watched your video (Total Training Dreamweaver CS3) and I’ve design a new intranet site. This is my first time and don’t know how to upload onto the server via local/network connection.

Please advise how I can go about.

Regards,
Freeman in
Papua New Guinea

Hi, Freeman,

You will need to ask your network administrator for this information as it depends on how your intranet system is set up. You will use the same site-management features but will select local/network connection and then enter your server information in the dialog.

I hope that helps and I wish you all the best,
Janine

Still want more? Visit the Dreamweaver Help Center at www.DigitalFamily.com/dreamweaver to find Dreamweaver tips, tricks, and tutorials.

Hi Janine!

I just finished your Total Training DVD and I have really enjoyed it. I do have two questions.

I’m new to Dreamweaver and CSS, and after going through the training, I returned and worked a design for a web site I’m working on for a client. I’ve gone through it step by step as you described, and everything turned out great except for the alignment of the images. They all want to stay to the left of the page unless I set the left margin to around 100. Is that the only way to center images on the page? I’ve attached an example. I’d appreciate any suggestions you might have.

Also, can you recommend a good resource book for Dreamweaver?

Thanks for your help (both on the DVD and via this email),
Mike

Hi, Mike,

Thanks for the kind words about my video.

Like most things in Web design, there are many ways to handle this, but if you want to center all of the images at once and all of the text as well, as you have them in the design you included, you can simply add an alignment setting to the style for the div that contains the content. To vary the alignment, use different divs for different sections of the page and adjust the alignment as desired in the corresponding style.

Here’s how to align the contents of a div: I assume you already have a style associated with the div if you’ve been following my most recent trainings. So, for example, you might have an ID style called #mainContent that already surrounds the content you want to center.

You want to edit that style by double-clicking on it in the CSS Styles panel to open the CSS Rule definition dialog.

In the CSS Rule dialog, click on the Block category on the left, and then choose Center from the drop-down menu next to Text-align.

Click Apply to view the results in the design window. Click OK to close the dialog and save the change.

As for a book, you’ll find my Dreamweaver books along with many free tutorials in the Dreamweaver section on my site at www.DigitalFamily.com.

Hope that helps,
Janine

Still want more? Visit the Dreamweaver Help Center at www.DigitalFamily.com/dreamweaver to find Dreamweaver tips, tricks, and tutorials.

Hey Janine,

I am a huge fan. Your DWCS4 tutorial on Total Training has greatly expanded the communication possibilities I have to fellow students when it comes to cooperative file sharing. However, I would like to begin learning ASP or Cold Fusion to make dynamic web sites. Any advice on where to start?

Thanks,
Jonathan

Hi, Jonathan,

Thank you for the kind words about my videos.

There are many benefits to using ColdFusion or ASP or any of the other technologies (such as PHP or ASP.NET) that make it possible to create dynamic web sites. But I must warn you that the complexity and technical training required are significant and developing these skills takes a lot longer than mastering creating static pages with Dreamweaver.

In my advanced Dreamweaver CS3 training, I cover the basics of Dreamweaver’s dynamic site development features and how to work with Cold Fusion, but if you don’t have a background in programming or database development, you will almost certainly need someone to help with the most technical aspects of your site, or you’ll need considerable additional training to build a complex site this way.

One alternative that I’ve seen more and more web designers use these days is to customize an existing Content Management System rather than creating one from scratch.

Some of the more popular programs for creating dynamic sites are Joomla, Drupal, and Expression Engine. I’ve also seen many sites that were created with the WordPress blogging program and then customized to add more advanced features.

I hope that helps you find the best solution for you and your fellow students and I wish you all the best with your web site.

Janine

Thanks for the advice, Janine. I do have some background programming-wise, I code in Java and some C++. Do you think that will be of benefit? Also, would you say that the programs such as Joomla do provide one with the majority of the versatility one would have if I were to code my own?

I am a high school student and my programming teacher has the knowledge and many years of experience, so he could assist in any issues. Would you suggest I go with a program such as Joomla or I learn from scratch? By the way, programming / software design is the career path I am currently trekking so in the long run would Drupal or others similar be better to know than the languages themselves?

Thanks again,
Jonathan

Hi, Jonathan,

I encourage you to do some experimenting at this point. You’ll have the greatest flexibility if you can create your own custom dynamic site, that’s for sure, but you’ll also probably be writing code for things that many other programmers have done already. When you start with one of the existing programs, you benefit from not having to “reinvent the wheel,” and your programming skills will still be important because most of these programs require customization to do anything but the basics.

Your programming experience, even if it’s with Java and C++, will certainly help you if you start working with PHP or ASP.NET because you’ll at least have some background in programming. Many people come into web design from a graphic design background, and the leap from Photoshop to PHP is much harder than the step from C++.

Here’s a quick look at a few of the most popular CMS tools and why you might choose one over another (I’ve been meaning to add this to my web site, so your question is a good excuse to start writing all this up).

Not only can using these programs help save you time, but experimenting with them will also help you learn from other programmer’s experience. As you see how they have created these tools, you’ll surely learn things that will help you if you decide you might want to create your own custom site.

WordPress
www.wordpress.org (note: wordpress.com is a free hosting service)
Price: Free / Open Source
Pros: One of the most popular and powerful blogging tools, WordPress is increasingly used as a CMS for more complex sites. You’ll find many great extensions for WordPress and it’s very easy to teach people to use the administrative tools to update the site after you build it (even if they don’t know any HTML).
Cons: WordPress was designed for blogging and it’s great for that, but if you want to add more complex or advanced interactive features you’ll still probably have to do some custom programming yourself.
Additional Resources: WordPress has many, many extensions that you can use to easily add special features, including polls, discussion forums, and shopping carts.

Joomla
Price: Free / Open Source
Pros: Offers more features than WordPress, including the ability to easily create categories and subcategories for magazine-style sites.
Cons: You’ll need some programming skills and advanced HTML/CSS knowledge to fully customize a Joomla site.
Additional Resources: Joomla has many, many extensions that you can use to easily add special features, including polls, discussion forums, and shopping carts.

Drupal
Price: Free / Open Source
Pros: Designed by programmers for programmers, this CMS is popular among the most technical fans of open source. If you have the programming skills, you can do just about anything with Drupal.
Cons: If you’re a designer, the learning curve on Drupal is a bit steeper than with Joomla and you won’t find nearly as many templates.
Additional Resources: Drupal has many extensions that you can use to easily add special features, including polls, discussion forums, and shopping carts.

Expression Engine
Price: $99 personal use, $250 commercial use
Pros: Because it’s not open source, many professional web designers prefer Expression Engine, saying that it’s better supported by the staff at Expression Engine. The open source programs listed here are free, and you’ll find lots of support for them, but you’ll also find unfinished tutorials and calls for volunteers to help.
Cons: You won’t find many templates or extensions for Expression Engine because most people using it are creating their own custom solutions and have no motivation to share them with other developers.
Additional resources: You’ll find decent support and documentation on the Expression Engine site, but you won’t find all of the third-party resources, templates, or extensions available for programs such as Joomla and WordPress.

Hope that helps,
Janine

Still want more? Visit the Dreamweaver Help Center at www.DigitalFamily.com/dreamweaver to find Dreamweaver tips, tricks, and tutorials.

Dear Ms Warner,

I have purchased and enjoyed your Dreamweaver MX For Dummies book. I have created my first web site by using your instruction.

I have a question, however, on how to make it possible for a person or business to download my resume from my site. I am using my site to demonstrate and exhibit the animations I am creating while at the same time as a marketing tool. I have seen in some sites a link that says “click here to download resume” or “click here to download PDF.”

Can you point me in the right direction to solve this problem? I have read your book from cover to cover and cannot find a reference to this type of link.

Thank you for your kind attention,
Dreamweaver Dummy, David

Hi David,

Adding a link to a PDF file is easy. Just copy the PDF file into the main root folder of your site and then create a link from the HTML page you want it on to the PDF file.

You create the link to a PDF just as you’d create any other link. First, highlight the text or image you want to serve as a link. Then click on the link icon and select the filename of the PDF in the link dialog. And that’s it. When you preview the HTML page and click on the link, the PDF will open in Acrobat Reader if it’s available.

You can also give visitors the option to download the PDF. When visitors view a PDF in Acrobat Reader in a web page, they can also save it to their hard drive.

Hope that helps,
Janine

Still want more? Visit the Dreamweaver Help Center at www.DigitalFamily.com/dreamweaver to find Dreamweaver tips, tricks, and tutorials.

Hello

I’m hoping you might be able to help me again. I’m working on a dynamic Web Template and everything is going well. Everything on the page is static. I have several editable regions either in a layer or a div. There is a footer at the bottom of the page in another div. I want it set up so that every page will look the same, meaning that as I fill the editable region more and more, the footer will just keep pushing down and sitting at the bottom of the page. When I’m working on a page, it works and looks exactly as I want it to. But when I view it on the web, the footer jumps up, overlapping the editable region as if it can’t read that there is something in its path.

Hopefully you’re able to understand what I mean. Do you know what I’m doing wrong?

Thanks for your help,
Megan

Hi Megan,

I believe I do know what you mean. Try this: Open the style you’re using on the Footer div by double-clicking on it in the Styles panel to edit it in the CSS Rules dialog box. From the category list, choose Box and then look for the field labeled Clear. In the Clear field, use the drop-down menu and select Both.

What this does is add a rule to the style that requires the browser to clear anything above the footer so that it always stays at the bottom. This is necessary when you use floats in your other styles.

Hope that helps,
Janine

Still want more? Visit the Dreamweaver Help Center at www.DigitalFamily.com/dreamweaver to find Dreamweaver tips, tricks, and tutorials.

Ms. Warner,

I have purchased both your Total Training CD Total Training for Dreamweaver CS3 and your book Dreamweaver CS3 and have enjoyed them very much. But all of my pictures have blue boxes around them. How can I fix the problem? I am desperate… Please help.

Margarette

Hi, Margarette,

That’s a common question. When you turn an image into a link, you get a blue outline around it, much as text turns blue and gets an underline. You can change all of these options by using CSS, but there is a very quick and easy solution for removing the line around your images. Just click to select the image in Dreamweaver and then use the Property inspector at the bottom of the program window to set the Border to zero. With the border=0, the border around your pictures will disappear, even if the image is a link.

Hope that helps. I wish you all the best,
Janine

Still want more? Visit the Dreamweaver Help Center at www.DigitalFamily.com/dreamweaver to find Dreamweaver tips, tricks, and tutorials.

Hi Janine,

I am learning how to design the web site. Following the instruction, I have downloaded the profile template files from DigitalFamily.com/diy web site. When I open the profile template file, it always gives me the error messages (see attached). I am not sure what was wrong to cause this problem. I cannot find the “Site Definition dialog box” page which I should get based on the book’s statement.

Please help!

Thanks,
Michael Z

Hi Michael,

Thank you for buying my book, Web Sites Do It Yourself For Dummies.

Before you open the template files that go with the book, you need to unzip them by using WinZip, Stuffit, or a similar program. If you try to open them without unzipping them first, they won’t work properly.

The Site Definition dialog is a feature in Dreamweaver that you need to use any time you create a new site. You’ll find detailed instructions for finding and using it in Chapter 5. Follow those instructions and I wish you all the best,

Janine

Still want more? Visit the Dreamweaver Help Center at www.DigitalFamily.com/dreamweaver to find Dreamweaver tips, tricks, and tutorials.

Are you able to point me in the right direction to have a menu bar that changes colour (or does something) without having an Active X warning come up every time-as I don’t think users will like this?

Thank you,
Jonathan W.

Hi, Jonathan,

The Active X warning appears in Internet Explorer anytime users check a site that uses a scripting language, such as JavaScript, on their local computer. That’s a security feature in IE designed to help warn users about potentially malicious programs. Once they have uploaded the page to the server and viewed it online, that message should disappear (unless they are using the most protective settings in IE).

In designing your site, you can, however, avoid this completely now and create rollover link effects by using CSS (instead of using rollover images with JavaScript). This approach has many benefits, including being more search-engine friendly and more accessible. You’ll find a free tutorial on how to create links like this on my site at:

http://digitalfamily.com/dreamweaver/css-tutorials/css-navbar.html

All my best,
Janine

Still want more? Visit the Dreamweaver Help Center at www.DigitalFamily.com/dreamweaver to find Dreamweaver tips, tricks, and tutorials.

Hi Janine

In Total Training for Adobe Dreamweaver CS3, you show how to center a div tag with CSS left to right. But how about top to bottom? Somehow I can’t make that work.

Hope you can help,
John

Hi, John,

You can’t use the auto margins trick for top to bottom alignment, but you can set a margin on the top and/or bottom of a div and position it anywhere on the page that way.

For example, if you have a div that is 100 pixels high and you want to center it between what’s above and below in a space that is 200 pixels high, you can set the top and bottom margins to 50. That will position it in the middle.

Hope that helps,
Janine

Still want more? Visit the Dreamweaver Help Center at www.DigitalFamily.com/dreamweaver to find Dreamweaver tips, tricks, and tutorials.

Hi Janine,

I have been taking the Total Training Adobe Dreamweaver lessons for about 3 years now, so I have a feeling I know you like a dear friend. Your explanations are very clear and make it fun to learn about Dreamweaver. Every time I feel I need something, I watch the videos to see what you can tell me about it.

Still, there is one thing I have trouble using, and that is the correct way to place various divs if they are not in the same format and still have to be placed next to each other. Of course, I also usually want the container to be centered on the page, so I use the margin settings left and right on “auto,” which was an extremely useful tip.

I would like to know in what order I should place the divs in the container, when to use floats, and when not. Maybe it’s better to make an extra container to hold tekst2/tekst3 and another one for tekst1/tekst4?

I hope you can help me out.

Kindest regards,

Helen
The Netherlands

Hi Helen,

Thank you for the kind words about my videos. I have been fortunate to develop friendships with a number of people like you over the years and I am happy you consider me a friend already.

I think you’ve answered your own question. Including extra divs to contain sections 1 and 4 and 2 and 3 would be a fine way to make this layout work. And here’s a tip: Make sure you don’t duplicate alignment settings. For example, if you’ve aligned an image (or a div) to the left and then place it in a div that has a float left CSS rule, you’re likely to run into problems. Thus, make sure you remove the alignment settings from the div inside the div that you use to position them.

Hope that helps and I wish you all the best,
Janine

Still want more? Visit the Dreamweaver Help Center at www.DigitalFamily.com/dreamweaver to find Dreamweaver tips, tricks, and tutorials.